Today was an exciting day, as everyone was ready to meet the one and only - Randy! This year will be the 17th year that our team has been hosted by Randy in Rockville, IL. The team was ready to tackle the flat roads and ended up finding some of our first license plates on the ride! (Only more to come)!
Quote of the day
Hanxi: “There was a time I didn’t consider banana a fruit”
Katie: “What is it then?”
Hanxi: “Carbon dioxide”
ride overview
Mileage: 62.5 Miles
Elevation: 1,827 ft
Points of Interest: Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Rockville First United Methodist Church, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, Neva’s Antiques and Collectibles
Ride Dedication: Randy
Tales of the Trail
The team was eager to get going this morning as tonight we would be staying at the one and only - Randys’! We started off with our morning circle, and for one of today’s morning activities, each group was required to create a poem. It could be a haiku or something longer, so each team spent their time throughout the ride trying to create their own poems. It got our brains thinking and legs moving as we made our way over to Randy’s.
Our route had us pass by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where we could hear the cars zooming by inside the stadium. One could only imagine what a bike race would look like inside a track like that. Our first rest stop was at a Walmart, with a very much needed Subway inside. Some teams decided to get some sandwiches while getting some much-needed supplies from the store. The rest stops became quicker as everyone was excited to get to our stayover for the night. The roads were smoother and less mountainous (perks of the Midwest for biking purposes), allowing us to be more efficient on the bikes. One team was even able to find two Indiana license plates on the side of the road as memorabilia!
Once the teams saw the big red doors at the front of Rockville's First United Methodist Church, we knew we had made it. We were greeted by Randy and the fellow locals and he shuttled us to some fairgrounds where everyone got much needed showers. Afterwards, the team was spoiled with snacks and an amazing dinner. The dinner consisted of pulled pork, potatoes, mac n cheese, and way more! After the filling dinner, the team was provided with dessert and an opportunity to fill up their classic “Love Bags”, a gift from Randy where we each filled gallon-sized plastic bags with as many snacks as we could fit. To relax for the night, the team got to rock painting and piecing together a puzzle. Thank you to the members of the RFUMC community who helped prepare a lovely dinner for us and breakfast the following morning, along with the rock painting activity, and giving us some floor space to sleep on. We are grateful for the support and kindness we encounter throughout this ride. Thank you to Randy and the RFUMC community members for having us again this year, and for more years to come!
Cyclist’s Corner
Today’s Rider: Jason Wang
How are you feeling today?
I'm feeling good, a little bit tired, but it's been a good day.
What was your favorite part of today’s ride?
I think rolling into Rockville, seeing the church, and just being welcomed into the church by Randy and everyone else here. Everyone was so welcoming, especially after being honked at and harassed off the road just moments earlier. It was a really nice change of pace.
What motivated you to join Illini 4000?
Oh, lots of reasons. Illini 4000, I've known about it since I came to U of I when I first started my PhD program. I found out about it when I was working at Neutral Cycle, which has now been rebranded to Bike Lab. At the time, I helped order and fit bikes for the ride members of the 2018 or 2019 team, and it was something I was always interested in, and then all throughout my own PhD research career, the cancer aspect overlapped a lot my own research where, although I study pluripotent stem cells, a lot of those signaling pathways directly overlap with how cancer develops. For example, many cancer genes are also called proto-oncogenes, and many stem cell genes are the same proto-oncogenes. So there's always been a lot of research overlap. And then I also worked with the cancer center when I was a tissue microenvironment research fellow at the Beckman Institute, and I remember having lunch with one of the teams one year ago. So, unintentionally, I've always gotten to interact with the I4K without ever really being a part of it until this year.
Before joining Illini 4000, how much bike training had you done, and did you have any other athletic background that you feel prepared you for this ride?
So I've been biking since I was 12 or 13, but I never really biked seriously until the last couple of years of my PhD. But I think a lot of that did help train me for Illini 4000, but at the same time, it's still different since in Illini 4000 you bike day after day after day, whereas when I was biking with the cycling club at U of I it's just like, you bike a few times a week and you get plenty of rest in between. So the experience and the training is still very, very different. I don't think there is anything that could really quite fully prepare you for I4K, except just by doing it
What is your bike's name? Model?
So I've always just called my bike by the brand that it is. It's a Niner RLT with full Tiagra.
What are you most nervous/excited about?
I'm really excited to cross over into the Rocky Mountains. That entire part of the US is somewhere I've never really been before. So far, all the places we've been from day 1 to 15, I'm quite familiar with. Once we cross over the western side of the United States, it's all gonna be brand new to me. So, hey, I am quite nervous but also excited to see what's out there.