Messing about with bikes in Madison
Some great bicycle riding, coffee and bakery treats to be had in Wisconsin’s capital city
Saturday, March 2, 2024
MADISON, Wisconsin — This is a pretty regular thing for Dave, Bob and I to meet in Madison and go for a ride around town. It’s a pretty good meeting spot for us. Both Dave and Bob live in the Milwaukee region, I’m from Wausau in central Wisconsin, a little more than a two-hour drive north.
Our regular meeting spot is the parking lot at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, and then follow our whims to ride across the city. I arrive first, and as I walk to use the restroom, Bob drives up. When I get back to the parking lot, Dave has arrived. That’s the way things usually work. We’re all quite punctual, which is rare among more than one cyclist.
We say our hellos. It’s been a while since we’ve ridden together; at least a season ago. For several years in the past, Bob and I have met on the west side of Lake Winnebago on the first weekend of February, and we’ve ridden bikes across the lake and back on ice roads plowed for sturgeon-spearing season. It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been able to do that. Our Wisconsin winters have been too mild for shenanigans that requires thick layers of ice on open water.
As we get ready for the ride, we fall into casual conversation, commenting on each other’s bikes, clothes and preparation or lack thereof. Dave is prone to complaining about the cold, but I give him a double take as he pulls a balaclava over his head. It’s in the mid- to upper 50sF, so “do you really want that around your neck,” I ask. He takes the head gear off. “Don’t give me grief if I complain that I’m cold,” he says.
We make no promises.
Madison is not only in a decent location for the three of us to meet, but it’s a top-tier city for cycling. This is no secret. It’s been at the top of “best places to bike” rankings for years and years.
That’s because the city is spider-webbed with bike lanes, bike paths and other cycling-friendly infrastructure.
One example, which I find hilarious, is that the iconic Monona Terrace, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has a bike elevator, in case one can’t climb a hill from the terrific Lake Monona bike path up to the downtown capital area. An elevator. For bikes.
All this makes Madison near perfect for the meandering, conversational kind of cycling that Bob, Dave and I do together.
We set off, and immediately fall into a discussion about a story that Dave had read in the New York Times. The story was about movies, and the reporter quoted the movie director Wes Anderson. The writer noted that Anderson insisted his quotes include his verbal hesitations and tics, so they were filled with “ums” and “ehs” and the like.
All three of us are journalists/writers/editors. I worked for years for the Wausau Daily Herald, and met both Dave and Bob when they worked there at different times.
You can imagine, probably, the discussion about the Wes Anderson quirk. Should the reporter have agreed? Verbal tics basically go unnoticed in speech, but are incredibly distracting on the page for the reader.
Maybe Anderson was once misquoted, Bob says, so this is his way to ensure accuracy. Maybe Anderson is trolling the New York Times, Dave says. We all agree that it is unusual and weird.
A regular rolling version of the Algonquin Table we are.
The discussion takes us past Madison’s downtown, and we turn right from one bike pathway to another, heading toward the University of Wisconsin Arboretum.
This is early in the spring, or late in the winter, however you want to look at it, and the trees at the Arboretum are bare and the colors are various shades of browns and greys. We stop for a while and talk about stuff, including how warm it is and is this global warming and if it is what can we do about it and what can we expect in the future?
We decide to hit up a coffeeshop and bakery after leaving the Arboretum. Essentially we take the same route back, almost to Olbrich, and take a left to get to our go-to coffee joint and bakery: Cafe Domestique and Batch Bakehouse, both on the same block of Williamson Street.
Cafe Domestique’s motto is “Drink Coffee Ride Bikes” which hits nearly at the heart of my personal ethos. So I have been going to that shop for years. While there, I noticed Batch Bakehouse, went in, sampled their work, and have been addicted ever since.
But first we have to find the shops. I am not a navigator, especially in cities, especially when I do not have an old-fashioned paper map. I know, generally, where the bakehouse and cafe are, but when you’re cycling, the details can be important.
Luckily, Bob is really good at navigating, so he generally straightens me out. But even if we do get turned around, things work out in Madison. More than once, we’ve had uber-fit and friendly runners, older women almost always, stop and ask us if they can help when we’ve been stopped with our phones and maps out.
Madison isn’t really that big of a city, so you know you’ll get there eventually, no matter what. But it does have a sort maze-like quality to it that can be challenging at times.
We make it, I’m happy to report. I have a scone, a chocolate-chip cheesecake tart thingy and a cappaccino. Oh my gosh it is all excellent.
Then we make an obligatory stop at Revolution Cycles, about a mile away from the shops, on a bike path. Of course. Revolution Cycles is one of my favorite bike shops. I love all bike shops, but the vibe here meshes with my slow-is-good, old-bikes-are-cool cyclostyle. There’s always cool music playing on a tape deck/phonograph and a trip down to the basement bike morgue is an absolute must.
Revolution Cycles is a 10 minute ride back to Olbrich and the parking lot.
Bob notices an ice rink that is now a very shallow swimming pool, with a warning sign that there is “Thin Ice” and everyone should “Keep Off.” He thought a photo of the sign with someone wading in the pool would be funny. So I waded in. You know what? The water wasn’t even all that cold.
March in Madison, man. You never know what you’re gonna get.
