Bye Lake Geneva, hi Lake Mendota!

Today was a fabulous day for biking! Not too long of a ride (76 miles, pretty average) and stunning weather along rolling hills. Impromptu stops at a skate park and with some friendly cows made the simple ride today memorable, and we still got to the stayover in Madison with the late afternoon ahead. All of this despite getting lost a few times as well!

We had some time to run errands and relax before dinner, which was so generously brought by Kevin, an I4k alum from 2015 and 2017! It was great getting to talk to him about his experiences and his legacy, which has been passed down for 4 years now and probably will be for longer. Who needs bibs when you have basketball shorts?! (That’s a joke, but not for him, I suppose…) The rest of us are unfortunately familiar with saddle sores, but that’s just the life of a cyclist.

After dinner we got ice cream and went to Lake Mendota to watch the sunset on the pier, during which some of us decided that Madison might be one of the coolest cities we’ve visited so far— excluding NYC and Chicago of course. Days like today make it hard to go to bed at night and hard to leave in the morning, but knowing that the path ahead will bring stories that need to be told is what pulls us along. Thanks for having us, Madison, see you next time!

— Marielle