Did you know there's a Wisconsin guy biking the world? I didn't, until I received an e-mail this morning from a journalist in Italy with whom I sometimes collaborate.

Luigi Angelino on Il Monferrato, the twice-weekly newspaper in Casale Monferrato, in the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, tells me that Madison's Charles Brigham pedaled into Casale's Piazza Mazzini last Friday.

"Received with great curiosity and enthusiasm, Charles was calm and smiling, making friends immediately with the kids from the Serydarth association which will host him in Casale for a few days," Angelino told me.

Brigham is apparently cycling around the globe and left Madison two years and one day ago, on Sept. 15, 2007. From America's Dairyland, he pedaled to the East Coast and worked for two months to find a boat on which he could sail to England.

He has since been in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia.

"But his trip isn't even half over yet," Fabrizio Gambolati wrote in Il Monferrato. "In fact, Charles, expects to be at it for another three years before reaching his goal of biking around the world."