Day 37

Tuesday - I guess the nice weather had to end sometime.  It was cold and overcast and rained off and on all day, and we had to fight a small head wind. A hot shower and dry clothes never felt so good.  It was nice sitting around a camp fire during the evening, though.

It turns out Illinois has a few corn fields:

Today's route.
Distance: 143.6 km
Elevation: +1949 / -1728 ft

A Typical Day, Part 2

Some people ride alone, but most of us ride in groups of two or more.  I've been in a group of nine a couple times, but that really is too big.  It's a lot harder for motorists to get around such a large group and you'll probably need to stop more often, since you have a greater likelihood of someone having a problem with their bike, like a flat.  I think groups of three to five are ideal.  For days with lots of climbing it's harder to stay in a group because everyone takes hills at their own speed.

We are given a turn-by-turn direction sheet at the previous night's peloton meeting and all our turns are marked with big yellow C's on the road with an arrow pointing in the direction we need to go.  It's not too hard to stay on the route if you're paying attention, but occasionally riders miss the turn and need to be flagged down.  I don't believe we've had any ride go more than a couple miles off track.

Every 20 km or so we have a SAG (support and gear) stop setup by one or two of the volunteers.  They provide us with cold water, water mixed with electrolytes, fresh fruit (apples, oranges, bananas, and watermelon), a couple chairs to sit on to rest, and, on hot rides, towels soaked in ice water to cool us down.  They really are a great help -- we wouldn't be able to make it through the day without them.

We typically role into camp sometime between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm, depending on the length and difficulty of the ride and how many stops we make along the way.  The kitchen staff usually has a table setup with cold water, lemonade, and ice tea, as well as a few snacks like chips and yogurt.  We typically camp at a school or a park, though occasionally we've stayed somewhere more exotic, like a golf course and a winery.

Day 36

Monday - We started the week with another calm, cool, sunny day.  It was a long ride, but much flatter than last week's rides, which made it much easier.  There was a little confusion about the route, some last minute changes were made, and some cyclists missed some turns, but we all made it into camp eventually.  At the end of our ride, we crossed the great Mississippi River, leaving the rolling hills of Iowa behind and entering the (hopefully) flatter Illinois.

 

Tonight we're staying at Unity Christian School in Fulton.  They provided a great dinner for us of chicken, pork chops, and corn-on-the-cob, with pie and ice cream for dessert.  There was also a live band performing for us while we ate. It was definitely one of our better dinners.

 

Today's route.
Distance: 152.4 km
Elevation: +3480 / -3522 ft

A Typical Day, Part 1

Breakfast usually starts at 6:30 or 7:00 am, but if you show up at the posted time, it's already starting to be cleaned up, so you have to get there early.  There's a bit of a struggle between early risers and late risers as to when breakfast should be, so the time tends to shift depending on which faction is currently the most vocal.  Usually there is hot oatmeal, cereal, a few different kinds of muffins, and some fruit to choose between.  We also need to pack a lunch for the road -- PB&J or tuna sandwiches, a variety of granola bars and cookies, chips, and carrots.  Before leaving camp, we need to get into our cycling clothes, brush our teeth, pack up our tents and sleeping bags, load our stuff into the gear truck, pump up our tires, and fill our water bottles. Most people roll out of camp between 6:30 and 7:30.

Day 35

Sunday - Today was a day for relaxing here in the park, catching up on our email and blogs, cleaning our bikes, and resting our bodies.  We were welcomed to New Life Community Chruch here in Iowa City for a celebration service at 5:30 pm and then headed back to camp where they provided us dinner.

Day 34

Saturday - We had another great day for cycling -- sunny and cool.  I actually had to keep my arm warmers on for most of the ride; I don't think it even reached 20 C.  We had a wind from the northeast, which was great when we were going east, but made it a bit of a struggle when we had to ride north.

Instead of eating breakfast at camp before heading out, we stopped at the CRC in Sully about a quarter of the way through the ride for a hot breakfast, which was delicious.

Today's route.
Distance: 151.3 km
Elevation: +4790 / -4957 ft

Day 33

Friday - We had a short, pleasant ride into Pella today.  Just past the halfway point we stopped at the CRC in Knoxville for pie and lemonade.  We also officially passed the distance halfway point early in the ride

After arriving in Pella, we took a walk downtown.  I think Pella is more Dutch than Holland.  There were a couple of great bakeries, a Christian book store (note the absence of quotes), and a nice bike shop.  I bought a Dutch letter at the Vander Ploeg bakery which apparently they are famous for (it's an almond pastry, not chocolate), and then we headed down to a local "rehydration station".  It was a bit of a dive, but we met some others from our group there and even collected a couple donations to our cause.

After supper we had an outdoor celebration service put on by the local CRC.  It was a great time of singing and worship.

Today's route.
Distance: 81.6 km
Elevation: +2352 / -2500 ft