Start: 7:38 AM
Finish: 4:10 PM
Saddle Time: 6:28
Ascent: 527 feet
Descent: 321 feet
Miles: 81
Total Miles: 2,531
Highlight: Crossed over into Illinois, state number 8
Lowlight: My predicted all day tailwind never materialized. I had a fair amount of headwind but it wasn’t too bad.
Cyclemeter: Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.
Great day of riding today. I crossed the Mississippi River for the last time and into Illinois. The climb out of the river valley was much shorter and less steep than on the western side. I’ve been down on Adventure Cycling for the past several days with the route through Wisconsin and Iowa which I think went too far west when I believe a route heading southeast was possible. Well I don’t know what I’m talking about especially after yesterday when my routing ended up on dirt roads. Perhaps Adventure Cycling had their reasons, today may have been a sign of that logic. All day was like riding a rail trail with super quiet and flat country roads.
I started the day with breakfast from the Kwik Stop next door, a gas station convenience store popular in the area. Gas stations here and further west don’t just sell gas and snacks, they double as fast food restaurants since most of the towns I’ve passed through are too small to support chain stores. Kwik Stop sells a lot of food options. I had a sausage, egg and cheese on a waffle along with coffee. I also came here last night for second dinner (not a normal thing). I didn’t think my serving from a local fast food chain Maid-Rite was enough to refuel my body so I grabbed some chicken and fries from Kwik Stop. The unfortunately named Maid-Rite is not a maid service but a chain that serves loose meat sandwiches, think sloppy Joe without the sloppy, basically seasoned ground beef. I don’t normally eat fast food for dinner but I was on the outskirts of a decent sized town with nothing else close by.
Most of the day was spent riding through Illinois farm land. Lots of corn and soybeans but one difference I noticed was less cattle. Not that I saw all that many cows in Iowa and Wisconsin but I definitely smelled them. Very little of that in Illinois. I passed a very large wind farm. I’ve seen wind turbines throughout the west but this was the most I’ve seen and closest I’ve been.
Not much else to say about what I saw so I’ll talk about how I’ve been riding my days. I like to bang out about 30 miles in the morning while it’s still cool and the wind hasn’t picked up. I look for towns about that distance that have a gas station, typically a Kwik Stop or Casey’s (like Kwik stop). Lately I’ve been stopping at Caseys to get a breakfast pizza (sausage, egg, cheese on a pizza crust), a donut and a gatorade. I then look for another town about 20 miles after that where I stop for more gatorade and an ice cream of some kind. This leave about 20-30 miles for the day. At each stop I refill my water bottles. It’s been working great, one of the benefits of being this far east is more towns to choose from. Further west I was typically snacking out of my bags.
I’m having more tire troubles. My back tire has a slow leak which I couldn’t find this evening. I should have just replaced the tube but I put the old one back in thinking maybe the valve wasn’t seated properly or a piece of dir was holding it open. As I write this at 10:30pm it’s low again. I need to swap out the tube before I hit the road tomorrow. The tire is also looking worn, not like back in North Dakota but I don’t think this tire has 1,000 mile left in it so I’ll keep an eye out for bike shops.
I’m hoping the coming days in Illinois and Indiana are like today which was really pleasant. The route from here goes east to Fort Wayne, Indiana then northeast to Lake Erie. Looking at the map I am impressed with how far I’ve come. Home feels almost in sight.
