Jan 23 ride

As you can see from the picture, I got up for my exercise class.  It is a little lighter at 7 am than it was, but I look forward to lighter mornings.   Temperature was 21 degrees F, winds 8 mph from the NW.  It felt colder though, maybe because the dewpoint was 17 F, so kind of humid.  After class I had to pop into campus to do some work.  That is about 1.5 miles further west from the gym.  Going into campus I ride by the capital and down state street.  Here's a view from State street looking back to the capital:

and down State Street:

Then I ride down University Ave. to Chamberlin hall.  For those of you who used to live in Madison, here is what used to be University Sq. 4!  Can you believe it?

Here's the bike rack outside Chamberlin Hall where last summer my really expensive front wheel got stolen off my really expensive bike.  This goes to show there are drawbacks to having an expensive bike.

On the way home I take the Capital city trail downtown bike path.  I love this bike path, despite what happened to me 2.5 years ago on the day the bike path opened:  I fell on the railroad tracks where it intersects with Charter St., and broke my kneecap.  I have never revisited the scene of the crash (and have no plans to), and I now join the bike path one block east at Mills Street.   The bike path crosses over Park street (yea!) (if you lived here in the 80s, this view looking south is unrecognizable),

West Wash. is the only busy street it crosses and it's not bad:

Then it heads to Monona Bay.  This is the only portion of the trip that is slightly out of the way on my route home, but the peace and scenery is totally worth it.  Maybe this route is 1/2 mile longer than the most direct route (so 7 miles instead of 6.5).  The ice fisherman huts are out on Monona Bay:

Then we cross John Nolan with the help of a traffic light and are on Monona Lake.  I live across the lake which is why my route home goes northeast, then southeast.   The most direct route would be to ski across the lake.

Cute monsters in the lake:

The Monona terrace.

And the rest was just my normal ride home.  The winds picked up but it was a tailwind so the wind gods were good to me today.  My poor bike:

The chain is an odd rusty color.  It's covered in wet goop.   Usually rust is dry but this is wet.  Maybe the chain rusts overnight as it dries, then gets goop on it during the ride and that mixes with the rust.  With the slightly warmer temperatures this week, the packed snow on the side roads and bike path got broken up a bit and it got a little messier.