Dave & Sandy -- life in the bicycle lane: May 14 -- Tuscola IL to Lebanon IN

It's morning again. I've been drinking my coffee, checking email, packing my freshly-washed biking clothes and ... and ... listening to my IPOD. I packed it and had not used it until yesterday for the first time. I don't know why -- most of you know that I enjoy listening to music.

We did the t-shirt swap last night. That sounds like a pretty tame event until you understand the rules. But before we get to that, my confession is that I had missed the fact of the swap in the ride instructions. I was so concerned with other packing items etc. that I don't even remember reading about bringing a t-shirt -- I have a million of them, but oh well.

So, the thing starts with everyone standing up, describing their t-shirt and circumstances -- some had t-shirts from rides that they had done, the Dutch fellow actually contributed a Rabobank cycling jersey (worth a lot more than a t-shirt) and my story was that when Mike first started talking about the t-shirt swap we were in Abilene KS so I bought mine there. It was a pretty simple shirt -- Abiliene, home of Eisenhower -- a deep green color -- but interestingly enough it proved to be a hot item because Abilene was where we were during the surrounding tornadoes so the city had memories for everyone.

The rules -- we picked numbers out of a hat which became our turn. At your turn you could pick one of the t-shirts off the table or pick a t-shirt from someone else that was already picked. The trick, however, is that once a t-shirt is picked three times, including the time off the table, it is frozen and its holder is safe. So, for example, the person who went first picked the Rabobank jersey. The person who went second picked the Rabobank jersey off the first person, then the first person picked a shirt off the table (you cannot take back what has just been taken from you). The third person took the Rabobank jersey from the second person, who then had a choice of picking the shirt from the first person or off the table. When it got to the fourth person, the Rabobank jersey was frozen ... so he could pick a shirt off the table or any not-yet-frozen shirt already in someone's possession. Hopefully you get the idea.

You know me. I think these kinds of things are silly -- but actually it was a riot. It sounds like a kids game but these are grown, many retired men (and one woman), having a great time with a kids game. Had I known about this I would have brought one of my cycling t-shirts, probably a NYC Century shirt -- but the Abilene shirt served the purpose admirably. It was picked the maximum of three times -- once from the table and thereafter by others taking it from the first holder. Who'd a thunk ... ???

So what did I end up with ? -- a Kansas t-shirt with a big arrow pointing to Topeka. Large -- oh well, I had one of the higher numbers and picked a shirt that I liked which was taken from me, then I took one from someone else etc.

Today's ride takes us into a new state. The terrain is supposed to be similar to yesterday. The distance is 121 miles (longer because yesterday was shorter into Tuscola IL than the normal Champaign IL) but, but -- we are supposed to have a tail-wind !!!! The reason that they run these rides west to east is that 80% of the time you get a tail wind. We have only had a tail-wind twice, in CA. Payback time !!

Wait ... remember that there are no easy days ... something else may happen to make it more difficult than it appears at this point -- flat terrain, tail wind .... hmmm. I'd better not start counting my chickens ...

Well -- the report of the tail wind came from Mike last night -- I just checked weather.com and it does not appear that we will have a tail wind -- both the starting point (Tuscola) and the destination (Lebanon) are predicting winds from the south at 10-20 with temps in the high 80's. With a straight cross wind like that drafting will be key. Our roads today are similar to yesterday, reportedly, county roads not state roads, so we should be able to take up most of the road. When we do swing to the north a couple of times during the route (we're heading north-east after all) we'll fly with the tail wind for short distances.

Breakfast this a.m. is either here in the hotel or at Denny's ... hmmm ... here or Denny's .... that's an easy one. Geoff and Jerry are also going to eat here is the plan. We load at 6:30 and should be off by 6:45.

Dinner last night didn't quite work out. We got to the Italian place and it was packed - mother's day in Tuscola. So ... we went back up the road to a pizza place which was not packed and believe it or not they (or at least the girl behind the cash) wouldn't let us bring our bikes in. Some other customer commented that he was able to park his car in the lot, why can't we park our bikes ... well, sir, do you leave your keys in the car with it running ?????? Our bikes are worth more than many cars that we see around here and we're not about to part with them, thank you very much. So ... we took our business elsewhere and ended up at Subway ... sigh ... and since we had ridden 2 miles finding dinner we rewarded ourselves by ... you guessed it ... going back to DQ !!! (isn't this getting repetitive ??). Ken had been joined by some relatives so it was just Geoff and Jerry on this dinner-finding jaunt.

It's time to start getting organized here ... more later.

.................

back again -- now in Lebanon. I checked into the room, mentally noted that the clock was wrong, then we went off to the Dairy Queen. Their clock was wrong too ... whoops !! we're back in Eastern Time !! Duh ... I did not realize the Indiana was in Eastern Time.

Naturally the ride today wasn't as easy as advertised. It was fairly hot, dry, only two SAG stops for 122 miles -- one at 44 and one at 83. Geoff, Jerry and I rode by ourselves today. Ken opted for the Denny's breakfast. We were the first ones to the first SAG stop but another couple of groups arrived while we were there. We headed off and again were first to the lunch SAG. At about 7 miles to the end we stopped at a convenience store and each downed a bottle of gatorade -- I think that Geoff was pretty close to bonking, but we were all close to the limit. Shane caught us there and said that the nearest following group was about 15 miles back. It seems that others had found ice cream shops along the way -- our hearts were set on the DQ at the end of the ride.

Once we were back from the DQ (over two miles away, but heck, we've already ridden 122, what's another 2 miles there and back) -- Barb was there and the luggage was half unloaded. Great timing ! Usually we end up doing all the unloading !

I did not drink enough liquid today. All the signs were there -- no need to pee; stopped sweating; even a little muscle cramping. I probably only had 2 bottles of water over the day until the gatorade -- not nearly enough -- bad, bad. I should know better ...

The wind was strong from the south -- so early in the day on the county roads we were able to draft diagonally across the road, since there were only three of us. We had some short stretches that went north during which we really flew, but those were in the minority -- we are going east after all. After mile 99 we switched to route 32 which is a State Road and could not draft any more because it was far too busy for us to take up any more than a single-file line at the shoulder.

The terrain up until the half-way point (the IL / IN border) was the same as yesterday -- endless corn fields. After the border the terrain was more rolling -- no significant hills, but definitely more trees, much prettier. Still though, while there are parts of the west that I'd like to do by car and stop in small towns etc. there is not much to see in IL or IN (so far). Its not unpleasant, simply not as dramatic as the west.

Our route today was county roads up until the first SAG stop. That put us back on the normal route that comes from Champaign IL. The route from that point was 136 through Oakwood, Covington, Veedersburg, Hillsboro, Waynetown, then switching to route 32 to Smartsburg, Shannondale, Dover and into Lebanon.

Now that we're in the east the towns come every few miles -- vs out west where you could go 30-40 miles without riding through a town.

Ride stats -- 122 miles; elapsed time 7:00; rolling time 6:35

Tomorrow's mileage is 105 but we'll be getting a late start -- around 9am. Prior to 9am we will be taking a tour of the Roark titanium bicycle manufacturing shop, then getting back to the hotel to load and go. We will be hearing more about it at RAP 1/2 hour from now. There is no early-leaving option -- if you don't want to go on the tour you hang around the hotel until they get back. Actually the tour may be interesting.

Dinner tonight ? -- they list White Castle and Ponderosa (!?) Arlene -- remember those ???

A few pictures from yesterday and today:

Jeff Dodd-o working on his bike ...