Ben's USA Cycle Blog: Day 29: Rest day in Madison

It was our third rest day of the trip today in Madison. After a lovely breakfast of french raisin toast and berries overlooking the lake at the hotel I set in to town to do my chores. Got the laundry done, a visit to the pharmacy, picked up a few bits from the bike shop and a got haircut (never had to do that on a holiday before). It has been a gorgeous day here and really enjoyed walking round Madison, it is a pretty city sat between two lakes and is really green. It is home to the University of Wisconsin so there is a large student population and our hotel is actually close to a lot of the frat houses (I didn't witness anyone getting debagged and radished though). By all accounts we saw Madison at its best, the winters here are long and cold. So cold that the lake freezes for a couple of months and apparently people take advantage of this by cycling on the frozen water on their fat bikes (mountain bike with really wide tires) as a shortcut to their work commute. It was quite nice to have the rest day coincide with the weekend, the previous ones have felt like weekends even though they fell midweek because they represent a break from our normal cycling routine, it's Monday tomorrow so back to work. There is a feeling we are entering the final stretch but we still have 2 weeks to go and have many miles left to pedal (about one and a third Lands End to John O'Groats's).