1200 miles later

Here we are in the flat, windy, WINDY Midwest, in Springfield, IL. It's been quite a while since I've had free time to blog - my apologies - it's just that we usually only have a counted number of free minutes in our day. (We're on our bikes oftentimes for 12 hours a day, then need to EAT!, stretch, shower, clean our bikes, and do our daily chores to keep the group moving). However, one person of our group of 32 riders writes a journal entry every day and they are all posted on the Bike & Build website along with lots of photos. So if you're interested in following us more closely, check it out here.

Here are some brief highlights. So far, my favorite states have been West Virginia and Kentucky. We took all back roads (and often times quite gravely) and really saw into the heart of WV. The hills were wonderfully forgiving especially after the hills of CT (which I never knew existed) and the steep mountains of NY and PA. By contrast, WV just kept you continuously shifting gears and enjoying the ups and downs of the terrain.

We crossed over the Ohio River into Kentucky at 6:30 am on a misty, cool morning. It was an eerie sort of feeling along the winding roads that opened up to vast farms and open landscape. The ride from Paris to Louisville KY was covered in brown wooden fences surrounding hundreds of thoroughbreds and hay field after hay field.

Now we're in Illinois and the Gulf Stream is blowing with all it's might against us (we're heading East to West). I am calculating that the winds are around 25 mph - so strong that when I'm going downhill, I need to be in my lowest gear possible just to keep going - (and to give you a reference, I pedal in my lowest gear while biking up a 12% grade up a mountain in PA, and here I'm biking downhill but still need it!) And as you can imagine, we're passing corn field after corn field, with interspersed soybean fields.

The next couple of days will bring an important landmark - the Might Mississippi River - into the Great Plains we come!