Day 26: Rest, Packing & Shipping, and Sightseeing Day in Indianapolis

When the thunderstorms rolled into Indianapolis around 5:30 this morning, there wasn't a soul among the collective ridership who didn't look up and give a nod of thanks to some greater power that we all weren't riding this morning.  The rest of the line of thunderstorms that teased us yesterday announced their arrival like alarms clocks crashing and cracking and lighting up the skies in the pre-dawn hours here this morning.  The rains didn't stop until at least 10 a.m.  But, from then on, it was merely a windy and sunny day.

I spent the morning at the local bike shop in the center of town.  As I have been impressed with the way Indianapolis has transformed itself since I was last here 30 years ago, I was also impressed with how much of a bike-friendly city this has become.  They have loads of bike lanes and a bike-sharing program with stations throughout the city.

After finishing up at the bike shop, a number of us walked around town.  Again, we were quite impressed with the city and how everything seems to be within walking distance.  Nothing too spread out.  You can get to either the football stadium, the convention center, the baseball stadium or basketball arena merely by walking.  They are all that close to all the hotels and major restaurants in the area.

Much of the rest of the day was spend either reflecting on the past three weeks or hanging with many of the guys.  We had lunch together, toured the Colts stadium together, watched Germany destroy Brazil in the World Cup semi's, and took in the local Triple A minor league baseball game.  Not a bad day's work.

Monument Circle.  Interesting statistic on the monument:  210,000 soldiers from Indiana served in the Civil War.  There were only 1.3 million people in the entire state at that time!

The tour of Lucas Oil Stadium was fascinating.  Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys paid nearly twice as much to build his stadium as this one.  And, to a person on our tour, everyone agreed that Indianapolis got the better deal.

Behind home plate at the Indianapolis Indians baseball park.  A fine summer night spent with a box of Cracker Jack's.

My room feels naked without my bike in it tonight.

This ride had everything I expected and more.  I can never tell what kind of people I'll be with so I was very happy with the group I've ridden with these past three weeks.    The guys from Holland have all been fun to be with.  All the riders became Dutch during this trip as we cheered for the Netherlands to advance in the World Cup.

The guys from Texas were also great to be with.  Actually, Norm and Ted tried to bribe me yesterday in order to have me stay on the ride.  The past couple of days that I've ridden with them, I've more or less served as their navigator.  It seems neither of them are all that good at reading road signs, especially small ones.  So between my better eyesight and my boy scouting skills, I was able to keep them both from riding off course (something that the Dutch were infamous for on this trip -- even those who are totally fluent in English; they're just not totally fluent in following route maps).

The rest of the group was also fun to be with.  Dinners were always filled with laughter and engaging dialogues.  Mornings were always filled with commiseration about the lack of sleep the night before and the concerns over the day's weather forecasts.  Lunches were special treats when they occurred and were times for local discoveries as well as additional time to get to know fellow riders.

This trip had it all:  torrential downpours; blazing hot, dry days; cold, fierce winds; skyscraper mountains, killer rollers and flat-as-a-pancake farm roads.  Fields of every known grain and pastures, paddocks and sties of nearly every known animal.  Headwinds, tailwinds, crosswinds and quartering winds.  Smoothly paved roads and chip seal that would wreak havoc on derailleurs.  Expressways filled with loud, high-speed tractor trailers and commuting cars.  Empty back country roads as quiet as the breeze and the chirping birds.

Waiting for the thunder, lightning and rains to end in Dover

Bone dry deserts in Utah

High winds...

High waters along the Missouri River,

and VERY high mountains in Colorado.

From the salt flats of the Great Sand Lake...

to the wild rides along the Missouri rollers.

From wheat...

to wildlife.

I now feel good about this ride.  However, there was a time in the middle of Missouri when it just seemed to be dragging on.  I probably hit a bad riding day and it got to me mentally, maybe spiritually as well.  My mood was all wrong and I wasn’t having fun.  I know rationally that I can bounce back, but it still amazes me when it actually happens.  I can “will” myself into knowing that I should feel better, but it is a constant surprise when I step back and realize I’m not in that funk anymore.  Not that I’m crabby.  Rather, I just feel mentally worn out and can’t quite get myself “up” for socializing or conversations with others.  Yet I know I can’t hide, so I just remain a bit more quiet than normal.

All with a great group of fellow riders...

always getting ourselves bikes in order,

and always ready to ride another day.

As I said in yesterday’s blog, there’s a strong sense I’m having now that I should just finish the cross country ride this year.  I know that’s not possible, but I’m looking ahead and thinking about another year of training and prepping and getting myself mentally and physically ready for the remaining two sections of the ride.  Hell, I’m there already.  I’m fit.  I’m tanned.  My legs are in great shape.  Why not just get it over with now?!  Instead, I’ll have to start all over again next year with my pre-ride routines.  And that will mean getting myself mentally ready for the ride.  That’s the part I think I’m currently worrying about.  I’m not there now as I think about next year.  It’s the “just get it over with” part that concerns me.  That wasn’t the case in last year’s ride.  That wasn’t the case as I started the Mississippi ride (although I recall that’s how I felt some time right after St. Louis).  This shouldn’t be a chore.  This should be fun.  Yet there are definitely days when I’m on the bike and I’d rather be doing something else.  I now know that I don’t feel the same about cycling as many of the other riders do.  And that’s also okay.  Each of us had to come to his or her own determinations as to why they are here and why they are doing this.  Just as I shouldn’t be looking ahead at tomorrow’s ride when I’m still on the route today and I should be focused only on the next fifty feet of pavement, I shouldn’t be thinking either about next year or what my next obstacle to overcome will be once I’m finished with this ride across America.  One step at a time.  One pedal stroke at a time.  One mile at a time.  One day at a time.  One year at a time.

As always, I have so many people to thank for helping me along the way again this year.  I appreciate you all staying with me to read my daily missives.  I have appreciated all of your support and words of encouragement -- especially those entreaties to remain upright on the bike this year!  And I hope you had at least some fun in reading about the fun I had all across the middle of America.  

So thank you all.  I hope to see you all again next year as I conclude this cross country adventure.

The journey continues...

Day 25: Crawfordsville to Indianapolis, Indiana. 63 miles. Flat As a Pancake.

Well, that's all she wrote for this leg of the journey.  

It's a bittersweet time for me.  I'm glad I've finished and made it through these three segments, but I also have a bit of an itch to just finish the rest of the cross country journey this year and to do it with these folks.

Today was a sightseeing day.  The ride was pretty easy; no real hills and we rode in and out of traffic and in and out of back country roads.  The ride route along the back roads through the corn and soy fields felt particularly welcoming today.  It reinforced why I like to ride.  The roads were smooth.  There was no traffic.  The winds were calm.  The scenery was lovely.  It was so peaceful.

The day started this morning at breakfast with everyone focused on the weather.  A cold front was dropping down from the northwest and promising thunderstorms all along the ride route from start to finish.  Oddly enough, no one left the hotel this morning wearing foul weather gear.  We all just hoped that the 30% chance of thunderstorms would remain north of us.

Fourteen miles into the ride, as we went through a succession of very small towns, a storm cell quickly developed just beyond us.  And it was gaining on us rapidly.  Gene and Jane, driving the two SAG vans today, were pulling up to riders to give them an assessment of the situation.  Some riders were told to find cover where they were.  I was riding with Ted and Norm, my Austin, Texas buddies, and Michelle, the ride leader.  Gene told us to haul ass for Jamestown, a little under five miles up the road.  Given his knowledge of our riding abilities, he calculated we'd just make it there in time and advised us to seek shelter, especially as there wasn't much anywhere near where we were.  Just as we got into Jamestown, the skies had changed from a darkening gray to a deep purplish gray.  We looked for a cafe or small coffee shop.  No such luck.  Although there was a gas station at the one intersection in town, we asked some locals for other options, including some place serving something hot to drink and maybe, just maybe, a table at which to sit down.  "Well, there's the hardware store.  They have coffee."  We continued to look for options.  By now, about five minutes after we arrived, the first of the heavy raindrops started to fall.  Failing to find other options, we placed our bikes under the overhangs of the building next to the hardware store and ducked in there for shelter.  Sure enough, there was a long table, a bunch of chairs and a thermos filled with coffee.  A cup for a buck.  Donuts too!  Four or five locals were hunkered down at the table just shooting the breeze when the four of us ran into the place.  The reactions to both us and our attire was priceless.  But the cracks of thunder and the lightning that quickly followed soon put an end to any questions as to why we were there.  The heavens opened up.  The sound and the fury of the rain that was making a mess of things just outside the door made this the most welcome of ports in the storm.  (The video tells it all in a much shorter way.  Notice how quickly the sides of the road are flooded.)

Twenty minutes later, the storm had passed and we were again on our way.  After our SAG stop, we were supposed to visit the Roark Bike factory.  Unfortunately, being the 4th of July weekend, the place was closed for an extended holiday.

As we approached Indianapolis, we rode through Eagle Creek Park.  It was such a different set of surroundings -- tree-lined and canopied roads in a park -- as opposed to fields of grains or animals.  No cars, no sounds other than the natural environs and those of our tires on the road surface.  Again, another moment of peacefulness. 

Coming out of the park, we headed directly to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  If you've ever seen this race on TV, from this location, you have no way to truly appreciate the enormity of the place.  We actually entered the Speedway by riding underneath the track.  From the infield, many of us visited the Indy Hall of Fame.  We were restricted, however, from either riding on the track itself (there were test cars going through their paces today) or even ride around the property from the infield.  As such, we didn't see the golf course or any of the other race-related areas around the oval.

The mecca of road racing.

As auspicious a place as Indy is, this tunnel is the actual entrance into the infield where all the business of racing, including the museums and race offices, is conducted.  It was very cool riding under the actual track.

The Hall of Fame museum is filled with all the past winning cars from the Indianapolis 500.  Each May, they take these cars out for a spin around the track.  The locals say it's one of the most fun days, so watch the evolution of the engineering of these magnificent cars as they circle the track.

After leaving the Speedway, we made our way closer into the center of town.  Along the way, we stopped at Lake Sullivan Sports Complex, home of the Major Taylor Velodrome.  I actually rode on that track thirty years ago when the American Diabetes Association meeting was held here in Indianapolis (Eli Lilly headquarters are nearby).  By the time we got to the track today, however,  I wasn't able to do a repeat performance, and not on my own bike this time.  It had started to sprinkle again and the track is closed down whenever there's rain. 

The Major Taylor Velodrome.   Major Taylor was a local cycling hero who was a world champion in the 19th century.  The photo might not do justice to the nearly 45-degree pitch of the embankments around the curves!

From the Velodrome, we wended our way along the bike paths into the city that parallel the White River.  I was struck by two things along these paths.  First, I was so impressed with how much the City of Indianapolis has put into rehabilitating its riverfront areas.  The paths were beautiful and well-maintained.  There was new construction of upscale housing, hospitals, universities and other sports-related facilities all leading into town.  The NCAA recently moved their headquarters from Kansas City to Indianapolis and their facilities were also well designed.  Art museums, shops, parklands, the whole bit.  A very nice job.  But the other thing that struck me was how similar this looked to two years ago when I was riding into Minneapolis, along the Mississippi River.  Same kinds of bike paths.  Same redevelopment along the river approaching the center city area.  A very nice and curious midwestern echo.

Approaching Indianapolis center city.  Some of the university medical center buildings are in the foreground.

As Ted, Norm and I rode our bikes up to the entrance of our hotel, only then did it hit me that the middle section of my cross country journey had just ended.  While I had thought about it last night and again this morning before leaving Crawfordsville, I wasn't thinking about the end or the miles left to go anytime during the day's ride.  It kind of snuck up on me.

This is the shot right outside my hotel window.  It's Lucas Oil Field, home of the Indianapolis Colts football team.  After taking my bike to the local bike shop for disassembling and shipping back to New York City, I'm going to see about doing a tour of the stadium.

Tonight before route rap, everyone was buying me beers.  The other riders were celebrating a day off.  And many were wishing me well as the first of many send-offs for tonight and tomorrow.  

It's been one heck of an adventure.  I'm still dealing with the past couple of days so I haven't really had the chance to sit back and reflect.  Guess I'll do that tomorrow.  One more day of blog postings for this trip.

Day 24: Champaign, Illinois to Crawfordsville, Indiana 80 miles. Flat As a Pancake.

I'm tired again.  But it's a good kind of tired.

There aren't a lot of pictures today because, for most of the day, the scenery that I saw was the back wheel of Gene's bike.  

I started out the morning riding by myself.  About ten miles into the ride, I stopped to shoot a quick video of the miles of soy fields all around me.  As I was finishing up my shot, Jane and Gene, two of our ride leaders (and very accomplished cyclists), rode by.  Jane slowed down and asked me if I'd like to join the two of them in a pace line.  I accepted.  (Turn up the volume on the video.  That last little shout you might hear is Gene coming up beside me as he and Jane ask me to join them.)

It was like old home week.  I haven't ridden in a pace line since I rode with Jane and Gene in Nevada on last year's tour.  Some of you might remember the video that Gene shot of the four of us (I can't remember the other rider from last year's group who was with us) in a pace line riding down I-80 in Nevada.  It was a treat.

At an annual town meeting, they decide who are the happy people and who are the grumpy ones.

Other than a couple of SAG stops and two photo ops, the remaining 70 miles of today's ride was all done with Jane, Gene and me; each of us taking a pull for a mile at a time, i.e., leading the pace line for one mile before switching off to the next rider.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  I got to know Gene's back wheel very well by the end of the ride.  It was at a much higher pace than I have been used to riding and I honestly didn't think I'd last the entire ride with them.  At the end of each of the two SAG stops, I thought I'd just let them go by themselves.  But each time Gene just looked at me, giving me that kind of "come on, you're going to continue with us" nod, and I saddled up for another leg of the day's ride with them.  By the 70th mile, I was exhausted.  But as the winds had picked up a bit with the threat of thunderstorms in the area, I didn't want to deal with the last ten miles on my own, so I gutted it out and finished the day with them.

When we crossed over into Indiana, we lost an hour to Eastern Daylight Time.  There wasn't much to photograph today.  Same corn and soy fields.  Just before leaving Illinois, we did pass Danville Correctional Facility, although I didn't feel the need to take the picture.  It's where many of the recent Governors of the State of Illinois now reside.

When we arrived at our hotel here in Crawfordsville, I noticed that my average speed over the 80 miles was just over 16 miles per hour.  Considering I was riding at a slower pace for those first ten miles and knowing the pace we were riding at, I'd say we were averaging at least 17-18 miles per hour over those 70 miles.  And that was with a steady crosswind from the south.

Tomorrow we head to Indianapolis.  Last day on this leg of my cross country journey.  And I have mixed feelings about that.  Glad it's over, but also wishing I just stayed and continued on to the end in Portsmouth.

Day 23: Springfield to Champaign, Illinois 100 miles* Flat as a Pancake.

If ever there was an easy century ride (*the ride was supposed to be 95 miles, but a couple of us made a detour for lunch, then I made a second detour to stop at a nearby Chase bank branch), today was the day.  Whereas yesterday was billed as our recovery ride, today was my recovery.  If yesterday's 105 miles was among the toughest I've faced, today's 100 miles was certainly among the easiest.  I wasn't exhausted after today's ride.  And, if necessary, I probably could have ridden another 25 miles.

We've passed by so many variations of barns on this trip.  Most have been wooden barns in various states of disrepair.  This metal barn stood out in the morning sunshine and just called for having its picture taken.

Everything that made yesterday a tough day was the opposite today.  Yesterday we had rolling hills in the morning.  Today, there was hardly a hint of hills.  Yesterday, the winds were blowing at about 10-15 miles per hour from the east, so we faced a mild but persistent headwind the entire ride.  Today, the winds were about 10 miles per hour, but from the south.  Because we were heading northeast, we zigzagged back and forth between due east and due north headings on the grid-like county roads towards Champaign.  That meant either crosswinds or tailwinds.  And, most importantly, yesterday I rode alone.  In sharp contrast to the monotony of riding alone, today was a day of socializing with fellow riders.

Our first SAG stop this morning was at this historic site.  Apparently, there are many of these signs in the area as Lincoln's parents moved around from cabin to cabin in their early family days. 

We rode on the Lincoln Heritage Trail for much of the morning.  After passing a number of these signs, it dawned on me that his image was from a time when he was a young man.  Notice he has no beard.  Lincoln's time in this area was in his rail-splitting days.

I got a late start out of the hotel this morning due to a mechanical issue with my shifting (something that ultimately wasn't repaired until this afternoon's mechanic's session).  As such, I started out the day riding by myself.  About ten miles into the ride and now on back country roads, I saw a rider with a yellow bike jersey approaching from my side mirror.  I assumed it was Norm, one of the Texas riders, as he always wears yellow bike jerseys.  Turns out it was a local rider from Decauter, a big town just northeast of Springfield.  Terry, the local rider, was out for his Saturday morning century ride.  As he came along side of me, we struck up a conversation that lasted about twenty miles.  He was born and bred in the area and told me all about the farming and the culture around these parts.  He used to be in farming himself, but between bad growing seasons and low crop prices, he left the business and went into laundromats; he now owns a chain of them in the area.  The conversations with Terry were refreshing but even more so was the absence of counting down the miles to the end of the ride.  This morning, as I was riding and talking with Terry, I completely lost track of how far I had ridden.  Before I knew it, Terry was turning off to complete his ride in a different direction from my ride, and I was about to hit our first SAG stop.  Boom, just like that, I had ridden 31 miles!

In between cornfields, we passed through more small towns.  This view made a couple of us stop to take a picture.

Much of the day was again spent riding through corn and soy bean fields.  I had wondered over the past week about a particular type of bird that keep flying around many of us and squeaking as it flew by.  Turns out, it's nesting season for the plovers in this area.  The birds build shallow nests along the roadside.  As riders approach, the parents get all fidgety and start their chirping and flying all around us in hopes of moving us away from their broods. 

It was so nice of these guys to let us use their facilities.  It was even nicer to see the welcome mat they laid out for us.

Our second SAG stop was in the tiny town of Cisco.  The fire station there has been a perennial stop for this ride.  I learned today that the volunteer force has to cover a fifty-square mile area that includes:  the interstate highway, the four small towns in the region, a nuclear power plant, and three grain silos.  The training required for each is so different that these folks wind up being among the most highly trained firefighters because of the diversity of their remit.

Another nice lunch at the town pub in Monticello.  It's a picture postcard town square set in the middle of quaint stores and cafes.  Good burgers, but we found out later on that we missed the pie place on the other side of the square!

The rest of the day's ride was also with fellow riders.  Dave, the ex-special forces Colonel from Alabama, and I rode together up until the Cisco SAG stop where he stayed to meet his brother who had driven down from Chicago to visit.  From there, Ted and Norm and I rode together for the remainder of the day, including stopping off in the small town of Monticello for lunch.  Again, with both the late morning ride with Dave and the afternoon ride with the Texans, the journey seemed to go by so much more quickly.  The conversations were engaging, the cornfields were all around us, but the miles just clicked by.

We got into Champaign later than I planned and, owing for the need for a major mechanical adjustment to my bike, I missed going to the park in town where a new statue to the late film critic Roger Ebert was recently unveiled.  I would have liked to have seen that.

Tomorrow, we leave Illinois, cross into Indiana and go back onto Eastern Time Zone.  So we'll lose one more hour of sleep.  But it's only an 80-mile day, so it won't be too tough.

Day 22: Quincy to Springfield, Illinois 105 miles. 1750 feet of climbing.

Happy 4th of July to all!

Happy Birthday America!  This morning we passed through the small towns of Liberty, Chambersburg, Meredosia, Chapin and Jacksonville.  Each town was decorated with flags along their streets.  Many houses had bunting on their railings.  And some barns, like the one above, were decked out in their finest red, white and blue.

Today was supposed to be our recovery day after two really tough hill climbing days.  Instead, I'm sitting here, bone tired and ready to pass out.  If not for writing this blog and waiting to switch my laundry to the dryer, I'd probably already be asleep by now.  And I'm not the only one feeling that way.  Even the fast riders are feeling it tonight.

Case in point.  We normally have our route rap at 5:30, followed by our collective heading over to some nearby restaurant for dinner.  However, as we're staying once again at a Drury Inn & Suites and they offer a splendid evening snack buffet and free drinks, everyone has decided to pass up going out for dinner.  We are all settling for chicken fingers, salad, hot dogs and soup.  None of us is even thinking about going out for the fireworks.  We'll all be asleep before nine tonight.

It was that kind of a day.  It wasn't too hot.  It wasn't too hilly.  But the combination of 105 miles (after two arduous hill days) plus about a ten mile per hour headwind just took the starch out of most of us.  It sure did for me.

This morning was beautiful and, for the first time, we rode through wooded areas in which we had a full canopy of trees protecting us from the sun.  It made for a wonderful ride through the coolness of the woods.  That's the first time since I joined the ride in Salt Lake City that I've felt that effect.

Little known fact:  Illinois is the leading grower of wide wale corduroy.  Okay, it's not April 1st.  But, come on.  Doesn't that look just like a pair of Levi's 501's?

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur.  Once we rode about ten miles we were out of Quincy.  From then on, it was either farmlands or more really tiny towns (all with populations less than 400 people).  No more animals.  No more pasture lands.  Initially, it was all wheat and soy farmlands.  By the middle of the morning, it was all corn.  And, unlike the corn fields in Missouri or Kansas where the corn was merely waist-high, these fields were planted earlier as the corn was now over our heads.  We were riding through walls of corn on either side of us for most of the day's ride.

Because of the winds, I used my aerobars much more today.  That was both good news and bad news.  We headed directly into the Easterly winds all day.  So I was on my aerobars much of the morning.  By about mile 60, my right shoulder started letting me know that being in the cradle position needed to use the aerobars wasn't a good thing.  The rest of the afternoon became an on again/off again transition.  Off the aerobars and I was slowing down.  On the aerobars, I was able to pick up a couple of extra miles per hour.  But at the cost of my shoulder starting to hurt.  It's sore now, but between the Advil and the ice pack, it's feeling better than at 4:00 this afternoon.

We finished the day riding through the Illinois State Capital, Springfield.  Not one of the most attractive towns we've come across.  Are any state capitals (other than Boston or Atlanta) all that attractive?

As we rode through the center of Springfield, we passed the State Capitol building.  Downtown was deserted.  Actually, the road up to the Capitol building was blocked off for a fair taking place later this evening.  We, of course, ignored the blockade and proceeded to ride through the empty streets until we got to our hotel.  No one seemed to mind.

Tomorrow, we have another long 90+ mile day into Champaign, home of the University of Illinois.  Hopefully, we'll have better wind conditions.  Night all!

Day 21: Kirksville, Missouri to Quincy, Illinois 93 miles. 2900 feet of climbing.

Today we finally got to say "goodbye" to the notorious hills of Northern Missouri.  But not before one last bastard of a morning full of more steep climbs.  The afternoon, on the other hand, was a beautiful biking day.

More barn art.  I spoke with the farmer who had just opened the doors to his barn.  This pattern is called the Missouri Puzzle pattern.  As there are still large populations of Amish in and around Baring, the town where this barn is, many folks, Amish and not, have decorated their barn sides or barn doors with quilt patterns.

Once again, we would be making a change in our travel route today.  The same rising waters that affected our crossing the Missouri were even more of a factor in crossing the Mississippi.  We normally would have crossed the Mississippi River in Canton, Missouri.  However, the ferry that America By Bike has been using for years is no longer in service.  And, even if it was, it would not have been able to be in use today due to the crested waters of the river.  Instead, we were diverted fourteen miles down river, where we were shuttled across to the Illinois side.  We were not allowed to ride over a very narrow and treacherous bridge with no shoulders and plenty of high-speed truck traffic.  

With all the rolling hills over the past four days, I've been seeing these signs as we approach the bottoms of many descents before climbing back up the other side.  What follows are things hard to imagine in sunny, warm weather.

This small river looks fairly innocuous.  Yet, in wet weather times, the water levels will rise fifteen to twenty feet.  And, from where I took this picture, that would barely keep me dry.

It's hard to believe that the little river in the picture above would have water levels that rise high enough to flood the cornfields from the first photo.  Yet, time and again, I passed these water gauges that are marking high water levels.  As I would see later this afternoon along the Mississippi, the waters do, in fact, rise that high.

It was another brisk and sunny morning as we left Kirksville.  This morning, we picked up where we left off with yesterday's severe hills.  It was all the talk last night at dinner and again today at the first SAG stop.  No time for our legs to recover and, to make matters worse, the alphabet roads we were on this morning were terribly paved, adding to both the difficulty in many of our climbs as well as the caution with which we rode over badly rutted pavement.

At one very steep climb, there was a cemetery at the top on the right hand side of the hill.  I took one look at the tombstones and immediately felt those were for all the dead cyclists who weren't able to make this particularly challenging climb.  This evening at dinner, when I recalled that thought to a couple of fellow riders, they all had the same reaction as I did upon surmounting that summit.  AND, it turned out that most of that climb was at a 14% grade.  However, the last one hundred feet or so was at a 17% gradient!  No wonder we all felt dead after reaching the top.

During one of the climbs, Ted, a fellow rider from Texas, and I were struggling to get up another steep hill.  Behind us, and patiently waiting to pass once he cleared the blind corner up ahead, was a farmer driving an enormous John Deere tractor.  It was the kind that had wheels over eight feet high.  I'm not sure if it's used for fertilizing or what, but it can straddle top corn plants.  Given the fact that it could also have straddled us and still had over a foot of clearance above our heads, Ted wondered why he didn't just drive over us instead of waiting to pass us.  

Once we hit the Mississippi River and had to detour south, Ted and Norm, two Texans from Austin (that's Ted giving the "hook 'em horns" sign) and I stopped off for lunch at a local cafe.  Again, really good food and folks with a great attitude and happy has hell to see us again this year.  They were most grateful for our patronage.  We were most grateful for their good food and restrooms!

For all the hills yesterday and this morning, it was still quite a change of pace this afternoon to ride on much flatter ground and a bit of shock to see how much the Mississippi had overflowed its banks.  We had come up to the river, then turned to the right, to head south for our river crossing another 14 miles downstream.  That put the Mississippi on our left.  Not only were parts of cornfields on the left side of the road totally under water but, in some parts of our detour, the floodplain had extended across the street to put parks and parking lots of buildings under water as well.  Had we tried to bike down this route yesterday, the river road would have been closed as it, too, was under water.

As we were riding to the south, the Mississippi was to our left.  This is a shot of one of the floodplains we passed.  What you see is water that's from the crested river.  The actual river is just beyond the trees in the background.  What you don't see are the Amtrak tracks.  In this section, they were totally covered up by the rising waters.  

This was shot from the van ferrying us across the river.  They would not let us ride on the elevated highway as it was both too narrow (no shoulders) and too busy with truck traffic to allow for cyclists.

After Gene dropped us off in a park in Quincy, on the other side of the river, I rode back down to the riverbank to take some shots of the Mississippi.  That's the bridge we were not allowed to cross on our bikes.  As I was taking this shot, I was told by a local that the river is 18 feet above normal.  The parking lot to the restaurant just to the right of from where I took this shot was totally under water.

Tomorrow, we'll ride a bit over one hundred miles to Springfield, Illinois, capital of Illinois and the home and final resting place of Abraham Lincoln.  And it'll be the 4th of July!  We're all wearing our red, white and blue bike jerseys in honor of the holiday.

Day 20: Chillicothe to Kirksville, Missouri 82 miles. something beyond 5000 feet of climbing (depending on who's Garmin you believe)

This was the day everyone warned us about.  The 300+ hills we'd be climbing today.  I'm so glad it's over.

The bright, blue skies of the morning gave way to clouds, winds and a light drizzle by the end of the day's ride.

The day started as a sunny, cool morning with temperatures in the upper 50's when we rode out of Chillicothe.  Only five miles into the ride, we had an omen of how strange the day would go.  The bridge road that crossed railroads tracks and would take us out of town was under construction.  Some quick thinking by the ride leaders got us on a parallel road and we were soon back on course.

We got some sad news about an hour into the ride.  Two dogs were chasing Franz and Louie, two of the faster Dutch riders, through a fairly quiet intersection out in pasture lands.  The chase actually caused both riders to miss their turn off onto yet another of the alphabet soup of county roads.  Twenty minutes later, when many of the rest of us came up to that same intersection, one of the dogs was lying by the side of the road, apparently having just been hit by a car.  The owners were on the scene and soon were carrying the dog to a local vet.  Hopefully, it survived.  Franz and Louie finally figured out where they were and recovered the route.

This is an example of the Barn Art I've been riding by for days.  Finally stopped to take a picture.

No more than ten minutes after everyone left our first SAG stop, an annual pilgrimage to a local convenience store called PB5, so named because it sits at the intersections of County Roads P and B and State Road 5, the sun disappeared, the winds shifted from WNW to due North and the temperatures dropped about ten degrees.  According to one of the riders with a Garmin, the average temperature for today's ride was only 61 degrees.  And with strong crosswinds, it felt much colder than that.  We normally hope to avoid the hot Missouri summer temperatures.  No one expected this cold weather today.

I've seen these plastic-wrapped bales of hay and couldn't figure out how they did that.  Turns out it's just like making sausage, only with bales of hay.  The irony in all this is that the cows who eat all this hay will, themselves, be turned into sausages!

While the nearby park is called "Thousand Hills Park," the best guess (done by a rider two years ago and taken as gospel by all rider leaders henceforth) is that we rode over 300 hills today. The elevation route map for today's ride looks more like a seismograph of an earthquake.  This afternoon, there were a number of riders all comparing their Garmin readouts with each other.  The consensus was that the total climb was over 5000 feet and that we faced way too many 12-14% grades on the steepest climbs.  Two riders said they registered a 15% gradient at the same climb, but it was barely a 30-feet stretch along the entire climb.  It's amazing when you are thankful for a mere 8% or 9% gradient!

Isn't that just like a man…to hide behind a woman!

The steepness of some of those climbs really fooled me much of the day.  As I'm riding along the road, I can sense the ease of the tires rolling on the pavement.  Smooth pavement means I'll get another mile per hour or so on my speed.  Chip/seal pavement means I'll lose a couple of miles per hour.  When I'm climbing, I'm trying to gauge which gear to be in so as to make the climb up the hill the most productive.  Not having a Garmin, I can only sense what the road feels like as well as what I perceive the incline to be.  However, on many occasions today, I thought I'd either gotten a flat tire or that I was just losing my energy as I was struggling so to get up certain climbs.  Turns out, those were the 12-14% climbs.  Also turns out, everyone else I spoke to after today's ride had the same sensation.  You're pedaling as hard as you can and it just feels as though you're still not moving.

The one most remembered moment during today's ride was not the climbs.  Instead, it was during a bit of downhill run when four hawks were circling over my head.  I've been seeing hawks flying nearby for days now.  But today, they seemed to be playing with me.  The four would circle in front of me, then take an updraft, then swoop down again, always about 25 feet in front of me.  This cycle repeated itself about three or four times.  While the sun was still out, it was a spectacle to see these majestic birds so close.  There was no way I could stop and take a picture that would do justice to what I was seeing right in front of me.  As I came to the end of the descent and started up yet another climb, they flew off, done with their play time.

Tomorrow, we cross the Mississippi River into Illinois.  Another 90+ mile day.