Today, we finally rode out of Iowa and into Illinois. We crossed over the Mississippi on a really narrow bridge suspended over the water and into a state that actually has shoulders. The roads weren’t too great however. Some were paved in asphalt and a pleasure to ride while others were riddled with potholes the size of a bike. It was supposed to be a 110-mile day, but a state trooper pulled over one of the vans over at mile 65 and told us we couldn’t ride the last 40 miles because the speed limit on the highway was a minimum of 45. We tried to convince him we would pedal faster but he didn’t believe us. We had to rack because of his warning. Nate, one of the guys in my pace-line tried to pull all day for Brandon, the person he is doing the ride for. We were all in great admiration of him for doing that (pulling is hard), and even though he didn’t get to finish, I am sure he could have done it. We had some good downhills for the first time in a while. I can’t tell you how happy we were when we saw a “Trucks use lower gear – 7% grade” sign for the first time in weeks. We even hit 43 mph! The uphills were rough though. With 4 or 5 long climbs in a 50-mile stretch, we definitely felt it in the calves.
After the ride, I spent an hour in the hot tub of the hotel relaxing and talking to some teammates. We had a great pasta dinner sponsored by Saturn right across the street from the hotel. I am pretty sure we scared away half of the customers from the restaurant. Our weekly team meeting took place afterwards in a tiny hotel room and was an awesome time. There are so many inside jokes going around, I couldn’t stop laughing for 30 minutes straight. We’ve settled on T-shirt designs and we’re all feeling the bittersweet taste of being 3 weeks out from DC. We can’t wait to get there and finish the ride but we realize how much we’re going to miss this experience once it’s done. It’s such a surreal feeling to look on a map and see how far we’ve come.
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