Hi everyone! Welcome to day 18. Today we had to say goodbye to Champaign :( But, we are now on the way and only one day away from Chicago where a lot of our riders have families and friends, so that is of course a huge plus. The team met bright and early at the Alumni center on campus, and since everybody stayed in different places we had to bike there with our backpacks. It was certainly a new experience that made me appreciate the fact we have a van to carry all of our stuff the rest of the time.
The route today was, in a typical midwestern fashion, fairly unremarkable. Completely flat with corn fields around as far as the eye can see. We did hit a patch of unpaved gravel-y road for a few miles which is always highly unpleasant on our road bikes, but it was nothing any of us couldn’t handle.
For me personally the riding ended early as I fell off my bike again for the second time in the past 3 days. Unlucky me, but I am hoping this is the end of my bad luck for now and very grateful I did not suffer any serious injuries yet again.
The boys’ picture
Former I4K president Mike rode the first 20 miles out of Champaign with us!
We had almost 90 miles of riding today which went surprisingly quickly for the team, and we were able to make it to our Kankakee stayover at about 3 PM. After taking showers at a YMCA, we headed back to the stayover for an absolutely delicious dinner provided by the members of the stayover - the Adventure Commons church. We then had an opportunity to take portraits with the amazing ladies who cooked our meal for us.
-Valerie