Week 6 - July 12 to July 19 - Champaign, IL to Niles, OH - 524 miles

Day 36 - July 13 - Champaign, IL to Crawfordsville, IN - 80 miles

Another day of corn and soybeans, and another state.

Nice day, nice weather, nice ride, but I wasn't actually there for it.

Kansas: corn, wheat, no hills.
Illinois: corn, soybeans, no hills.
Indiana: see Illinois.

The big excitement was getting things thrown at us from passing cars. This hasn't happened to us in 2600 miles across the US, but it happened as soon as we crossed into Indiana. Someone threw a plastic bottle at Dan, hit him in the face, and knocked him off his bike. Someone took the orange cone that marks the unmanned water stop, and threw it at Andy, hitting him in the arm. These guys obviously have some practice at throwing things out of car windows. Someone threw a newspaper at Brantley, but missed. Welcome to Indiana. (In fairness, all of these events were in the town of Hillsboro, and at least two of them seemed to involve the same perpetrators.)

Day 37 - July 14 - Crawfordsville, IN to Indianapolis, IN - 73 miles

This was definitely one of the most interesting days on the tour.

It started out with the usual miles of country roads and corn fields, with the occasional view of I-74. When we got to Indianapolis, they took us quite a bit out of the way to go through Eagle Creek Park, a beautiful large park.

I guess we couldn't go to Indianopolis without going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway ("the racing capitol of the world"). The cue sheet had some problems, and it seemed like everyone took the same wrong turn on the way to the Speedway, but once you get within a mile of it, you can find it by ear. There were only four or five cars running practice laps, but the noise was still deafening. I can't imagine what it's like on race day. But the neighbors don't have a lot of ground to complain, as the Speedway has been there since 1909.

I can understand why you might want to drive 150 mph, but for the life of me, I don't understand the appeal of watching cars driving around in circles. We stayed long enough to see a few practice laps, and for Andy to buy a $3 Coke.

From there, we went to the Major Taylor Velodrome, one of the premier bike-racing tracks. Much smaller and quieter than the Speedway, and much more my speed. They opened the track for us, and let us play. It was a little intimidating at first, but actually pretty easy once you got the hang of it. The track is pretty steeply banked, but it doesn't get steeper as you go further up the wall, so you can go as close to the wall as you want. I tore around a number of times, and quit when I finally passed Daco.

From there, we got on the White River Greenway, a series of parks and bike paths. From a trailside plaque: "In 1988, the City County Council started looking at ways to reconnect our communities that had become fragmented with a century of growth and development. Revisiting landscape architect George Kessler's 1908 plan for parkways, a few visionary councilors and citizens proposed the White River Greenway. This is the first of what has become the Indianapolis Greenways project."

This took us into the heart of downtown Indianapolis and the redeveloped Central Canal, a very attractive waterway that winds through over a mile of downtown. We missed a turn on the cue sheet, and ended up on the wrong side of the canal, but it was a nice day and a pleasant ride, so we didn't bother to carry our bikes over one of the pedestrian bridges. Instead, we went all the way to the end, and came back on the other side before resuming the route.

This was really a nice, nice way to come into the city. I don't think any car route could compare.

Against all expectations, they actually put us up in a downtown hotel, so we can walk around on our day off. (And our night off, although there's not a lot of night-life on a Monday).

Day 38 - July 15 - Indianapolis, IN - Rest Day

Another lazy rest day.

I slept in until 9:30 - what a luxury! I took the computer down to the breakfast room, and worked on the previous two days of the web site. It takes about an hour every day, and I really pay for it if I get behind. I upload all the pictures from the camera, and select which ones I want. Each picture is cropped and/or re-sized to snapshot size, then re-sized again to thumbnail size. I upload the track log from the GPS, and download the next couple days worth of detail maps. I generate a map from the track log, drop that into the drawing program, and crop it. I actually generate at least three maps at a time - current day, previous day, current week, and sometimes previous week. Writing the text requires the most thought, so it usually comes last. I have a perl script that generates the html files from the text and images. Then I review the finished product in a browser, and make any changes or additions that seem necessary. I pack up all the new or changed files, upload them to the web server, and unpack them there. It's a lot of little steps.

Anyway, Dan finally woke Andy up at 11:30, about the time I was ready to upload to the web server. With that done, we went downtown for brunch.

There are two brew-pubs across the street from each other, and apparently a third around the corner somewhere. Ironically, all three are chains - Alcatraz, Ram, and Rock Bottom. It's getting almost as bad as the Irish pub business - you get the brew-pub kit, which includes the equipment, the recipes, the decor, etc. But the beer is pretty good, and it's fresh.

We wandered around the mall a bit, having the American consumer experience, and eventually wound up at the movies, watching 28 Days Later, a low-budget English zombie film. Parts of it were filmed in London; Andy saw his old pub, his old office building, and possibly even his old flat.

We had dinner next door to Alcatraz at the St. Elmo, a 101-year-old steakhouse with a lot of high ceilings and dark wood. We all went for the $40 32-oz porterhouse, although Andy was the only one who finished it. It was really good, but I felt like such a pig.

I'm ready to go home now. I've biked over 2700 miles, and I've been away from home for over 5 weeks. Parts of it are still fun, but I could do with fewer corn fields, and more...anything else. That's what was so great about yesterday - it was only 2/3 corn fields. Two weeks and counting (and I know Ohio and New York have corn fields).

Day 39 - July 16 - Indianapolis, IN to Richmond, IN - 72 miles

Today's cue sheet was almost as simple as when we were on the interstate - turn right out of the hotel, go 72 miles, turn right into the hotel. Our hotel in Indianapolis happened to be right on US-40, which goes all the way into Richmond.

US-40 follows the old National Road, which was created in 1806 to connect the state capitols. Not surprisingly, a lot of settlement grew up along the road, and now it's like a necklace of little towns, strung out at intervals. It never really peters out into the miles of farmland we've seen on other days, although the towns get a little less frequent, and the corn fields more frequent, in places.

By the way, this trip has expunged any desire I might have once had to race. Going fast is fun when it happens, as on Mount Rose and Monarch Pass. But I don't care who passes me, or when I finish. I'm touring - I'm biking at a touring pace (usually in the range of 15-17 mph, faster or slower depending on the terrain), looking around, taking a lot of pictures, and generally biking through a place, rather than getting from point A to point B.

Breakfast was at a Bob Evans restaurant 6 miles out of town. We'd already had the continental breakfast at the hotel (cereal and a donut), and got our usual late start, so we skipped it.

Lunch was at a little ice cream/sandwich shop in Centerville - $1 pork tenderloin sandwich. The Coke cost more than the sandwich.

Instead of going to dinner at some steak-house that can't possibly compare to the St. Elmo, some of us are going to the Wayne County 4-H Fair instead. I love fairs, especially the agricultural fairs.

Surprise! Dinner was pushed back to 5:00, for the benefit of those who wanted to go to the fair. Of course, I didn't know this, because I was up in the room working on the website.

At the fair, I had a walleye (fish) sandwich that was bigger than my hand, breaded and fried to order. Yum.

Admission to the fair was $5 per vehicle, so $0.50 apiece in our case. Most of the folks went to the tractor pull, even though that was an additional $8. Cindy and I weren't that into it, so we saw the rest of the fair at our leisure. We watched the equitation (horse riding) competition and the beef cattle judging. In explaining how he had come to his decisions, the judge said things like "They'll get a nice tenderloin off this one" and "This one will hang a nice carcass." No sugar-coating here.

Back in the makeup ring (yes, they really call it a "makeup ring"), the exhibitors spent hours preparing the cattle for judging. They were washed, blow-dried (with a shop-vac), combed and moussed, hooved polished. Everything but lipstick, and I'm not entirely sure about that.

The featured entertainment was The Singing Fireman, who covered popular tunes with a guitar and soundtrack.

Fun.

Day 40 - July 17 - Richmond, IN to Marysville, OH - 105 miles

On the way out of the hotel, we met a woman from Melbourne, England, just outside of Derby (pronounced "Darby"), where Andy is from. She moved from Derby to Cincinnati some years ago, because her husband moved from Rolls Royce (aircraft engines) to GE Aircraft Engines. She recognized the Derby County soccer shirt that Andy was wearing, especially as the biggest logo on it was from Pedigree beer, made in Derby.

The first 3 miles took over an hour. (We crossed the Ohio border, and moved from Indiana time to regular old Eastern Daylight Time. At last, back in the right time zone. Now I have to tell my computer, camera, GPS, and PDA.)

Yay, we're back in the right time zone! We must be getting close to home.

Ohio is nice. I guess I'm pre-disposed to like Ohio. My parents are both from Cincinnati, and we went there every summer until I was 16 or so. Anyway, it was a Nice Ride through Ohio farmland, which is a lot like Missouri farmland - rolling hills, trees, and corn fields.

Fred and Rob (new guy, Indy to Erie) took a wrong turn, or rather, failed to take a turn, and ended up going 130 miles. They finally arrived at dinner (showered and refreshed) at 7:00. It's important to read every line of the cue sheet.

I wasn't able to connect with my uncle and aunt in London (about 25 miles away). They're both retired now, so busier than ever.

Day 41 - July 18 - Marysville, OH to Wooster, OH - 105 miles

We're officially at mile 2994, but I'm already over.

We've been very lucky with the weather so far. It wasn't too hot when we were in the desert, and we haven't gotten rained on yet. Twice it rained on rest days, once in the evening after dinner, and today while we were having lunch. We were out of the main path of the storm anyway, so it didn't rain very hard or very long. There was a bit of water on the road afterwards, but it soon dried up, and returned to hot and humid.

We're heading back into the rolling hills. They're not as frequent or regular as in Missouri, so let's just call them hills. The worst case is when there's a long descent, but with a long flat at the bottom, then several small climbs to sap any remaining momentum, then finally the long climb back to the same elevation that you started at.

Around mile 90, there was a place where a bridge was out, and Neil painted a large detour arrow in the road. But Bruce had told us that Daco walked across, and anything Daco could do, we could do. We got there, went around the "Road Closed" signs and the chains across the road, and found a bridge composed entirely of steel I-beams, open to the stream below. No problem.

I've been riding without sunscreen about every other day. I'm getting a pretty good tan, and my arm hairs have gone blond. But my fingertips look like they've been stained with iodine.

Dinner was in the "conference room" of the Econo Lodge, catered by the Country Kitchen restaurant, which is just next door. Same with breakfast tomorrow. I can't fathom why they don't just have us go to the restaurant. Usually dinner is a half-mile walk, and frequently breakfast is several miles away, along the route (except when it's several miles off-route, which has happened a couple times).

Laundry. Some hotels have no guest laundry facilities. Most have just one washer and dryer for the whole guest community. Since we're travelling with only about four changes of clothes, we all have to do laundry every four days. The only time there wasn't a line for the laundry was on the first day, when everyone else was fresh, but I had been in town for a few days. I spent most of the evening in the laundry area, doing my (and Andy's) laundry, and reading more the Harry Potter novel.

Day 42 - July 19 - Wooster, OH to Niles, OH - 93 miles

The day didn't start out so happy. Lois and Topper had a collision, and went down. Topper was just a little scraped up, but Lois hurt her leg pretty badly. When I arrived on the scene, she was lying in a ditch at the side of the road, not moving, not even making much noise. Topper and Jason were with her, so I went on to the sag stop. But it was okay, because I got to direct the Sheriff and the Fire Dept, who had gotten bad directions. In the end, she didn't have anything broken, but some deep bruising. She's on crutches, so she won't be riding for a couple days.

Bud, who's from Akron, went home for a day or so, and re-joined the ride at mile 31. He took most of the group to the headquarters of the All-American Soap-Box Derby. It was apparently a lot of fun, but they were leaving about the time I got to the sag stop, and it was 5 miles out of the way, and up some more hills. Andy and I had a leisurely sag, and got to the hotel ahead of Team Bud for the first and last time.

Niles, Ohio, is the birthplace of President William McKinley, who led us into the Spanish-American war when it was politically expedient, and who was assassinated in 1901. (If you're familiar with Boiled in Lead, this is the subject of the very peppy song "Hard Times.") They built a honking big memorial and presidential library in the center of town. There's a statue of the Great Leader, and busts of other notable Ohioans - Presidents Teddy Roosevelt (good), William Howard Taft (bad), and Warren G. Harding (worse); and Marc Hanna, who fixed the elections for all of the above.

We've definitely hit a new low with this motel (Niles Inn). It's under new management, which hasn't put anything into renovations or demolition. Remember that Dan's an amputee - they put him on the second floor. Then it turned out that his room didn't have water - no flush, no sink, definitely no shower. We have water, but no water pressure. Bud have mold; Steve and Eileen have filth. Everyone has threadbare towels and dirty sheets. We're only lacking bugs, and I'm not entirely sure about that. This place is a Dump. The desk clerk is pleasant enough, but it's like talking to a mannequin. He's just not interested in doing anything. When I asked about a roll-away, he said "If it's not already in the room, it'll be there shortly." They don't actually have roll-aways, but he didn't know, and didn't care. This makes the Econo Lodge (last night's accomodation) look good. We usually stay in the Day's Inn (just down the street), Holiday Inn (ditto), and the like, so it's surprising that they'd put us here. A local newcaster who was interviewing Dan just asked "Do you know what goes on there?" Emily slept in her clothes. Suzanne slept in the van. Yechh.