Ask any Wisconsin native what the seasons are and you'll get the following responses...

Winter and Construction.

They may also slap their knees at their own joke and jest that we have more problems driving during construction season than winter. We joke about it, but it's a little too close to the truth.

We have limited time between snow to get these things done. This makes traveling from point A to point B an adventure of sometimes Herculean proportions. And not just on a bike.

On the University campus, the one-ways and blocked streets cause headaches for new students (and their families) making it really interesting to find your way to anywhere on campus.

Yesterday, you couldn't make a left turn from Mineral Point to Gammon, and I'm still trying to figure out the best way to cross the street in front of Memorial High School on a bike. Siren Fitness is over there, and I'm coming from the University. Have you seen what they are doing there? Every week, the lanes seem to move over to the other side or over some sort of bump. I'm a little scared of it. I've been walking my bike on days when I just don't drive.

The lower half of State is out, and biking down from Upper State to campus that involves a detour on to busy University, which was notable in that today people were parked in the bike lane. Illegally parked, this is true, but I could try to venture around them and risk being side-swiped or I could stop and examine the situation and wait, which is what I did. So much construction is going on downtown, where else can people who service these projects park?

So many municipalities have had to do roadwork after our horrible winter that the streets are often a mishmash of filled (and unfilled) potholes. Verona's N. Main Street looks like a zebra skin laid down. A stripe of black tar fill here, a stretch of worn concrete there. It's uncomfortable to ride on with a bike, and you can even tell when you drive over it that something just isn't right.

Verona is redoing the road in, outside the new Farm and Fleet, and it probably was due. Driving through that involves a speed reduction that I believe I may be the only one to follow. Last year, I got a ticket for speeding through construction in that very same corridor and I've occasionally seen stealth cops hanging out trying to quell speeders there. You bet your bottom dollar that I'm doing my best to behave.

The bike path is a comfort in that it has less of these problems but there are grooves cut in to certain places that the DNR is slow to refill. In Verona, at the corner of Lincoln and the bike path, on the East side, is a particular nasty one that I keep forgetting is there. OUCH!

I guess I should just be glad that no one has started ripping up Verona Road (yet, its slated to be redone) or any other of the major arteries that I use. So far, the times it takes to get places has not been affected, just my own sanity and safety.

I guess this means I should just look forward to winter. Ouch!