July 29, 1998 - Madison - Milwaukee

DISTANCE TRAVELED: 91.19 Miles

TIME: 6 Hours 50 Minutes

AVERAGE SPEED: 15.9 Miles/Hour

TRAVEL CONDITIONS: Warm and sunny in the morning turning to a light cloud cover in the afternoon with a very light drizzle in the evening.

ROAD CONDITIONS: Good roads along with a well maintained bike path for the day.

TERRAIN/DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Small rolling hills in the beginning and the end with a flat grade where the trail was due to the old railroad bed.

DAILY JOURNAL COMMENTS:
I woke up at 8:30 and finally got out of bed around 9:00. After cleaning up, I packed up and looked at a map to see how I wanted to go for the day since the route book had really long directions. By looking at the map I found out that I would only have to make about 5 turns versus the 25 in the book. I finally left after having the SAG pick up my things around 10:40. I thought that I would be riding with Brad and Heather again but Brad hadn't gotten back from the night before until 7:30 in the morning. Heather had to do some host calling so she wasn't ready to leave either. After thanking our hosts, I left alone and after a while got onto the Glacial Drumlin State Trail. It was 47 miles long with a section of 8 paved miles at the end. During the day I stopped three times to get drinks and twice to get free Starburst twists. That was all that I had for both breakfast and lunch. I rode the entire day alone which was kind of nice for a change. I only got lost once when there was a gap in the trail and I had to take a road to get back onto it later. When it became paved at the end, I started to average about 20 miles an hour which felt great after only going 15 earlier in the day on the dirt. While I was going into the city, unfortunately I had to be on some fairly big roads but they were fast and very direct. After passing by many so-so neighborhoods, I finally came to where we were staying. I arrived just as the SAG was about to go out to shop around 5:30 and fortunately was able to get my bags before it left again. I went inside and took a shower. After getting clean, I then had some orange juice and some chips.(Picture80) A little while later, it was time for dinner so I had some brautwurst, fruit salad, fresh squeezed lemonade, and brownies. After dinner, I looked at the two laptops that Cosmus had gotten donated to his organization at home to see how they worked. Matt and Brad got the Powerball Lottery numbers off the Internet and were disappointed when they found that they didn't win. It was up to 250 million dollars! Finally when this was done I got some e-mail's and ate some more before going to bed around 1:30.

TRIP ROUTE:
Go lt on Gorham to Johnson. Rt on Baldwin St Lt on Williamson Rt on Eastwood Rt on Atwood Lt on Cottage Grove road. Get on bike trail in Cottage Grove. Lt at Wales on 83 Rt on 18. Lt on 164 Rt on 190 Rt on N32nd. Lt at 1800 block Rt on 34th st.