96 miles in 9.75 hours – Max Speed 26mph
Dirt Road I took in the morning.
I got up and did the customary 20 miles before breakfast, and I stopped at Burger King in Canton, IL. They had a deal where they had two Whoppers for $2.50, and not only that, but Burger King serves burgers all day. The perfect start to the day.
I headed north in Canton and got on the 116, so I was back to the John Egan route. I headed towards Peoria, and then, an unmarked Police Car passed me and pulled over and turned on its lights. Uh oh, I thought. Finally time to get in trouble for having earbuds in, perhaps (illegal in pretty much every state). Nope, he just wanted to talk because he had done a bike tour from New Mexico to Peoria when he was my age. We talked for a while, he called me crazy for going alone, and then he told me to hurry through Peoria because I was going through a bad area. I sort of shrugged it off and thanked him, and carried on.
Flower.
I headed the last couple miles towards Peoria, and then into the city. And sure enough, I was in the ghetto. I mean, this was no doubt about it, I was in the slums. And unlike in LA, I was in the residential area of the slums, and not the commercial area, which is an even worse place to be. I was pretty surprised, even though I had the warning, because in my experience police officers often overstate the roughness of an area, but not this time.
I made it through in one piece, and then had to go over the Illinois River. The bridge over it was four lanes, and had absolutely no shoulder or sidewalk. This was the worst bridge I had to go over the entire trip. I just took the center of the right lane, and chugged up the one side of it and back down the other. Then, in East Peoria (much much nicer than Peoria) the 116 had no shoulder again for five miles despite still being four lanes and very busy.
Finally, a nice six foot shoulder appeared and I went up a serious hill as I was leaving the Illinois River Valley. Then it flattened out and I got to do some easy miles.
The Americans have captured some random hill in Illinois.
I approached the town of Minonk, and I knew that there was another cheap motel 6 there, so I turned and went north to it. I walked in and took the bike. I talked to the desk guy for a while, who was a bicycler, and he gave me a big discount, so the room cost me $27.99. Not too bad. I showered, updated the website, and did laundry, as usual in places like this. The main excitement of the night came when I checked my weather app on my phone, and it said that I would get a wind out of the West tomorrow. I had had a headwind everyday since the Laramie, WY day, so this was exciting. I tried to temper my enthusiasm, but I was praying that the forecast was correct.
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