The previous day, $100 and I found ourselves with some free time and decided to rent some cruisers to explore Madison. Riding in Madison is AMAZING and it's the first time I've ever rode a bike where you could tell the powers that be really thought about allowing biking to be a serious means of transportation. Unlike COS, where city hall throws down a half assed bike lane here and there and thinks things are all swell. We rode all over town and rarely had to deal with traffic. Explored the campus a bit, then headed up to Ale Asylum. On our way back the bike path took us right by the Ohio Street Tavern and we had to check it out. Such a classic dive bar! Just check out this yelp review of the joint:
This place SUCKS! Every time I go in here it depresses the shit out of me. People say it's haunted and I would agree - haunted by degenerates and meth heads. I always say I'll never go back but that never happens...
Anywho, great times in Madison, as usual. Going to try to talk some folks into making a very quick trip to the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Festival, I think Madison would be lovely to visit in January.
4 comments:
Growing up in Bloomington, IN -- another fine college town - we heard Madison was alright. My brother from LA supports bike lanes because, for some reason, he thinks he shouldn't die while commuting. Whatevs.
PS - Totally unrelated, but I dropped by Fossil Brewing this summer based on your rants, and they had some great beer. The IPA was up there with the best in the Front Range IMO. Thanks.
My mind was blown by the ability to get around town on a bike in Mad City.
Love Fossil, was there last night. Next time tell me you're headed there and I'll join you. Their one year anniversary is next Saturday, FYI.
Cool, good writeup and perspective.
Funny I never heard or thought much about biking in the state as a kid. I mean, we rode bikes around town, but as far as adults doing it seriously, not much. Then, in college, sure it made sense to ride a bike everywhere. Like most students, I bought a crappy bike every year because I knew the winter weather and road salt would trash it. I just assumed all campuses were like that. I was there at the beginning of the infamous communist "Red bikes" were distributed freely around town, which was an awesome idea but failed because people suck (I rarely if ever even saw one of those bikes). Now, though, as you saw, the bikeshare program and accessibility is great.
I feel like Boulder, FoCo, and other places are similar now in infrastructure. Madison has a great infrastructure in all the places you need to be, and if you flew in there, it's also cool how the airport is close by and manageable. But realistically most of the people live around the outside in Middleton, Sun Prairie, etc.and it's more suburban and full of angry drivers if you have to deal with the Beltline Hwy. And then the people get worse the farther out you get. There's no reason the Trek executive that ran for governor shouldn't have won last election, but people used the fact that she biked and snowboarded for months at a time against her.
On the flipside, though, the road bike riding in the outer parts of the county on farm roads is exquisite. Maybe the exhibit talked about this, but there are all those rolling roads that were historically used for dairy farms, and they were decently paved so glass milk bottles could survive. I didn't appreciate that when I lived there, but now I decided to keep a road bike stashed at my parents because the riding is so good.
I wonder if you've been to Minneapolis? That's an actual city that has great bike infrastructure. And an urban fat bike scene. I think you'd dig it. But glad you did Madison too.
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