Day 17: Champaign, IL to Wilmington, IL

• Distance: 70.50 mi
• Elevation: 1,027 ft
• Dedication: Uncle Tim
• Ride group: Maggie, Bethany, Mike, Tori, Jake, Chase, and Richa
• Host: Hill/Staley/Beckham family

Today was a very unusual day for us but it actually went quite smoothly. It started with Maggie and me roostering to wake everyone up– we found a fun morning jams playlist and obnoxiously ran up and down the hallway banging on everyone’s doors until we saw signs of life. It was the most awake I’ve felt that early in the morning!

Our original route for today was 104 miles but we are staying with our teammate Collin’s family lakefront property near Wilmington. After several hard days about half the team wanted to get to the host early and enjoy the lake, the other half wanted to complete the full route. Most of those people were not able to do the century last week (mostly due to van duty or injuries). So, we staggered our roll-out, had host van take on some water van duties for the century teams, and played it by ear! It surprisingly went very well and everyone who wanted to complete the century did so.

I opted not to go for another 100 miles today. I was very tired yesterday and have been having some discomfort with my saddle/shorts situation. Many of the ladies on this trip are struggling with that at the moment but we’re working together to figure out optimal use of Chamois Butt’r, which is quite literally saving our butts. I was also looking forward to some extra downtime at the host, which I have been using to update my blog :)

The route today could be best described as desolate: we were out in open Illinois farmland all day, passed by maybe 10 cars, and without any amenities like bathrooms or gas stations. It was nice though because we could ride a little more casually without fear of cars. We technically had two groups that were not attempting the century, but after seeing the route and having some people rack on and off throughout the day we decided to “mega-group” with 8 people. We had lots of time to take fun pictures and practice our no-hands riding and power boosts.

It was the hottest day of the trip so far (the high was 99º) and with very little shade along the roads we resorted to knocking on people’s doors to ask if we could use their shaded driveways as rest stops. As we were riding we kept hearing this strange popping sound and eventually realized that the tar on the road was bubbling and we were popping the bubbles as we rode over them. It was kind of like riding on bubble wrap! Julia and Briana were in the water van today and did an incredible job of bouncing back and forth between my group and the century groups to make sure everyone was supported and hydrated (although they did get the van stuck in a ditch at one point… I didn’t witness this but I heard Julia got it unstuck by deflating the tires a little and then pumping them back up with a bike pump, she’s a genius).

The day was otherwise pretty uneventful. We got a good taste of the Midwest with headwinds, full-lane rumble strips, and huge clouds of gnats. We passed by a windmill farm which was very cool. I had never seen one up close outside of a car– they make a cool sound!

My team had tentatively planned to rack around 3:00 to get to the host early and just see how much mileage we could cover. We ended up racking at 2:15 after covering 70 miles, a milestone I kept pushing the team to get to… some people were ready to rack after 20 miles.

Our host site was everything Collin promised. I immediately jumped in the lake with Maggie and then spent the rest of the night hanging out with the team, painting my nails with the communal 4K blue and yellow polish we now keep in the vans, and blogging a little. We also heard an inspiring cancer story from Nick, who catered our dinner.

The sleeping situation was fun because the lake house was too small to fit even half the team and was also not air conditioned. Some people chose to hammock or cowboy camp outdoors, but I snagged a spot on the screened-in porch. Since we were more or less reliant on daylight and most of the team was wiped from such a hot and long day this was the earliest turn-in we’ve had on the trip so far!

Until tomorrow,

Lauren