94 miles ridden – 1650 feet climbed – temperature 29C

Another fabulous day’s cycling although at 5:30 this morning a thunderstorm came through town which woke us all up. While it caused some concern by the time we loaded at 07:00 we had a beautiful day ahead of us.

Our route took us along quiet rural lanes and small towns that were buzzing with activity as today is the first day of the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The first town we went through was called Nauvoo which has some interesting history. Originally called Venus and then Commerce it was bought by Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints  (or Mormons), and renamed Nauvoo. After his death in 1844 and with continuing conflict with the local and state authorities the majority of the 12,000 residents were led by Brigham Young to the Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah. The rest as they say is history, but it also illustrates how educational cycling can be as I never knew this before today.

Our first SAG was in Dallas City. This small town is at the convergence of a number of railroad tracks and although we couldn’t see them from our munching positions while we were there three huge freight trains came through with there horns sounding.

The next section took us through a small town called Raritan which despite a population of only 140 had an opera house and a beautiful church.

Our route essentially took us in a north-westerly direction but the grid system upon which the roads are laid out meant we alternated between going either due west with a slight crosswind or due north with a tailwind. Given the road temperature was over 40C it meant that we kept up a good speed with occasional ‘cooling off’ on the westerly sections. Again lots of open spaces and long roads:

Today’s excitement came at around 82 miles when Tim (another Brit) and I were stopped by a helpful guy in a pickup who, having asked us where we were heading, told us that the road we were taking into Galesburg had roadworks, and it was too dangerous for cyclists. As luck would have it the ABB van came along at that point and an alternative route was devised – thank heavens for Google maps.

A great day. Roll on tomorrow and our next destination – Moline.