In this short documentary, Leigh Foster travels 920km by bike, finding what he calls the perfect Midwest bikepacking route. Foster departs from Chicago, where he lives, in spring of 2025, setting out for his home town of Saint Paul, Minnesota. The route follows back roads and side trails, avoiding the noise, traffic and ugliness of the main arteries.
The eponymous perfect route. Photo: Screenshot
A scenic route
As the journey begins, the design is self-evident in its success, with shots of burbling streams, wildflower-lined paths, country lanes, and a friendly family of geese. Foster’s on-screen captions express his joy at the quiet, peaceful beauty of the journey.
There is a lot of ground to cover, but during the first leg, there’s no sense of rush. The camera is happy to linger on long, sweeping shots of natural beauty, and Foster is always ready to stop and admire the view or commune with horses in a paddock.
He highlights each stop along the way, clearly deeply familiar with Madison (“one of the best bike cities in the country”), Devil’s Lake, La Crosse, and all the other pins on his map.
Birds of prey hunt at Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin. Photo: Screenshot
A guided tour of the Midwest
Foster makes no effort to manufacture dramatic misadventures or feats of physical endurance. Instead, he and his single camera take us on a guided tour of the natural wonders of the American Midwest. With a good tour guide’s discretion, he lets the camera do much of the talking, and doesn’t hurry you along past promising vistas or passing animals. I particularly enjoyed seeing an eastern milksnake cross our path.
After eight days and hundreds of kilometers of wooded trails and country roads, the bicycle gets a short break so that Foster can take us underground to Mystery Cave, the longest cave in Minnesota. Then it’s back in the saddle for the final leg.
As Foster cycles up to the front door of his family’s home, he places the final pin in his map. It has been said (by me) that many works described as “love letters” to a place are an affectionate text message at best. This short documentary, however, is what I would consider a genuine love letter to the American Midwest.
