We had breakfast at the mess hall, it was surprisingly good. They served us eggs, and honey-curled ham, and sausages. Even though the eggs weren’t exactly fresh, there were really good probably because I haven’t had them in a long time.
We headed out in groups of 6. In my paceline today was Tyler (Southern Miss), Paul (U of Toledo). We were doing fine. 10 miles in, we biked across the Mississippi River and onto Illinois. It was pretty nice to finally east of the Mississippi. Biking across the bridge brought memories back from biking across the Golden Gate in San Francisco, which feels like eons ago. The Mississippi was disappointingly murky and dirty. I would not want to take a swim in such a toxic swamp.
Once we got to Illinois, there was some dangerous construction, so we racked for approximately 10 miles. We hopped back on our bikes and started trekking. We passed the downtown of this small city and because of the traffic lights, about 4 pacelines clumped together. Basically, we had this mass body composed of 24 cyclists take over the town. It was much like a peloton. You could tell we had Tour de France fever. It was the most fun I’ve ever had on a bike. I could tell that we completely confused every driver on that road by our presence.
We took a nice easy pace, and made it to lunch by 1. We were then told that we had to book it, because we had dinner plans at 4:30. So we did just that, we booked it. We started getting serious and were going at 25 mph on flats, not too shabby. A couple of times, we were going a little faster than our own good. One of the guys in my paceline accidently ran over a dead raccoon, and sprayed the guy behind him with maggots and raccoon guts…gross. Luckily, I was in front of him. We slowed down a little, but then picked it up considering that we were cruising through Rockford's worst area of town. We did pass Rockford Icehog's practice facility which was pretty neat.
At lodging, we took a quick shower, and headed straight to dinner. We were doing bad on the time constraint so we were rushed quite a bit. We went to a Italian restaurant for dinner, sponsored by a Saturn dealership, who have been sponsoring Journey of Hope for over a decade. The pasta was awesome, especially the home cooked meatballs and the chef’s special lasagna. We headed back to the Elk’s lodge where we relaxed for a half hour, and then had our weekly team meeting. We basically got chewed out for how unsafe we rode today. I understand that there are rules, but there are exceptions to every rule, and I personally think us cyclists made the right call. On top of that, crew doesn’t really know what it’s like to cycle 70 miles a day…they don’t see our perspective at all. Of course we couldn’t say anything, so we basically nodded our heads and played along. Regardless, I had the most fun riding today, and I would do it again. It kind of sickens me that Push America doesn’t really care about my safety, but more of their liability. After the long team meeting, we called it a night, considering it was already 10. Tomorrow was another century, but hopefully it doesn’t rain.
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