I was on the road shortly before 4:30am, which may seem excessive for an early start but it was every bit necessary for today's ride. Weeks ago during the trip, I had been deceived by Google Maps when the turn by turn directions took me along roads that became increasingly unsuitable for bicycles; even vehicles. Since that time, I had wised up and used Google Earth to verify the surface type of roads. After all, yellow lines down middle of a road (from a bird's eye view on Google Earth) meant that the road was paved and good, enough, for riding on. I had even gotten good enough, I thought, at determining what gravel roads appeared passable on Google Earth. Trust me, there's a point to this. When reviewing the route before leaving, it appeared that there was a gravel road (Abbe Hills Rd) north of Mt Vernon that would eventually lead to county highways that paralleled US-30 all the way to Clarence. This route was advantageous over US-30, because the shoulder of the highway between Mt Vernon and Clarence was all gravel. To my surprise, when I arrived at Abbe Hills Rd, I learned that it is a minimum maintenance road; Class B "enter at your own risk" with a speed limit of five miles per hour. How unbelievable! 95% of vehicles on the road couldn't navigate down this road without causing damage to the vehicle or getting stuck. It appeared as though an excavator had been parked in the middle of this "road" at its intersection with Highway 1 for quite some time. Perhaps the contractors packed it up and called it a day months ago? This was mildly aggravating for two reasons: 1) I had to back track to US-30 which added four miles onto an already lengthy day, and 2) I had to ride on US-30 where the was no shoulder. Usually, I would find an alternative route, but doing so would have simply made today's ride too long and would take precious time, as I had to be in Dixon by 4:45pm. For these reasons, I had to calm my nerves and ride on US-30. Fortunately, traffic was lighter traveling eastbound rather than westbound. Also, traffic east of Lisbon was much lighter. My guess is that I had already passed the majority of commuters traveling to Cedar Rapids for work. Once I was beyond Clarence, the shoulder of the road was paved and the pace of the ride quickened. Even though I had never ridden this stretch of highway before on my bicycle, I had driven this road enough for it to be familiar, so this made for a more peaceful ride. From DeWitt, I took county highways all the way to Clinton. Surprisingly, compared to US-30 near Clinton, the county highways were much hillier than I expected. After riding through Clinton, I crossed the Mississippi River on Iowa 136. Crossing on this bridge was much safer rather than on US-30, because it has a pedestrian pathway all the way across the bridge. While taking some photographs, I felt the deck of the bridge shake. Despite knowing that the bridge is supposed to do this, my natural inclination was to pedal across the bridge and into Illinois. It was just after noon, which meant that I still had enough time to squeeze in a stop at Mead's Bike Shop in Sterling. It's definitely worth noting that Mead's is a mile marker of sorts in my cycling journey. I purchased my first road bike here: a 2013 Trek 1.2, which I rode across Iowa on RAGBRAI in 2013. The experience of riding RAGBRAI motivated me to dig deeper into touring longer distances. Almost five years later, here I was stopping in at Mead's for a tune up along this coast-to-coast trip. Things had come full circle. I am extremely thankful for the fact that the tune up at Mead's was done all at no charge! From Mead's, 12 miles remained between me and Dixon. While I normally wouldn't ride on the shoulder of Route 2, I was looking for the most direct route to Dixon and this was it. When I finally arrived at the river front at the Ronald Reagan statue at 4:30pm, I had ridden 128 miles. The gathering at Tipsy's started in 30 minutes, so I headed in to get ready. Friends and family were already here, and I looked and smelled awful! Nonetheless, I was happy to see people and jumped right into conversation and catching up. About four hours later, a lot of friends and family had headed out. Understandably so, as this was a week night. I stuck around until 11pm or so chatting with a few friends that had thankfully stuck around. By this time, I was extremely exhausted and pedaled several blocks to my younger brother's apartment. The get together at Tipsy's was fun and above all, everyone's collective generosity raised nearly $1000 for the Lustgarten Foundation! What a success! This made for an unforgettable return to my hometown.
