A Country Mile; How about one hundred.

Last year a few friends set out to use our bicycles to their full potential. The plan was made to ride what is known in the bicycle world as a century. One hundred miles atop a bicycle saddle. It was a feat we trained for with marathon like tenacity (see: A Century of Progress). Little did we realize what a thrill it would be, so much in fact that we organized another. A few weeks back as RAGBRAI was finishing up the crew assembled yet once again in Champaign-Urbana, Il for our second century ride. This time with a different flare. The riders were made up of the regular players including, Chris, Vincent, and myself along with the addition of a handful of the best pedal people from the Bike Project, Urbana's own bicycle co-op. Our destination would be a loop out to the Bloomington, Il wind farms and back into town for celebratory suds. Country roads the whole way with the only official route being north west.The night prior was rocked with down pours and thunderstorms, the kind you only get in the country. I got very little sleep. The ride time was pushed back a few hours and we rode out the the meeting point to see who would show up for the late morning departure. Once assembled our bicycle cranks began to turn as we headed west out of town. Seven deep, we began to meet each other while we rode. The state of Iowa was well represented on this tour by Joel and Phil. The regular players plus Frank hail the south suburbs of Chicago, and another character, Anthony, was from the North East. Obviously all bicycle people we had at least one thing in common.
It didn't take long before we were on a bike path in The Lake of Woods park and last nights rain left a slimy coating on the trail that crashed three riders. Some bandaids and gauze cleaned all involved up and we rode on. We got back to the country roads and back to corn and soybean territory now with no set route. As farm land breaks up the roads they come to a T we just turned North or West. The natural heading took us through towns with not even a stop sign much less a convenience store to refuel. Our water bottles were refilled out of water spigots on the sides of churches. Then came the lemonaid stand that we cleaned out. Perfect for our ride little girl lemonaid made with more sugar than lemon. Anthony rolled over something that punctured both tires twice. Four patches and 30min later we rode on. Finally 50 miles out we got to the wind turbines. After relaxing we took a new heading; south and east as we rolled into town about 10 hours of actual time and 7hrs of pedal time. Some of us felt better than others and most of us got back on different bikes to meet and toast to our success.

A Century of Progress

My two cycling buddies and I accomplished a major bicycling milestone on Sunday. The same crew that went to the Midwest Mountain Biking Festival took to the road for our first Century Ride. 100 miles of human power on two wheels in one day. It all began with a train ride on Amtrak from Homewood, Il to Champlain. Il. We picked up our third rider, carbed up and hit the road Sunday morning from Paxton, Il. The time was 6:30 am, just after a brief sunrise that immediately rose into a dark overcast sky. The scene was very quiet with nothing but the sound of rubber grabbing at the asphalt of Rt 9 while the three of us fully woke up on our bicycles. There was a nice tailwind that kindly pushed us to Hoopeston. We turned North at Hoopeston onto Rt 1, Dixie Hwy. Now with a constant crosswind a misty rain began to fall, 'look on the bright side its not hot'. The mist would come and go for the most of the morning, early risers would wave from their porches as we rode by. It all made for a nice start. We stopped every 20 miles or so to fill water bottles chow down some energy bars and of course field questions like "How far you goin'?" and "Where did ya start?" Conversations began to pop in and out, a lot of shop talk about our bikes and poking fun at rural Illinois. Corn on the right, soy on the left. Then a new theme began to appear. Full size trucks, SUV's and muscle cars along the side of the road all of them with "For Sale" written on them. A little surreal watching someone's way of life changing along a hundred mile stretch. The sun came out the wind never let up and little by little roads got closer together and traffic increased potholes became more frequent then one by one our bicycle computers turned 99-100, "I'm there, how far you got?", "Quarter mile", "7 tenths, 8-9, one hundred miles" We all hit the century mark 10 miles from the end point. At just under 7 hours we finished our trek and celebrated with gyros from our favorite fast food joint along with the women that humored us and said we were crazy. The three of us all read the same magazine article about century rides and the author's parting remarks said that it was a nice way to spend a day he was right.


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