Choosing a route

We're planning a bike trip to the Recumbent Rally at the Hostel Shoppe in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Our previous long-distance bike trips have been in Europe, using the splendid bike routes and maps of the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany. One reason for not doing multi-day trips near home has been the difficulty of identifying suitable roads and getting information about them.

We're experimenting with a route-mapping system developed in Germany by Bikemap.net and building on Google Maps. (Click the header for a link to the site.) It provides detailed topographic information and allows for GPS device imports and exports. Riders can share their route information on the site or draw proposed routes and look at the distances and elevations to see whether the ride will be practical. Here's a route that we are considering (we'll report back on whether it works out):

Bike route 61416 - powered by Bikemap 

We can see already that there are some big climbs and drops; we will try drawing up some other routes and see if anything looks gentler.