14 July 2007
It was unclear from the weather forecast (no Weather Channel on the TV,
either) whether or not I'd be running into any rain, so I buttoned up
my gear pretty well, just in case...
Traffic was pretty slow to start
the day; there are lots of people in south-eastern Wisconsin and
north-eastern Illinois--and a lot of them were going somewhere on a
Saturday morning. Once I got south of I-80, towns thinned out and so
did traffic, and what there was was doing between +5 and +10, so I kept
up, for the most part.
The sky gradually cleared out, and once I got
into Indiana the day turned out quite pleasant. There were a lot of
bikers out, most on Harleys (or clones thereof). Maybe 5% of the ones I
saw all day wore helmets, and after the straggler BMW's heading for
West Bend I only saw one guy all day dressed in full gear. Guess
they're all invulnerable.
When the day started, I checked my projected
finishing time (as usual), and watched it creep later and later as I
went through all those little towns. And most of the roads I was on all
day had 50-60 mph speed limits, so I was loathe to stop, except for
gas. But 4+ hours is too long to be sitting on a bike, especially with
the seat I've got now. I'm going to force myself to stop for 10 minutes
every two hours, and get in 20 minutes later (big deal).
Toward the end
of the day, I got onto the Pennyrile Parkway, which (finally!) had a 70
mph speed limit, so I started making up for the early slows. (Turns out
it's going to be an Interstate next year...) But by now it was getting
pretty warm (upper 80's according to my new thermometer), and I was
still all buttoned up, so I was getting pretty uncomfortable. I didn't
have quite enough gas to make it all the way to Clarksville, so I took
advantage of the gas stop to open some vents and unzip some zippers.
I'd set a Quality Inn as my destination, figuring there'd be some
lower-priced competition in the vicinity. I'm at the Midtown Inn ($55,
somewhat higher than their advertised $39 [but it did say "and up"] and
at least it has Wi-Fi), and rode back two miles to Kroger ($13).
States:
Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee
508 GPS miles (4229 total), 55.5 moving average, 82.4 max.
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