In what is sure to be the first in a series of repeat performances, the Illini 4000 had it's first trip which crossed the county line. No longer are we restricting ourselves to the empty farm roads of Champaign county, but Piatt county as well (and Vermillion county next weekend). This weekend's ride extended our daily distance once again, to 61.6 miles, barely enough for a metric century. Due to this extra distance we left a bit earlier as well, kick off time scheduled for 9am, opposed to the usual 10am, however despite the earlier departure, the weather was quite cooperative and warm.Pulling out of Champaign, the front group (which included myself) took an early lead over the rest of the field. By the time we had reached the outskirts of town, the groups behind us were nowhere to be seen. I guess people were just trying to take it easy. As we worked our way through the countryside we practiced more of our group riding skills particularly, looking out for cars. About 15 miles into our trip, we stopped for an early break and waited for everybody else to catch up to us. We had about a 10 minute wait before the next group arrived, indicating that we had managed to pull about 2-2.5 miles ahead. After we had rejoined and rested for a short while we set off again.This time I chose to hang back and try to stick with the second group, whomever that happened to be. While the group went slightly slower than I really wanted to go, it was ok. At least this way I could talk with some people. Shortly thereafter we pulled through Monticello. The approach we took on 900N/1500N was considerably less hilly than the county road a mile to our north, which I had used last fall, though there was short downhill as we passed the airport and came into town proper. Eventually we made it through town and out traffic on the last leg to Allerton Park. It was at this time we learned that the front group was actually behind us as they had missed one of the turns and had to turn around, so inadvertently I was once again leading the way.Allerton presented a few surprises as we entered, including a very steep though still quite short hill, forcing most of us to downshift into our "granny gears". While waiting for the other groups to arrive, Sean led some stretches, just to make sure our muscles stay loose and we don't cramp before getting back on our bikes for the return trip. Soon enough everybody had found their way and we headed back to Monticello. In town, a group of us decided to go on the recommendation of one of our sponsors to a local restaurant called "The Brown Bag", which not only has great sandwiches, but also delicious pies. Not wanting to over eat and be uncomfortable on the way back, I stuck with a sandwich. While waiting to order our lunches, several locals came up and asked us what we were doing, after all, it's not everyday that you see a dozen cyclists standing around in your favorite restaurant. Most were impressed that we had ridden out from Champaign, and then stunned to find out that we'd be biking across the country this summer.The ride back to Champaign was fairly uneventful. The dozen of us began splitting up into our smaller groups and from there we didn't see too much of each other as we travelled at our own pace back into town.