Day 35: Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Velodrome

Pictures and comments added by Jean late Sunday night [technically 6/18].

It was a 62 mile ride from Crawfordsville to Indianapolis (or 67 miles, depending on whether one goes by the Crossroads itinerary or Gil etc's calculation). They started out at 8:05 and rode on numerous small country roads. It was a day for careful watching of the cue sheet, since there were 40 difficult turns.........only one wrong turn by Gil's group, which added a mile to their trip. [Dad, what were the average number of wrong turns? -Jean] The temperature was in the mid-90's with neutral winds. About 40 miles into the ride there was a SAG stop in the driveway of a dairy farm owned by Donna and Bob. [see picture to the right; Gil's email labels them as Bob and Ginny, which...may be correct, or may be him thinking of Jane's siblings -Jean] They have 130 dairy cows which are milked twice a day. They were asked if they used BAG BALM on the cows' udders to clean and medicate them. The riders informed the farmers that they also are familiar with the "balm" for their sore butts.....which got a laugh from the farmers. [Charming. -Jean]

Some of the riders took a side trip to the Velodrome (a bike race track with curved sides), but the rest of them decided that the additional 3 miles to their day wasn't needed. Gil arrived at the motel around 1:45, and after cleaning up sat in the shade at the pool and visited with other riders. Had a problem sending his "cliff notes" and pictures tonight.....I think one picture made it to Jean's laptop. [Jean has since compiled five pictures, some sent the next day, from her inbox, Gil's inbox, and Gil's sent files. Because an extra "l" in one's last name means some other gmail user is getting random pictures from Gil, which doesn't help Jean much. Cliff notes seem to have been lost; the error message indicated he was logged out due to idleness while composing them. -Jean, who is tired of talking about herself in the third person]

Tomorrow's ride is about 80 miles with the possibility of a TAILWIND (yippee!!!) followed by four additional days with rides even longer. The CrossRoads people said that the current group of riders were unusually well prepared and there is less use of the CrossRoads vehicles by the riders than previous groups. Good training, guys and gals!!!

The picture to the left is a tad blurry, but of some "cool office buildings near the hotel in Indianapolis." -Jean