After the crazy storms last night, the team was slightly fearful of what the weather might have in store for us, but we awoke to the sun shining as bright as usual. We have been very lucky with some amazing weather so far (I just knocked on wood as I wrote this), besides some headwinds here and there. Before getting into all the escapades and adventures of the day, which, believe me there definitely was a lot, we would just like to thank our teammate Ren and her family for hosting us these past few days. All this fun we are having would not have been possible without them.
Ride Overview
Mileage: 82.8 miles
Elevation: 1,663 ft.
Tales of the Trail
During our morning preparations today, someone proposed a challenge of everyone doing two sidequests during the bike ride today. (photo evidence required) The ride today started with a short 1-mile bike ride to the park, where we planned to meet the alumni for the first stretch of the ride. However, as we went to roll out, one of the bikes got two flat tires that had to be fixed before we could head out. Today, we added two (temporary) honorary Illini4000 members to our squad: Ren’s dad and Sam Michalak. (a 2023 alum!) With our new additions to the team, the first 20 miles flew by as we were mainly on bike paths.
After 20 miles, we said goodbye to Sam M., and Ren's dad stayed with us all the way until mile 20! Honestly, outside of regaling the tales of our first 20 days to the alumni and family, the first 40 miles were quite uneventful. Even though after our second rest stop, we were already halfway through the biking of the day, this is where the day honestly really started. By this time, all the teams on the road realized that if they were going to get their two side quests in, it would have to be soon. This was quite a coincidence, though because around this time is when my team rolled past our first side quest, which honestly was 3 wrapped into 1. First, we rode our bikes in a skate park, which was a ton of fun. The very steep curves and ramps were slightly scary, but we all made it out unscathed. Then we climbed up a thing that cannot be described as anything but a “climbing pyramid.” Anthony even took his bike all the way to the 20-foot peak! Keeping Cole and my tradition from earlier in the ride, our group then went to take a picture with a Caboose. Another team went to a gift shop and a cool soda store. It was the perfect stop to get in our necessary two side quests of the day.
Just as we thought the day couldn’t get any better, we got a surprise mandatory side quest from none other than Cole (driving the van today.) As we were about 2 miles out from our planned rest stop, a random walgreens, we saw him waving us down on the side of the road. At first we were surprised our rest stop came so quickly, but then we looked to our right and realized our day would now consist of a lot more fun. While van driving, Cole found an amazing substitute for our rest stop at a driving range. The owner was even nice enough to donate two buckets of balls for our team to use for free! Our sidequest was not so simple as just hitting balls at the driving range however. Cole proposed a challenge for us: a two-hit competition, one being who could hit the ball the furthest, while the other being whoever could get the ball closest to a specific flag. (about 25 yds out) This was a very fun way to break up our day and to take our minds off the biking. It was evident from some of our golf swings that a few of us had definitely played golf before, had never touched a club, or had played another sport. It was fun to see those who had played cricket in the past and tried to swing it like a cricket bat, others who tried to swing with enough power to hit it to the moon, and even created new never-before-seen golf swings.
After we rolled out from the last rest stop we had planned on keeping a nice comfortable pace for the last 20 miles. Since we just had a rest day our plan originally was to try and preserve our fresh legs as long as possible. This plan soon went out the window. About 5 miles into the last stretch my group was in the “lead”, but got overtaken by group number 2 at a blazing pace. Now if you know anything about Illini 4000 then you know that racing, going fast, or getting anywhere first is never our goal. However one thing that is true about all of us riders is that we never back down from a challenge. Without even talking about it the front two teams mutually agreed on racing to the finish. Was this the best idea for our fresh legs? No. But, was it some of the most fun we’ve had on the ride so far? A resounding yes. So with about 12 miles to go my team fell into a line and took turns pulling into a tough headwind. After slowly inching up on the team that had passed us earlier we did end up passing them about 4 miles later. This was about the time the other group realized the race was on. We began flying down the road as fast as we could, and no matter what the other team was still within eyesight every time we looked back. It was a tight race until the end and we ended up finishing within minutes of each other. I am 100% that this will be a legendary story that will be told for years to come. (Probably exaggerating our speed a little more every time, although while biking it did feel as if we were in the Tour de France) Although I suppose it is more like the Tour de Illinois.
Today was overall a very fun day full of random adventures you couldn’t find anywhere else besides biking across the country. After hearing plenty of fun stories from alumni that we’ve met, our team was slightly worried about doing enough side quests or fun things off the bike. I think after today, however, we have plenty of stories of our own to share and are very eager to experience more of what the ride has to offer.
Cyclists Corner
Rider: Tada Wagner
How are you feeling today?
I was really tired, and I'm still pretty tired right now, but I feel pretty good overall. Yeah, I'm very happy.
What was your favorite part of today's ride?
Honestly, the race was really fun. The end part where we were the first and they caught up to us and passed us, and then we passed them again, so that was really fun. Everyone had very high competitive spirits, so that was very entertaining and fun. That was definitely the highlight of the day for me.
What motivated you to join Illini 4000?
The reason I joined Illini 4000 I mean, I obviously love cycling. Cycling is a big part of my life, but obviously the cancer aspect and the portraits project was a really big draw to me, obviously, since my mom has cancer. I joined so I was kind of more able to talk about it, like cancer as a whole, and I never really talked about it with my family or my mom. So being part of this organization has definitely helped me kind of open up and be a little bit more vulnerable around this topic, because, you know, it's, you know, it's a hard thing to go through, and a lot of people kind of just tend to push it away and try to deal with it later. That's not good, because you know that compounds, and yeah, so that was one reason. Another reason I joined was I wanted something that would give me structure and routine, and Illini 4000 does that, like we wake up at the same time, go to sleep at the same time, we eat the same thing, so that was also a draw to me.
Before joining Illini 4000 how much bike biking have you done, or did you have any other athletic background that you thought helped for the ride?
I used to do cross country and track, so that definitely helps, and I've been riding with Illini cycling for the last year. That is about the extent of my athletic experience before Illini 4000 so I think that definitely prepared me pretty well for the trip.
What is your bike's name and the model of your bike?
My bike's name is Kelsey, and it's named after my girlfriend, and the model of my bike is a Lightspeed Ultimate. The old one is Klein Quantum, also named Kelsey, after my girlfriend. (Extra input from the journalists: Tada’s old bike was awesome, but as it is a vintage bike it did not quite happen to have the gearing necessary for the hills we will be climbing out west, so he got a new bike. Although I am sure his old Klein will see many more miles once we get back to the flat roads of Illinois in the fall.)
What are you most nervous and or excited about for the trip?
What am I the most nervous about? I mean, going in definitely was like just living with 13 of the same people for the entire summer. I'm not a very overly social person. I tend to stay by myself a lot, so being with the same people all the time and having to socialize with different people all the time was definitely a very hard thing at first, and something I had to get used to. Definitely something I was nervous about. It was definitely good, because I got, you know, out of my comfort zone. But something I'm really excited for about this ride is I think every day I'm excited just like meeting new people and seeing new things. I mean, I know Illinois and Iowa are probably not gonna be very interesting, and Nebraska isn't either. I think just seeing new faces and people I've never met, and hearing so many different perspectives of different people that I would have never had the opportunity to talk to or see. I think that's like the main thing that has really brought me a lot of joy about, like, through this trip.
And then any words of wisdom to the world? Anything you want to talk about?
I guess just kind of like, you know, if you feel like you want to do something, just do it. When I had heard about Illini 4000, I definitely was drawn toward the organization, but then I was like, "Oh, this is a three-month commitment. I don't know if I'm actually really going to do that, and I don't know if I really want to. I'm the type of person who really is ambitious, but tends not to follow through in a lot of things, because I get really nervous. I like to stay in my comfort zone. So, break out of your comfort zone, do what makes you happy. You know, you got to just, you know, you just got to do things. You have to experience life, can’t hold yourself back.