On PAC Tour you don’t get off-days. Every day is a biking day. But, sometimes, sometimes Mother Nature generates a fantastic tailwind on a shorter day turning the day into a play day. Cooler temperatures combined with a tailwind that converted a soft spin into 17mph meant no rush at the rest stops and plenty of time for chatting. What a fun day! I haven’t moved that quickly down the road for that much time in a very, very long time. Today I moved like a real bike! Woot!
Heck, today was so easy that even my human managed to break the cardinal rule of PAC Tour, “Thou shalt not arrive at the hotel before 3PM” by rolling in 15 minutes early. We tried to take it easy, keep it constrained, take longer at the rest stops, but when that wind carries you, you just want to play!!!!! And play, we did.
The route today was again fields and more fields of corn and soybeans and more corn and more soybeans. To add a little contrast to the view we were also in wind turbine country (hmmm….strong tailwind….wind turbines….correlation? Naw). It is amazing how cooler temperatures and a tailwind can make the same basic terrain pleasant and interesting when at 90+ and a headwind we all growled at the monotony, bikes and humans. But today we saw it as interesting. Tomorrow? Tomorrow is another day and time will tell what Mother Nature will throw at us as we roll out of Illinois and into Indiana.
Details. 100 miles 1109 feet of climbing 14 strain
Reading List Coyote America Dan Flores. This was an Audible freebie and surprisingly good. Natural history of the coyote, its migration from the west to the entire US as a urban predator.
Travels With Edwina 