Today was the final official training ride before we leave for New York. For reasons unbeknown to me not too many people showed up, which I found to be somewhat disappointing. Perhaps, after having done the largely anticipated camping trip last weekend, nobody thought that there was still going to be more. Or maybe everybody was competing in the triathlon (I know a couple of people were), but more likely, finals season was approaching and people had projects and papers which took more importance than riding down to Tuscola.It's a real shame that these people didn't make it out because it was a beautiful day to ride. In fact, with the exception of last weekend, all of the days we've gone out riding have been pretty nice. Besides the weather, today's route was also important as it incorporated the most city riding that we will experience before arriving in New York City. Until now, most of our rides have been on country roads or through small towns where there isn't much traffic, however our route this morning was going to take us through downtown Champaign in hopes that we would have to deal with the situations which generally present themselves in more populated areas. Unfortunately as we rode through downtown Champaign, we encountered none of these situations, mostly because there was almost no traffic to be seen. This may be typical for Saturday mornings, I don't know, but the streets did feel pretty empty.After our ride through downtown Champaign we headed south down State Street, passing (relatively) close to where I lived before cutting back towards 1st Street which we would take all the way down to Tolono. In Tolono we would find more nearly empty streets, however being a much smaller town, this was not entirely surprising. By the time we had reached the southern outskirts of Tolono, we had already formed a sizable lead over the next group of riders. We stopped for a few moments just to get our bearings and relax, hoping that those behind us would eventually catch up. As we were setting out again, we happened to see the next group of riders nearly a mile behind us. At least knowing that they were there, we continued on towards Tuscola, another 10 miles to our south.That sighting was the last we ever saw of any other riders that day. After reaching Tuscola, we stopped for at least 15-20 minutes, hoping that somebody else would show up, however we never saw anybody. We suspect it was because we stopped further along on the route than any other group, so they were all resting elsewhere in town. The ride back was otherwise uneventful.Sorry, no pictures from the ride this week.