What to do? I've seen dozens of men patiently waiting on benches as their wives and girlfriends scour the shops, although these days, women are just as likely to ditch their husbands to travel with their girlfriends.

Starting from the edge of Madison, the 33-mile trail plunges into Little Switzerland, taking bicyclists past a gantlet of cheese shops, meat markets, bakeries and breweries.

But the Badger is best known for its 1,200-foot-long tunnel, cut through solid limestone in 1887. It curves in the middle, so bicyclists without a good flashlight will find themselves in total darkness, their nerves shot by pigeons bursting out of hidden crannies.

It's not so much the beauty of the lakes, though they're glorious. It's more the fact that ordinary folk can walk, bike, swim and play around them — all of them.

It almost wasn't so. Back in 1882, landscape architect Horace Cleveland had to argue his case for putting aside land on the city's lakes, creeks and river.

All of the trails listed below use finely crushed limestone, except as noted. They're suitable for touring bikes, though a wider tire is better. Chip-sealed trails are like asphalt but softer, and can be nearly as smooth because they don't become pitted.

Overhead, a biplane pulls a flapping beer banner through the sky.

Downtown is girdled by highways and train tracks, befitting Mankato's longtime status as a trade town. Its streets are quiet, except when the many bars throw a block party.

There’s a lake surrounded by cattails and frequented by fishermen and canoeists. There’s another lake across the road, where teen-agers flirt and toddlers play in the sand.

Down the trail, a clump of showy lady slippers pops out of the weeds. A great blue heron rises from a slough with languid flaps. A painted turtle scrapes at the dirt next to the trail, making a nest for its eggs.

Egret, five. Blue herons, seven. Beavers, three. Turtles, two. Loons, three. Pelicans, 20. Giant concrete coots, one.

Lots of warblers, hurtling over the trail like guided missiles, and warbler-sized dragonflies. Chipmunks racing the bike across blacktop. Patches of wild rose, and fountain grasses waving their pink heads in the breeze.

It's the Paul Bunyan State Trail, and it links Minnesota's main Bunyan shrines: Brainerd, where a winking, talking Paul welcomed generations of tourists to "Paul Bunyan's Playground'' until it was moved to a nearby theme park in 2003. Hackensack, where a midget Paul Jr. waves next to his behemoth mother, Lucette Diana Kensack. Bemidji, where a stern 18-foot Paul started the colossus fad in 1937.

One of my favorite trails, the 14½-mile Red Cedar State Trail out of Menomonie, WIs., has all of these things and more. It’s one of the least crowded trails, because the crushed-limestone surface keeps some people away. And it’s one of the longest, counting the 30-mile Chippewa State Trail, which takes up where the Red Cedar leaves off and continues on to Eau Claire and Durand.

Why pay big bucks to an "adventure'' outfitter when you can join a local tour for very little? You could pay Timberline Adventures of Denver $1,800 for its tour of Missouri's Katy Trail — or you could pay Missouri state parks $250 for the same thing, albeit with accommodations in tents, not hotels.

The pelicans and cormorants of the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge are used to train whistles and the distant popping of trap guns. But they're even more used to the whir of bicycle gears.

Each fall, birds and bicyclists migrate to the same place along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin. Here, the 24-mile Great River State Trail starts in the refuge, skirts Perrot State Park and goes through the river town of Trempealeau before entering the Upper Mississippi River Wildlife and Fish Refuge and then the prairie outside Onalaska.

Oh, and don't forget the bikes.

There's a new trail on the North Shore, a nice flat one, too. It's the paved Gitchi-Gami, with a 17½-mile stretch that links Gooseberry Falls to Split Rock State Park and Silver Bay Bay and a 6½-mile stretch that links Schroeder to Temperance River State Park and Tofte.

That's a good thing, because bicycle tourists crave more trails and towns crave more bicycle tourists. That little ribbon of asphalt, they've discovered, can put them on the map.

"In our area, it seems one city after another is fighting for trails," says Stearns County parks director Chuck Wocken.

From Green Bay, trails radiate west to Wausau, east to Door County and south toward the Fox Cities. From Milwaukee, trails go north toward Sheboygan and west to Madison. From Madison, trails head west for Dodgeville. And it won't be long before all of these trails connect in a vast spider web of asphalt and crushed limestone. See Wisconsin's bike trails: a guide.