Madison and Stops In Between

The alarm on my cellphone wakes me at 5:15 AM on Saturday morning. I fumble in the dark to turn it off and then sleep in until 5:21 AM. I get up and take a groggy shower. Charlie and Amanda get to mine at about 6:30 AM. We hit the road to Madison, WI.

The bike swap starts at 9:30 AM and we’re early. We get there at 9:00 AM. There’s a Bridal & Flower show going on in the same place, at the Alliance Energy Center. They have one end of the center and the bike swap has the other. There’s a long line awaiting the opening. We had talked all the way down to Madison, surprisingly. I had expected to get a bit more sleep in but am always happy to trade it for good conversation.

We were pumped and ready for the bike swap. I didn’t have a list for myself but did for others. My approach, if I had any interest, was to find a screaming, dumb-if-you-didn’t-get-it deal. We spent two hours in the place walking around down aisles. First a quick sweep with a general snag if it’s hot attitude and then slower circles remembering things that may have caught our eyes earlier. The best deal of the day? Fizik Arione saddles for $50 and Selle Italia SLR Gel Flows for $45. The SLR’s were new while the Fizik’s were almost new. None were gotten. Or perhaps, the best deal was Charlie’s snag of a yellow Campagnolo hat for a mere $2.

Hungry and losing steam, we left to Madison. Yellow Jersey was on our hit list and more importantly, food. Amanda’s vegan so we looked around for a vegan-friendly place and Amanda suggested this Nepalese place. It was pretty fantastic. I had these Momocha’s, little dumplings filled with peanut and vegetables with a finely diced Salsa-esque sauce. The food went down easy and clean. Yellow Jersey was just a few doors down. We perused and they had more interesting stuff to look at compared to the last time I was here, a few years back. Nothing screamed deal or buy so we left and decided that it was early enough to head to Milwaukee and stop in at Ben’s Cycle. We grabbed some Jamba Juice and did just that. Amanda picked up the saddle she was hoping to possibly get at the bike swap. It was probably a better deal that she bought a new one anyhow.

No trip to Wisconsin is complete without a stop at the Mars Cheese Castle so we did that. I bought some gifts for friends and some cheese for The Girl™ and I. We drove home. Good conversation yet again. Good time on the road, indeed.

A huge thanks to Charlie and Amanda for letting me tag along.