May 14 – We will take what ever we can get

"You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you can get what you need." A wind from the west was what we wanted, what we got was 20 mph from the south. About 20 miles of our 120 were due north, so for those legs the wind was great. For the rest of the ride a crosswind was better than a headwind. All told I rode 120 miles today in the same time it took me to do 77 miles yesterday. I would call that an improvement, but we still haven’t seen a true westerly wind. Indiana is less flat than Illinois. There seem to be more towns than in Illinois, but that might be due to the fact that we are getting near Indianapolis. The farmers in both Illinois and Indiana have planted their corn; it is about 6 inches high and blowing in the wind. In Kansas it seemed like they hadn’t started to plant and with all the rains that they had while we were there it may be a while before they can plant any crops.

We lost another hour today as Indiana has for the first time this year gone on daylight savings time. The result is that at 8 PM there will be at least another hour of sunlight and at 5:15 when we wake up it will be dark. There are also a lot of irate Indianian farmers who don't like getting up in the dark. I have been told that someone wrote to NPR claiming that the reason for all the bad weather this spring was that by going on daylight savings time earlier there was more time for the sun the heat the country and that this added heat caused the bad weather. I am not sure that I believe this theory, but I haven’t heard any other explanations.

When you ride a bicycle you get to see a lot of things that you don’t see from a car. One thing is highway litter. I have talked about shredded truck tires on the Interstates before. In states with high values for the return of cans and bottles there are far fewer containers along the roads and you often see scavengers picking up cans and bottles while riding a bicycle. There is always more debris on small bridges and overpasses than along the highway. Traffic tends to blow litter off the shoulder and into the grass on the side of the road where it can’t be seen or puncture you bicycle tire. On bridges there is usually a barrier that prevents the debris from getting off the road so it accumulated.

Road surfaces can vary greatly. Some states seem to like cement highways others prefer asphalt. As another rider said “We have been building highways for almost 100 years and apparently we still can’t figure out what the best way is.” The texture of the surface can also vary greatly even on good roads with out cracks or potholes there can be big differences in the smoothness of the surface. Sometimes the difference in road smoothness can cause a 4 or even 5 mph difference in cycling speed without any increase in perceived effort. Another thing you see while cycling are numbers written along the highway surface. These are surveyors’ measurements and depending on the state are painted on the shoulders of finished roads at 100 or 500 foot intervals. They can be fun to count onto roads where it seems that you will never reach your destination. In Illinois they do not paint the marks onto the road they stamp them into the fresh concrete or asphalt. This leaves a permanent record as opposed to pained numbers that eventually fade into oblivion.

Tomorrow morning we are going to take a tour of the Rorke bicycle factory. They only make custom titanium frames. Several riders have suggested that I might want to consider a new bicycle since my current one is 24 years old and made with an old fashioned technology, steel. After hearing the costs I do not think I will be tempted, but you never know.