Chicago Trip / Day 3: Logansport to Valparaiso, Indiana

Even though I was exhausted from doing 180 miles in two days, I still didn't go to sleep until nearly 2AM the night I was in Logansport. That didn't stop my body from waking up at 6AM, however. "Hey, Fat Boy. Time to get up and ride. You can sleep when you're dead." The voices in my head are mean sumbitches.

I was kind of looking for any excuse I could think of not to go. Quite frankly, I was beat. I was a little sore. I was . . . well, whiny. The "angels" in my head kept coming back with, "Look, you came on this ride to RIDE. Not sit in a hotel and think up excuses."

But it didn't stop me from coming up with a bunch of 'em. For one thing, I was a day ahead of schedule. That alone was going to affect my friend who was driving my car from Dayton. She was going to have to leave a day earlier than she'd planned. If I stayed another night in Logansport, I could catch up on laundry. Catch up on the blog entries. Get some more sleep. Let my friend keep to the schedule I'd already worked out with her. Plus, Valpo's hotels were at least $30 more per night than the Logansport Inn.

Then I came up with a great excuse.  Via my Weather.com app:

The blob that ate Indiana.  And Ohio.  And Illinois.  (Illinois gave it heartburn 'cuz it was made of 100% Pure Hopeanchange.  Or, as it's known by its generic name in the other 49 states:  "Horse Shit.")

It's kind of hard to see Logansport on the map . . . because it's completely covered by the storm.

"What the hell?" I thought. I'd checked the weather several times and there wasn't any mention of rain anywhere. Yes, I know summer storms crop up, but a storm that stretches across three states just pops out of the Devil's Hinder Parts?

The definition of a computer geek is someone who'll check Weather.com to see what the weather's like right outside his window. I decided to play against type. I went outside to see for myself. The sky was like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie:

Wait a minute -- the end of the world was slated for next Wednesday.

The rain was hitting so hard you'd think the clouds had been a prison for 'em and each raindrop had been promised its own sheet of Bounty The Quicker Picker Upper upon release.

Well hell, I'm not riding in that mess, I triumphantly informed the angels-in-my-head. If I were to start riding in storms, then my hair gets messed up.  Every time my hair gets a little mussed -- every single time -- I run across a homeless waif, like the young lady below, who just want to ride on my handlebars.

Typical homeless waif found on the side of any road in Indiana.

One look at my unkempt mane and she tells me to keep on pedaling.  Happens every time. So, angels, just get word back to Spielberg that I'll just wait out his storm, thank you very much.

I headed up to the counter to let them know I was going to be staying an additional night.  Ahead of me was a little girl with red curly hair who was . . . singing.  Something about the sun coming out tomorrow or some such twaddle.  "Psssst, hey, kid," I whispered, "Five bucks if you can push the sun's appearance to this morning, 'k?  I've got a bicycle with itchy tires that only a hot rough road can scratch."  Kid must have been some kind of hungry orphan 'cuz she snatched Abe right out of my hand, strode outside purposefully, and, err, stormed at the storm.  Directly:  birds chirping.  Sky bluing.  Four lane road lying wide open like a three dollar hooker on a two day bender looking for one good time.  Math class is now over -- let's go.

(And you think this sort of stuff happens only in the movies.  Pffft.  It's 'cuz you've never gone further than 5 miles on a bicycle.  This stuff happens all the time when you're riding bicycles.)

Times are hard all over for just about everyone.  Not long after I got out of town I saw this building:

Did the copywriters leave the door open again?  I feel a draft . . .

Which had obviously seen better days.  (I suppose someone who lives in Gary, Indiana would consider this a fine vacation spot.)  It was the sign out front that caught my eye:

We don't need no stinkin' Madison Avenue location . . .

I'm guessing this was Don Draper's first agency?

Only 90 minutes into the trip I ticked over the 200th mile of the journey.  I was in Royal Center, Indiana.

Nearly every little town's "symbol" has to do with a carousel horse.  I looked it up, but, it obviously didn't interest me beyond that point.  There's a town that has an old carousel.  Big whoop.  Go ride it and leave me out of it.

I stopped at the only place in town that seemed to be open.  It was the closest thing to a full service grocery store / deli / gas station anywhere around.  It did a booming business, fer shure.  I decided I was hungry so I headed back to the deli section.  The long-suffering, weary woman behind the counter greeted me with a "Yeah?" but the sandwiches I had her make turned out top notch:

Elsie gave her life so I could pedal my lard ass to Chicago.  Blessings to you, Elsie.  Oh, hey, Else', did you make any ice cream before you checked out . . . ?

There was a very nice young lady who was working the front cash register.  She came over to clean the drink machine.  While my mind didn't reboot all the way as it had with Miss Indiana in Richmond previously, I enjoyed watching her work.

Dinner and a show.

To my delighted surprise, I picked up a bicycle trail that I didn't realize ran through Royal Center.  I had read about the bike trail, but I, for some reason, had it in my head that it started about 25 miles from where I was at.  It wasn't going to do me the least bit of good because it took off from there and went northeast.  I was heading northwest.

Abandon Hope (and Change!) all ye who enter!

As I was taking pictures of the Royal Center and the Panhandle Pathway signs, this lady shot me past me.  It startled me because she was the first bicyclist I'd seen since I started the trip.

Come for the boobs.  Stay for the biking.

I caught up with Sue after a couple of miles of eating her dust.  She was booking it, man.  I wasn't really trying to catch up. I wasn't riding any faster than I do normally.  I think the only way I caught up with her was she stopped to drink her Long Island Iced Tea from her water bottle.  Ok, I don't know that she had LIIT in her bottles.  Could have been liquid oxygen for all I know.  LOX would at least explained her rocket-level speed.

Sue and her husband live in Texas and vacation in Indiana.  Isn't that the saddest thing you've ever heard in your life?  That you get four weeks of vacation a year and you spend it in . . . Indiana?  Then again, hell, there I was on the first vacation I'd taken in awhile and I was spending it in Indiana.  Ya know.  Mutually benefiting geese and ganders.  Pots saying racial shit to kettles.

Mr. Sue is not pictured because (1) he's a guy and I prefer taking pictures of women  and (2) he wasn't there on the trail with his wife and I.  Ironically, he was spending the night in Columbus!  But he and Sue were avid bicyclists who rode that particular trail often.  She told me that the trail actually started -- or maybe it just ran through -- Kokomo.  I wish I'd known that when I was in Kokomo.  We yammered on about the Bicyclist 3 Rs, Routes, Rides, & Roads. We then bid each other fair winds and no flats.

For the most part I was traveling through farm land.  Both of the signs below appeared on a single grain silo right by the bicycle trail:

If only Bruce's parents had stayed on the farm with Clark's, that whole nasty business in Gotham City that night with Joe Chill wouldn't have ever happened.  Doctor Wayne would still be a simple old country doctor, Alfred would never have written that tell-all, and those rumors about Bruce and Dick would have been nipped in the bud.  They just don't do that sort of thing on Kansas farms, y'know.

Kansas Farm Boys

But, then one wouldn't have all those "action figures" to keep in one's attic and go up there every night of the week in one's superhero Underoos and our capes and our Cheetos and make up stories and pose the action figures and . . . oh, wait.  Wrong blog.

After the trail ended, it was back to riding on the roads.  You get used to 8 to 10 feet-wide pavement dedicated to bicycles. You can kind of zone out a little bit on a trail.  Not so much on a road where cars and trucks are whizzing by at 60 to 70 miles per hour.  You need to pay attention to where you're riding.  8 to 10 feet?  More like 8 to 12 inches. (Yes, girls, I know, that's enough for y'all to be constructive with . . . )

Great gam, eh?

The back of my heel was even with the edge of the "bicycle lane."  Contrary to some news reports, I'm not Big Foot.  I wear a 9.5 / 10 sized shoe.  I have to concentrate on riding the bike in that little sliver of pavement.

When I reached Knox, Indiana, I had a choice of more than one route to take to get to Valpo.  Valpo was what the girls at Mikey's Pizza Pit Stop called Valparaiso.  (Mainly because I kept telling them, "Not only can I not spell it, I can't pronounce it, either."  "We just call it Valpo."  Sold.  I'll call it that, too.

We unanimously think you're an idiot for going through Gary.

My waitress was the one above in pink.  She was quite the smart-ass and, having a PhD in smart-assery myself, I appreciate the trait when I discover it in others.  She was such a smart-ass that at one point I said, "I'd ask you for directions," (her eyes rolled upon those words), "but, then, you're a chick, so that won't do my any good."  I probably should have waited until I had my food in hand before insulting the staff.

She actually knew the hotel I was going to.  I was staying in another Super 8.  "Oh yeah.  Been there a bunch of times."  Party on, girls, party on.

Both of 'em gave me "the look" when I mentioned going through Gary.  "Ya know, what you should do," said the one in blue, "is there's this ferry, y'know?  Where, y'know, like, you can, like, ride across, like Lake Michigan, with the bike, and y'know, like, you won't have to ride through, like Gary and shit, y'know?"

Realizing she was being small-town polite and trying to help out someone she thought was retarded, I thanked her and gently said, "Thanks, I'll consider it."  What I didn't say was, "I could have strapped my bike to the car and just driven to Chicago, too.  Would have saved all the pedaling."  See?  Dr. Smart-Ass to the dining room, stat.  (Rule of thumb:  you have to be smart to pull off being a smart-ass.  Else you're just an ass.)

For the first time since Dayton the wind became a factor.  Maybe it's because I was riding so late in the day or maybe because I was hitting the back end of that storm system that had swept through that morning, but I got my full Sailor-Swearing module strapped on, to curse the son-of-whore headwinds that popped out of nowhere.  Made the last 30 miles tough.

I wrote in an earlier post that I don't know how other bicyclists do it, but I have to lie to my body and tell it we're going farther than we really are.  I had roughly figured the trip to Valpo was going to be 70 miles, so I lied to my body and said 85.  Final tally for the day?  84.8. 

Chicago Trip / Mama's Story

One of the reasons for biking to Chicago was to take my mom along with me. More specifically, to take my mom's ashes there.

Mama died of a stroke on Wednesday, January 11, 2012. She was 75 years old, confined to a wheelchair, dependent on bottled oxygen, and had a steamer trunk full of daily medications. For the last few years of her life she lived with my sister, Rebecca, in Bowling Green, KY.

For a couple of months Mama came to live with me. She was miserable the entire time. Part of it was because I'm a bachelor and I keep house to a bachelor's standards. In other words, cleaning the house to "eating on the floor" standards ain't never going to happen because I'm not going to be eating off the floor. This bothered my mom considerably that I had no desire to keep house the way she would have.

Another part of it was she was bored out of her mind. She had no "purpose" living with me. For example, my sister's house had a first floor laundry. Even in a wheelchair Mama could load / unload the washer / dryer and fold the finished clothes. Mama could cook dinner, help get my two nieces off to school, be home for deliveries, follow up on phone calls, etc.

There was none of that living with me. My laundry was in the basement, down a flight of stairs. Wheelchair bound, that was impossible for her to navigate. Many mornings as I would head out to work Mama would ask what I'd want for dinner that evening. I never think that far ahead. Most food I buy has to follow this rule: I have to be able to reach into the fridge, grab the food, and put it in my mouth. Preparation? That's what restaurants are for.  I'd have to tell her not to bother.  Fix herself something if she liked, but I'd grab something on the way home.  That bothered her. 

Mama couldn't even let Dexter out. Dexter, being a half insane Chihuahua, would get a wild hair every now and again. He'd strike out across the street at full speed to chase down any manner of random "trespassers" of his world. There wouldn't have been any way on earth for Mama to go after him if that were to happen.

I've previously mentioned that she couldn't even turn on my television. I mean that literally. A couple of remotes, the cable box itself, having to switch the input on the "monitor" (not TV, no no, monitor, if you please) from one source to another . . . it was beyond her.  Even writing the instructions down didn't help.  I recall once a phone call from my oldest daughter.  Mama had called her to find out if she knew how to operate the TV.  Mama had hit a button on one of the remotes that she wasn't supposed to.  The TV went to pure snow.  She didn't know what to do and couldn't reach me.

Even though my sister and my mom would get completely frustrated with each other ("I don't understand why she does the things she does!" was said to me by both of them) they really needed each other. My mom's happiest day was when my sister came to Columbus after a few weeks to take Mama back to Bowling Green.

Millington, TN is "home" for us. It's where my brother and two sisters graduated from High School. It's where one sister still lives. It's a half hour's drive from where my dad is buried. 

 

In 2010 the entire state of Tennessee suffered horrendous floods. Most people remember television stories of how bad Nashville got clobbered. Those stories you could see because the television crews could get to Nashville. Nashville got between 19 and 24 inches of rain. Millington got over six feet of rain. The roads were closed. (They were underwater!) You couldn't get a news crew to Millington. The town was nearly wiped off the map.

More than twenty years prior my brother had purchased a mobile home for my mom. While living in Bowling Green, Mama's intention was always to get well enough that she could "go back home" to her trailer in Millington.  The floods put that dream to an end.  Her home was completely destroyed. My sister who lives in Millington was able to save some pictures and some other things, but everything else was buried in mud.

FEMA dropped by, checkbook in hand, and wrote my mom a check for approximately 22 times what I thought the home was worth. I convinced my mom to give the title of the home to the mobile home park itself. What was she going to do with a shell of a mobile home?

In 2011 Mama asked me if I'd drive her home. She wanted to see, first hand, what had happened to her house. I was happy to. I think she just wanted to put paid to it. Get a little closure. Or maybe just to say goodbye.

We spent a couple of days in Millington. I took her to her favorite hairdresser. I drove her to her favorite restaurant. I made sure she got to see some old friends. On the second day she asked if I'd be willing to drive her down to her home town of Bastrop, Louisiana.

Again, yes, certainly I'd be happy to take her to Bastrop. Once there, we made the rounds of her remaining relatives. (She was from a family of 8. Only 3 remained.) It was a little surreal, being a 53 year old man, but to everyone else in the room, I was a kid. In fact, I was pretty much ignored as they went through their rituals of talking about their medical conditions, the ones who've passed, their grandkids and great-grandkids, and, of course, the past. There isn't much future left for any of them, but there's a ton of past left for them to pick up and examine like a Rubik's Cube.

While it was never said aloud, because it didn't need to be, this was also goodbye. It had been years since Mama had been to Bastrop. All of her relatives were in poor health, all years older than Mama, and none would ever make it from Bastrop to Bowling Green.

I have few regrets in life, but I picked one up on the way back to Bowling Green. My dad is buried somewhere in the Memphis area. I had the address of the cemetery in my GPS, but somehow the address book got deleted. My mom and I spent nearly two hours trying to find him. My regret is that my mom never got to say one more goodbye to my dad.

While taking her back home she told me stories I'd never heard of before. Her mother, Edna -- my grandmother -- had abandoned all 8 of her kids when Mama was about 3. Mama's dad -- my grandfather -- had been killed by a drunk driver. Edna decided she wanted no part of raising 8 kids on a farm by herself, so she packed up and moved to California. My mom was raised by an older sister who abandoned her life to pull it off. 

All of that I knew, but Mama told me things I didn't know. Such as her senior year in high school was spent in a town 20 miles away from Bastrop because the sister raising her didn't want her in the house any longer. Mama went to go live with an aunt and uncle. She told me of working in Texas (Texas? You lived in Texas?) making traffic lights as a girl in her 20s. Of how she and her brother and his wife took off for a weekend in California / Mexico and had a grand adventure. Three tee-totaling farm kids in a strange country. The weekend must have been great because she could still recall the laughter 50+ years later.

When my youngest sister (the last of four) graduated from high school, the "Master Plan" was for my mom and dad to travel around the country a little bit. There's no defintion of the word "rich" that would ever fit my family. "If the wolf came to our door, we'd eat the bastard" would be apt. But just when it was going to be the two of them, my dad went through a "mid-life crisis," took up with a woman five years younger than I am, and never came back. Mama went more than a little crazy and never got to travel.

After Mama was cremated, my siblings and I divided her ashes. On our travels over the next year we promised Mama that we'd take her with us and show her around. My sister in Tennessee took Mama to some of her favorite haunts, including her favorite fishing holes. Her husband is a long-haul truck driver and he took "Miss Melba" all the way across the country. My oldest daughter was given some ashes too as she's a traveling fool who spends a lot of time out west and in Hawaii. I was to take her on my bicycle journeys.

Each of us agreed to take pictures where we left Mama's ashes. At year end, I'll gather all of those pictures and the stories behind them and create hard cover books to commemorate a year's travels. 

Chicago Trip / Day 2: Logansport, IN

After breakfast at Cracker Barrel (their hasbrown casserole is more addictive than crack cocaine) I loaded the bike and headed out to what would have been my stop on a third day of riding, Logansport.

I'd checked my online banking balance before leaving and noticed that the hotel I was staying at had charged me for two nights.  I assumed since I was using a debit card they'd dinged me for some sort of dumbass "security deposit," so I went to the front desk to inquire.

"No, sir, we have you down for two nights," the front desk manager explained.  I had to go through the whole story of getting there a night early, only staying for one night, etc., etc.  They promised to credit the card back.  In the meantime, of course, I'd be denied use of those funds until my bank decided to free them up again.

This was going to be a much shorter day than the previous as I was only going about 60 miles.

It seems like there's a tradition with me on long bicycle rides, though.  Somewhere within the first 5 miles of the second day's jaunt, I'm going to get a flat tire on the back.  Sure enough, less than four miles after I started, I felt that horrible sluggish feeling I know all too well.

In the grand scheme of things, it really wasn't that bad.  I unloaded all the panniers, took off the headlight and the odometer, flipped the bike upside down, and undid the quick release to remove the tire.  Actually removing the tire itself from the rim was the hardest part of the job.  Those tires were on there tight.

I was sitting in a nice grassy patch on some bank's front lawn.  The temperature was in the mid 70s, I'm guessing.  All in all, if you're going to break down, this was about as good a place as any to do so.

What I discovered when changing the tire was that I was getting pretty low on inner tubes and CO2 cartridges.  I was down to just one of each.  Remembering the "four flat day" of last year, I knew I'd better stock up as soon as I could.

Which turned out to be in Kokomo.

Aruba, Jamaica, ooo I wanna take you . . .

As soon as I got into town I searched Google for a nearby bicycle shop.  The one it directed me to wasn't there any longer.  It was now a general fitness equipment store.  I must have looked pretty confused as a security guard for the place caught my eye and asked if he could help.

"Yeah, I'm looking for XYZ bicycle shop."

"Well, this is ABC Fitness Store."

"I can see that.  Do you know if they carry bicycle supplies?"

"Not much.  Tell you what.  Where you want to go is the Schwinn store."  He proceeded to give me directions. I thanked him for his time and took off in the direction he'd indicated.

Sure enough, less than a mile away, nestled in an industrial section, was a stand-alone building with a big Schwinn Bicycle sign out front.  It struck me as an odd place to put a bicycle store.  In the front window their "open" sign was lit, so I took it as an invitation to go inside.

The day had turned pretty warm and the store was air conditioned.  I dawdled.  After a few minutes, a guy named Mike came over to see what he could do for me:

You're going through Gary, huh?  Might I suggest the handlebar mounted Glock?

I told him about my trip to Chicago.  When I mentioned going through Gary, he, like the cop in Richmond, winced and suggested I might be better off finding another route.  He was diplomatic about it.

We chatted about long rides.  RAGBRAI had just ended the week prior.  He said he'd never been, but that was mainly because he worked in a bicycle store.  Summertime was prime time.  If he'd taken a week off during prime time to go ride a bicycle himself, he'd come back to find someone else had been given his job.  (Things are tough all over, aren't they?)

I'd told him about how tough it was to get my tire off that morning.  He showed me a couple of tricks that I prayed I wouldn't have to use anytime soon.

I spent about $30 buying spare tubes, CO2 cartridges, and some new tire removal tools.  My mental calculator was adding up all the money I was putting out on this trip.  In thinking about going cross-country in two years, the little warning bells were saying, "Dude, you're not going to be able to afford this."

I finally caught up with US 35 again (feckless bitch, she) and pointed my faithful steel steed northward.  At the first intersection this caught my eye:

How would you like your steak?  Scattered, covered, and smothered?

That didn't look like any Waffle House sign I'd ever seen.  The restaurant itself obviously was from an alternate universe.  Because, like the sign, it didn't look like any Waffle House I'd ever been in:

The alternate universe Waffle House where the cooks look like Spock with a beard.  (It's a Trekkie joke.)

Had it been breakfast, I might have been tempted to scoot across the busy 8 lane highway and check it out.  Instead, I made a mental note that the next time I'm in Kokomo, I should stop by.

My inability to read my electronic maps headed its ugly rear again.  As I was getting close to Logansport, I turned way too early and found myself on US 24.  That cost me about four extra miles of riding.  I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but, at 12 miles per hour, a mile takes 5 minutes to ride.  Four miles is an additional 20 minutes of riding time.  Make too many of those mistakes in a day, and you've managed to get nowhere.  Just imagine the frustration of being in a hot, uncomfortable car, with no air conditioning, moving at a snail's pace, realizing you've just missed your turn, and now you've got another 20 minutes to sit in a traffic jam.  That's the feeling I got when I realized I had made a mistake.

Near as I can tell, there wasn't a single port in the whole town.  Logan got robbed.

I got to my new hotel, the Logansport Inn, pretty late.  It seemed I'd taken my very sweet time getting there even though it was only 63 miles total.  (Including the 4 mile screw-up on US 24.)  I explained to the manager that my reservation was for the next day, but I was in town a day early.  If we could please cancel the following day's reservation and make a new one for today, I'd be most appreciative.  She told me she was on it.  I thought, "Yeah, the guy at the hotel last night said he was 'on it,' too, but that didn't turn out well."

I needed to do some laundry as I'd only brought two days worth of clothes, but the hotel didn't have a guest laundry on-site.  Their on-site restaurant was closing early, too.  So it was back on the bike to buy laundry stuff (more money that I didn't count on spending, though I should have prepared better) and on dinner.

My body was exhausted.  180 miles in two days.  Yet I couldn't go to sleep until about 2AM.  At least I had sweet dreams of Waffle House with Spock telling the waitresses their orders were illogical.

Chicago Trip / Day 1: Gas City, Indiana

After the very nice police office showed me the way to the trail, I was off.  (Those of you who've known me for years will, at this point in your reading, shrug and say, "You're always off, son.  This is not news.")

The Cardinal Greenways Trail is hands down the finest bicycle trail I've ever ridden.  It was 60+ miles of very well kept road.  The plants / trees on either side had grown over the trail for many miles, keeping the direct sun off of me.  In addition, the vegetation was a terrific buffer for any wind.  No traffic.  No humidity.  No direct sunlight beating down.  Well kept road.  I was truly sorry to see it end in Gaston.

I stopped in Muncie, the last big town until Vaparasio.  I'd not eaten anything since my breakfast in Gratis, so I decided to treat myself to Olive Garden.  I was lovely Communications / Hospitality major Ellie's only customer on a very slow Sunday:

Yes, sir, I can bring you a side of "whup ass."

Ellie was appropriately full of a 22 year old's enthusiasm. She'd just gone back to work for Olive Garden after a six month journey to Italy studying, ummm, Italian Studies.  ("What's that got to do with Communication / Hospitality?" I asked her.  "Nothing," she said.  "Just wanted to do it.") 

Ellie wasn't the least bit dismayed about the abysmal job prospects for college graduates.  (There's that 22 year old's optimism.)  She seemed to take it all in stride, figuring any job she'd get would be just the first step in a career.  The only thing that I said that seemed to cause her a brief moment's pause was when I joked, "I'm 54 and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up."  I'm not sure if she'd never contemplated having different careers as she got older or (this is much more likely) how she was going to kill the hostess for putting a crazy man in her section.

In all my riding, there had only been three previous occasions that I topped 100 miles in a single day.

1. The very first day I ever used "clipless" pedals.  I never have understood the term because, they're CLIPS.  There's nothing "-less" about them.  You clip your shoe into the pedal.  I finished that day with 100.2 miles.  (Had to ride around the parking lot where the car was parked just to get to 100, but, by George, I got there!)
2. 101.15 miles on August 6, 2011 on my trip from Columbus to Lake Erie.  That was a long ass day filled with flat tires and thunderstorms. 
3. Then my all time "personal best" when I rode from Richmond to Columbus.  117.28 miles on September 18, 2011.

Based on the maps I was looking at, it looked as if I was going to hit 130 miles getting to Gas City.  I don't know how other bicyclists do it, but, for me, I have to lie to my body.  If I tell my body that we're going to ride 80 miles today, my body parts will start bitching at 80.1 miles.  I swear, those parts are like kids on a long car ride.  "Are we there yet?"  "The right foot is kicking the left foot again, dad!"  "I have to go to the bathroooooom!"

If I know the trip's going to be 80 miles, I'll tell my body that we're really going 90.  Then it's pleasantly surprised when we're done 10 miles earlier.

But as soon as I "announced" to my body that we were all going 130 miles, God, you'd think I told all my parts I was donating them to Science . . . or maybe Science Fiction.  My back started moaning, my left foot cramped a little bit, and even my hair decided to stick straight out over the top of my ears under my cap.  It doesn't take much for me to look foolish / scary anyway.  This was just icing on the cake.

DeLorean now makes a line of bicycles.  None with a flux capacitor, though.

The parts grudgingly liked it when I crossed the psychological 100 mile point, though:

100 Miles.  100 is an easy number for me to remember because it's 10 times my IQ

After leaving the trail in Gaston, it was a rather uneventful ride on to Gas City. Well, there was this:

I don't want to hear one more goddamned Yankee bitch about the "backwards South" and their dirt roads.

Bar none, it was the toughest mile on the ride because I did it all through the grass.  The last time I encountered a stone / crushed stone road, it ate my tires.  Message to Indiana:  Pave your roads, dammit.

After I got done riding in the grass I was quite pleased to get back to a First World road.  About five miles from the rock road I encountered another instance that the mapping tool could not have told me about:

The Bridge is out.  Thank you for calling.  Please pedal your tired old ass around.

They had only started working on the bridge a month prior.  Not enough time to update any maps.  (And they were going to be finished soon.  Must have been a private project.  No government / union workers would ever take only six weeks to repair a bridge.)

I didn't want to back track to another route.  So I coasted across the street from this sign to a lady who was mowing her lawn.  I'd watched her for a few seconds as I approached the closed road.  She had some mad skillz in whipping around the trees of her fenced in lot.  I believe the correct term was "whirling dervish."  

In between the sound of her lawn mower and the barking of her two German Shepherds, it was hard for me to get across my question of whether or not she thought I could a bicycle across the bridge.  She didn't really know how far the construction had progressed.  She did assure me that the bridge was only a half mile down the road, so, gambling on being able to cross would only cost me a mile if I lost the bet.  I complimented her on her mowing skills and decided to double down.

The Claw!

No car could have crossed the bridge, but for a pedestrian or bicycle, it was easy to do.  I took it slow, avoided the construction detritus, and saved myself 10 to 15 miles of having to back up and go another way.

Not long after the construction, I realized that the Super 8 I was staying in wasn't in the actual town of Gas City.  It was out by I-69, much closer to where I was riding.  This meant I wasn't going to have to ride the full 130 miles.  (I kept that news from the rest of my body, though.  No need to get them all riled up.  They'd all settled down to their coloring books.) 

About two miles before the hotel, I reached the milestone I'd been looking forward to since I made the decision to ride on from Richmond:

This is the number of miles on a bicycle that it takes your legs to turn to Jello.

117.29 miles to break my own "personal best" record from Richmond to Columbus in 2011.  I would have done a little boogie dance, but, I'm a fat 54 year old man with skin tight biker shorts, an uneven tan, and really unruly hair.  Standing on the side of the road doing a boogie dance would cause blindness for drivers and no one wants that.

It was less than 2 miles to the hotel from that spot.  I'd put on my online registration form that I was arriving by bicycle, so if I could get a ground floor room, that'd be appreciated.  The clerk was duly impressed with my ride.  "You're going all the way to Chicago?"  he asked, obviously having been tipped off by Ellie at Olive Garden that there was a crazy man headed his way.  I did get a chuckle when after we'd been gabbing for five minutes about my bicycle that he reflexively asked me what my make and model of car was.  "Well, it's a Honda Accord, but it's 130 miles away in Columbus."  

It was nice to put the dawgs up:

Twin engines of raw biking power.  (In bad need of a pedicure.)

Chicago Trip / Stats

Might as well get the stats out of the way.

Day 1, Sunday, July 29, 2012: Centerville, OH to Gas City, IN

Finished Cycle: Jul 29, 2012 8:11:19 PM

Google Maps URL: http://share.abvio.com/fc28/
825e/4e37/b4c1/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20120729-0639.kml
Ride Time: 9:05:55
Distance: 119.17 miles
Average: 13.10 mph
Fastest Speed: 29.81 mph
Ascent: 4228 feet
Descent: 4286 feet
Calories: 9334



Day 2, Monday, July 30, 2012: Gas City to Logansport, IN

Finished Cycle: Jul 30, 2012 5:04:21 PM
Google Maps URL: http://share.abvio.com/fc28/
825e/4e37/b4c1/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20120730-0923.kml
Ride Time: 5:11:58
Distance: 63.97 miles
Average: 12.30 mph
Fastest Speed: 31.27 mph
Ascent: 1954 feet
Descent: 2212 feet
Calories: 5143

Gas City to Logansport

Day 3, Tuesday, July 31, 2012: Logansport to Valparaiso, IN

Finished Cycle: Jul 31, 2012 6:30:33 PM
Google Maps URL: http://share.abvio.com/fc28/
825e/4e37/b4c1/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20120731-0922.kml
Ride Time: 6:54:19
Distance: 84.98 miles
Average: 12.31 mph
Fastest Speed: 22.31 mph
Ascent: 2802 feet
Descent: 2664 feet
Calories: 6856



Day 4, August 1, 2012: Vaparaiso, IN to Chicago, IL

Finished Cycle: Aug 1, 2012 3:35:55 PM
Google Maps URL: http://share.abvio.com/fc28/
825e/4e37/b4c1/Cyclemeter-Cycle-20120801-0839.kml
Ride Time: 4:38:39
Distance: 60.61 miles
Average: 12.66 mph
Fastest Speed: 30.50 mph
Ascent: 1850 feet
Descent: 2019 feet
Calories: 4398



Grand Totals:

Ride Time: 25 Hours, 50 Minutes, 51 Seconds

Distance: 328.73 miles. (Average 81.43 miles per day.)

Average speed: 12.72 miles per hour.

Ascent: 10,834 feet. (2.05 miles)

Descent: 11,831 (2.12 miles)

Calories: 25,731 (7.35 pounds -- yeah, right.)

Chicago Trip / Day 4: Chicago

Jim Croce sang the south side of Chicago is the baddest part of town. I don't about baddest but any Third World refugee, if given a choice, would say, "Hmm. South Chicago or Shitholastan? I'm sticking with 'Stan."

The picture above is, of course, the Chicago skyline and isn't the South Side. (It is the south profile of Chicago, I'll grant you that.) More pictures of Shitholeastan's trashier American cousin later.

"Wait a minute! I've been robbed!" those 3 of you who are reading are screaming at your computer. "What happened to Day 2? Day 3? The rest of Day 1? The details of Day 4?"

It's taking me longer to write about this trip than it did to ride it. I'll take some time over the next few days to do the trip justice with my usual snark and sarcasm.

I wanted to post this to tell those 3 of you who're reading know I did make it. Got here yesterday about 4:30PM (Eastern time.)

Was treated to a meal to die for upon my arrival. It would have been scrumptous even without 4 days of fast food, Gatorade, and vending machine fare to compare it to. Might have been the best dinner I ever had.

I'm going to take off here after posting this to tackle the 18 mile Lakefront Path around Lake Michigan. It's going to be the easiest 18 miles I've done in a week.

Oh yeah: Happy Birthday, Spud. I'll give you a call later!

Chicago Trip / Day 1: Richmond, Indiana

Not long after I left Gratis I saw this sign:

Which has absolutely nothing to do with anything. But I had to take a picture of it.

Not far from that sign, I saw a mile marker sign that told me Richmond was only another 25 miles away. I did some quick calculations and realized that I was going to get into Richmond real early. Way way earlier than I'd planned.

One of the websites that I've discovered since starting to think about The Big Ride Two Years Hence is WarmShowers.org. Bicyclists themselves, the creators of the site wanted a world wide database where those of us on the road might find someone local who'd be willing to let you use a shower, sack out on a downstairs couch, or even heat some vittles for you.

In planning the trip to Chicago, I tried to utilize the database to cut down on some lodging expenses. I'm quite happy with the Motel 3s and Super 4s (they're only half as good as Motel 6 and Super 8) of the world. I'm easy to please and after a 70, 80, 90 mile day, I could fall asleep on the garage floor if that's all the space someone had for me.

Because the one immutable law of the universe is I have lousy timing, all five people who were in the WS database in the Richmond area were busy on the Sunday I was going to be in town.

One very nice lady, Amy, and her husband were actually attending RAGBRAI -- the annual ride across Iowa (this was RAGBRAI's 40th ride) -- and they told me that if everyone else bailed on me, I'd be welcome. It's just they weren't going to be home so I'd have to cool my heels until about 11PM until they arrived.

They coincidently lived right off of US 40. In fact, when I made my trip to Richmond last year I went right by the street they lived on. I knew the area, knew it was commercial, and figured I could easily entertain myself for 7 or 8 hours. Amy suggested dropping my gear off on their back porch. Even taking a nap back there if I wanted.

I had figured I'd arrive in Richmond about 3PM.

At 11:00AM this sign greeted me:

"Hi," it said. "Welcome back to Richmond. You must have put some serious spin in those wheels, fat boy, to get here so early."

Sunday was one of those incredibly rare days that only happens about twice a year. The temperature is moderate -- 70s / 80s. The wind isn't trying to knock you down. The humidity is non-existent. The sky is a blue generally only seen in Thomas Kincaid paintings. The thought of wasting that gorgeous day sitting on a porch . . . well, wasn't the whole reason for being on this ride in the first place was to ride?

I stopped at Taco Bell to ponder. Amy had texted me at one point to say they were going to be even later than 11PM. They were going to tell their dog sitter to unlock the house and allow me to go on in and make myself at home. While sitting at Taco Bell my mind wandered . . .

After Miss Indiana departed The Mexican Phone Company (Taco Bell. Get it?) my brain's circuits rebooted and I could think again. I decided I was going to try and beat my all time record of 117.28 miles by riding on to Gas City. Ironically, I set that record back in 2011 by riding from Richmond all the way back to Columbus in a single day.

Gas City was 78 miles away. I'd already ridden 50. If I survived the trip (ha!) I was going to shatter the old record.

I rode over to the local CVS and bought a "Thank You" card for Amy and her husband, Kurt. I wrote my heartfelt thanks for opening their house up to a stranger -- you can't get any stranger than me! -- and explained that I simply had to keep riding. As bicyclists themselves, I hoped they understood. I put the card on the porch (right where I could have been napping!) and headed off.

Google had told me about The Cardinal Greenways bike route that went from Richmond to Gaston, IN. Unfortunately, what it didn't tell me was where the trail head was. I got a vague sense of where it might be and pointed my bike that way.

I got to where I thought it should be, but, nothing. No sign. No bicyclists. No parked cars. There was a cop sitting in his squad car talking on a cell phone. I rode over. He paused his conversation. I apologized for interrupting and asked him if he knew where the trail head was.

He told the caller that he'd have to call (him? her?) back. He suggested that I follow his squad car. Told me the trailhead wasn't far. I said, "As long as you don't expect me to be able to keep up with you!" He answered, "I'm a bicyclist myself. I won't leave you."

Before he even got out of the parking lot we were in, he stopped his car, got out, and walked over to me. "If I get a call, I don't want to run off and leave you. So, you're not from here, are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Yeah. I guessed. Tell you what, just turn around and look over there at that flag pole by the post office." I did as he suggested. He came over and pointed over my shoulder. "See those guys riding the bikes? That's where the trail head is." Huh. All of about 200 yards away.

As any two bicyclists do when they're together, we compared rides we'd ridden. He was 51. I told him that he was young whippersnapper in comparison to my 54. I told him about my plans to retire in two years. He asked what I did and I told him about owning a massage therapy business. I mentioned my ride from Columbus to Richmond. He said he makes it to Columbus all the time because his sister is an assistant pastor at a church that I actually happen to know about. I told him the next time he was in Columbus, stop by my biz and I'll treat him to a massage. Gave him one of my business cards.

He asked where I was headed and I told him Chicago. That the only thing that had me a tad bit worried was Gary, Indiana. He grimaced. "Yeah." He put his hand on his weapon and said, "Here, just take this. Bring it back when you come back through." Made me laugh.

Chicago Trip / Day 1: US 35 is a feckless bitch . . .

US 35 breaks my heart.

I've been studying the route to Chicago for a long time. US 35 seemed to be a good choice to follow, with a few major caveats. For example, right through Dayton itself it's an incredibly busy four lane highway, indistinguishable from an Interstate. Through parts of Indiana, it is an Interstate as it and I-69 romp northward together in an orgy of asphalt.

But before 35 slips on its "come hither" look and goes straight north with I-69, and after it gets over it 4-lane "Hey, look at me! I'm a real road!" ego trip through Dayton, it becomes a nice little sedate 2 lane with ample room for a bicycle in the breakdown lane. The better to pedal my fat ass, my pretty.

To get to 35, I had to take a few other roads. Ohio 725 took me out of Centerville to the little town of Gratis:

Gratis? As in, "Free"? "No Charge?" Then, yes, thank you, I'll take a complete town.

The busting metropolis that is Gratis hadn't quite yet embraced the whole "Rise and Shine" by the time I got there. I stopped for breakfast at the local BP station. The lady working the counter had one of those, "Yeah, I'm here on Sunday because I need the hours, NOT because I give a shit whether you come back to visit us again," demeanors.

Breakfast, Gratis BP style:

From Gratis it was a pretty short trip to intersect with 35. 35 greeted me with open arms. It said, "Come with me, Bicycle Man. I'll give you the ride of your life!"

I was smitten. For some time I've been carrying on with US 23 and US 40 which run north / south & east / west out through Columbus. All of them carry big trucks and fast cars and I've always felt a special bond with them riding my little human powered two wheeler along the berm.

35 was wild and unpredictable. Sometimes it'd go north. Sometimes it'd head west. Part of it would be rock solid asphalt and then it'd shift unpredictably to crushed / packed stone. Like my other two loves, 35 could be cosmopolitan and rip right through the heart of the big cities, then quietly meander through little Americana towns, with a friendly shoulder for the grazing cows comparing notes on the latest rolling iron.

As I said earlier, I knew 35 was going to run off with 69 (and what say you keep those dirty jokes to yourself) at some point, but, before then, it was going to deliver me safely to Richmond. I was going to console myself with a new bike path while 35 finished her tryst with The Big Road, then pick her back up towards Gas City, IN.

Imagine my feeling of betrayal when, without notice, 35 did this:

Without even as much as a "how do you do," 35 said, "Hey, I'm going to play with Interstate 70 for awhile!" "But, but," I stammered, "I can't ride the Interstates in Ohio on a bicycle!" 35 dismissed me with a wave of her guard rail, and shot off at 65 miles an hour, leaving me confused, betrayed, and alone.

I angrily consulted my phone's mapping system. "Why didn't you tell me?" The phone blinked back unperturbed. "I showed you the evidence. In 16 million colors. You didn't want to believe me. I told you 35 wasn't what you wanted or what you needed. But you had to see for yourself." I quickly closed the map app and put the phone back in its handlebar mount. (I heard the odometer whisper to the phone, "Play something off his Favorites Playlist. That'll calm him down.")

Sullenly, I did the unthinkable for a bicycle rider. I backtracked. Yes. Went back a half mile. I knew what I needed. A couple of quick, down-and-dirty, "it doesn't mean anything" jaunts down some back-alley county roads to get to . . . her:

I sang the Simon and Garfunkel song for her:

Hello Forty my old friend . . . I've come to ride on you again . . .

40 didn't complain. Didn't ask a lot of embarrassing questions. Didn't want to know whose asphalt had been under my tires. Just smiled wide, showed off those great four lanes she's known for, took me by the hand and said, "C'mon. Let's go into Richmond and see what's new there, shall we?"