It was also just a beautiful night; the days are getting shorter but the light is getting better, and while it had been hot during the day, it had cooled off enough by the time I rode that I felt more comfortable on the bike than I had in some time. I also had my red-lensed sunglasses, which make everything look more appealing. I tried to reproduce the effect, again, in my photos.

The ride was routine for a while, but this is one of my favorite routes. It’s just packed with variety. I felt strong on the bike, and I was having a blast! A totally different story from my rather sluggish ride over the weekend.

Soon I had a big hill to climb. It’s pretty steep for a while in this direction, but it wasn’t too bad. As you can see I’m trying out a helmet mirror. At first I hated it. It’s growing on me now, but I have to say, I rather like Chandra’s DIY helmet mirror.  His has a much bigger mirror!

Next was an out-and-back section on Handy Road, which is quite flat. I saw several deer along the way.

I also got a nice glimpse of the lake. Unfortunately during one section there were clouds of insects in the air and I had to cover my face with one hand to avoid getting them all over my face.

And then turned around. Now I was heading into the sun which was getting quite low in the sky, but partially obscured by clouds. Enough that it wasn’t blinding me.

Soon I was headed down Ramp Creek Road. Here I had an insane descent, a hill I’ve climbed a couple of times, but decided it’s best to descend, going this way.

Almost immediately after this, I had to climb back up. However, the climb in this direction really isn’t too bad.

After the long, twisty, dark climb through a wooded area, climbing out into the open and seeing flat straight road, and a lot more light, was quite a transition.

Soon I turned onto Fairfax Road for some medium-sized hills. The road has been paved recently and is buttery smooth. It was bliss.

This next shot is possibly one of the better ones I’ve gotten recently. It’s worth viewing it large.

View Large On Black

After a few rollers and one longer climb, I was home. It was only about a 19-mile ride, but I loved every minute of it.

Anyway, Sunday I went for a great ride with my mountain biking friend Dave. But this time, we rode on the road. He got some skinny tires for his full-suspension mountain bike, so we decided to go try them out.

The ride we did is a local classic, up to Morgan-Monroe State Forest, through the forest, and back down again. I rode to/from his house as well, giving me 53 miles for the day. Here’s the route, with a few edits for privacy’s sake.

I felt decent on my way over to Dave’s, though I sort of forgot that since we moved, the ride to Dave’s is now 13.5 miles, instead of the seven or so miles it was before. I wasn’t going blazingly fast, but I wasn’t doing too badly, either. The cornfields and such along the way were turning yellow. The past couple of months have been very dry here and it’s taking its toll. In some places leaves have already died and fallen off some trees. Fortunately that problem isn’t too widespread yet, but I’m worried that if things continue this way we may not have a very spectacular fall.

It was going to be a hot day. It wasn’t too bad when I arrived at Dave’s a little after 10:00 am, though. We set out and had a great ride up to the forest. Dave had no problem at all keeping up with me, even though he was on his full-suspension mountain bike and I was on my road bike. His new tires make a huge difference! I believe they’re Panaracer Pasela 26×1.25″ tires, for the record.

Old 37  has a new surface that’s incredibly smooth, and a joy to ride on.

A red-tailed hawk  swooped alongside us, briefly.

Once in Morgan-Monroe, we saw the “Hardwood Ecosystem Experiment,” where they have clearcut an area, supposedly to find out what happens when you clearcut an area. It seems to me there were plenty of pre-existing examples they could study, but what do I know? Dave hadn’t seen this yet and was pretty shocked. I’ve seen it a few times but it is still shocking to see a big section of forest is missing.

We rode over to the forest office to top off our water bottles, and headed back toward Bean Blossom Road, where we would descend out of the forest. However, we made a stop along the way to see Draper Cabin, which is available for rental. The cabin is in a ravine by a couple of creeks, and we had to hike further than we expected, downhill, on a chunky gravel drive, and then hike back up. It was worth the trip, but by this time it was getting quite hot and we missed having the airflow from riding. It was awkward walking, too, in our cycling shoes.

The creeks were dry, but still charming.

We hiked back up and got back on our bikes. Next we would have a long, flowing descent down Bean Blossom Road. It’s about a mile and a half, mostly downhill, on very smooth pavement. This is a hell of a climb if you’re going the other way. I’ve done it a few times, it’s not fun. Unfortunately, Dave was having some issues with his brakes and had to go very slowly down the hill.

Soon we were out of the forest and the road flattened out for a little bit.

Unfortunately, the route we took back had us climb Shilo Road. It’s only steep a little bit at the start, but the road mostly climbs for 3-4 miles. It’s not a constant climb, but it’s very tiring. It was really getting hot now, which didn’t help, either. At least there was some shade. Dave got significantly ahead of me during this part … I was definitely feeling my recent lack of long rides.

When we got back to State Road 45, we went our separate ways. Dave was just a couple of miles from home. I had another 12-13 miles to go. It was really hot, and there was no shade available. My stomach was starting to not feel too well. I stopped in New Unionville and got some fresh, cold water, which helped a lot. I rode on home, not moving very fast, but doing OK.

I took High Street through town, a new route for me. Now High Street can get busy at times, but I figured it’d be quiet on a Sunday afternoon, and I was right. There were very few cars. It was a little hilly, but the hills were of the fun, small, rolling variety, with a nice downhill at the end.

Then I rode through the “Goat Farm” park on the new portion of the Jackson Creek Trail, which connects with our neighborhood. It was quite scenic and surprisingly vacant.

However, there’s a decent climb up away from the park. Normally this hill doesn’t give me too much trouble, but I was running out of steam. My legs actually started cramping on the way up. I was less than a mile from home, yet my legs were cramping! Argh.

I stopped at the top of the hill to catch my breath, and got rolling again. Soon enough, I was home.

When I got home, I concluded that I shouldn’t have gone so long between long rides, and I should have at least done SOME rides during the week. Wow, that hurt. I guess my acclimatization to the heat took a hit as well, as it cooled off briefly, mainly during the time I wasn’t riding.

Despite my difficulties, it was a great ride, and I was thrilled to be back on the bike doing a real ride. It was also awesome to ride with Dave … we haven’t had enough chances to ride this year.

Then I got sick. I could feel it coming on last night, so I took a bunch of meds before bed. I woke up still feeling crummy, but not as bad. I still have a sore throat. Not sure what’s going on, but I don’t like it.

So, I guess I’m taking it easy for the time being.  I found time to work on some music over the weekend, which was enjoyable at times, but overall it was frustrating. I ran into a bunch of boring technical problems. I managed to get a few things accomplished, but until I have all my equipment set up, it’ll be difficult.

I have missed riding, but I’m also enjoying a bit of a break. Hopefully I can get out soon.

It’s been an interesting year, so far. I’ve ridden a few centuries, and even completed the 160-mile Ride Across INdiana. I’ve ridden faster, and covered much greater distances, than ever before. All of this leads me to ask: what now?

I’ve given some thought to pursuing even longer distance rides, either through Randonneuring or other channels. And I have to admit, longer distances do sound appealing. For a while it felt like I was trying to see just how far I could go (literally).

But, the thing that I didn’t really consider, going into the longer rides, is that not only do the long events themselves take up a huge chunk of time, the training it takes to be able to do them is even more time-consuming.  It seems a few of the more hardcore local riders ride centuries on at least a weekly basis, if not more. For me, I think that would be physically doable, but it would leave me drained all the time, and I wouldn’t have time to spend with my beautiful wife, or doing anything else. I also think it would cease to be fun, if I approached riding that way.

After RAIN, I debated finding a double century or something else to build up to. But instead I found my riding tapering off a bit. Aside from commuting, I’ve been doing less riding during the week, and my weekend rides have mostly been shorter. And you know what? I’m having a blast!

Ultimately, cycling is a hobby. I’m glad I focused on it enough to do RAIN, but I need to find some balance. I need to spend more time with my beautiful wife, and our dog, and the rest of my family. And I also want to spend time on my other hobbies … especially writing music.

Music

You might ask, “What music?” I originally started this blog to chronicle my music-writing. I used to make electronic music, on a regular basis. Cycling just took over, and I haven’t written any music, or written about music, for quite a while. I miss it, and I’m going to start making music again. If you want to check out my music, listen to the album I made back in 2006, Elements (it’s free). There’s more where that came, which I will find a good way to share soon.

What does this mean?

Cycling-wise, I still intend to ride a lot, and probably even do centuries on a semi-regular basis. For right now, at least, I have no intention of pursing anything much longer than that, unless it takes the form of a multi-day tour. I’m not really scaling back my cycling much, except to return it to normal levels before I started training for RAIN.

And hopefully, you’ll see some new music from me soon. You might also see some music-related posts popping up around here. If they don’t interest you, ignore them. Or, you can always read only my bicycling posts, if you prefer.

I’ll leave you to ponder this hilarity: Ambient Sequencer AS-606.

In the morning, a few storms rolled through, but based on the radar, it appeared they would blow through, and then the rain would stop. So I waited a while before starting my ride. As soon as the storms stopped, I got ready and rolled out.

It was still overcast and gloomy and the roads were quite wet. I bought some clip-on fenders for the Bianchi but forgot to bring them. Oh well!

After riding on a couple of busy roads very briefly, I was surprised at how quickly the scenery started looking rural.

In fact, within probably about a mile of where we were staying, I found myself on a gravel road.

I have been wondering how the Bianchi would handle gravel, so I suppose it’s just as well. Frankly I’ve been reticent to intentionally take such a nice road bike on gravel roads, but I didn’t hesitate to take the gravel here, that happened to be on the route.

Naturally, the bike did just fine. It sure got dirty, riding on the wet gravel, but that’s OK.

There was even some washboarding and still, the bike did fine. It sure was a rough ride, but I had no problems.

Once I was back on paved roads, I mostly had chipseal to deal with. It wasn’t really much smoother than the gravel.

I crossed I-469.

The roads here are so much flatter than what I’m used to. There were a few small hills here and there, but not many.

The scenery was different from what I’m used to as well. Long flat fields of soybeans and corn, and farms, and a few homes, all laid out in a grid pattern. At home, where it’s hillier, the roads take a much more circuitous path. I prefer my home terrain, but I always enjoy trying to get the feel for different areas.

Soon I reached the small town of Ossian.

It was a cute town, with a nice downtown area.

A bakery, and later a coffee shop, tempted me, but I was only 10 miles into my ride. I kept on riding.

As I left Ossian, I could feel the heat picking up a little bit. It was already quite humid, from the earlier rain. Things also got a little hillier.

And then, I found myself on a gravel road once again.

This time, I was on gravel for a good three miles or so, and a few hills made it a little more challenging. Again, the Bianchi did fine, but I do think that trying to ride gravel with big hills would be a problem, with such skinny tires.

I crossed “Eight Mile Creek” a couple of times.

The next sections of road altered between paved and gravel.

I reached Zanesville, IN. It seemed to be too small to have much of a downtown area. In fact, according to Wikipedia, “Zanesville residents are ineligible for street mail delivery, and thus, must get their mail at the post office.” In other words, it’s tiny.

There was, however, a place called “County Line Pizza & Mini Mart.” It seemed to be part restaurant, part convenience store. It reminded me of Pinnick’s, in Williams.

I stopped here to get some water and have a snack. The lady running the place was very nice and said she had had a few people come through who were riding across the country. Pretty cool!

A little past Zanesville, I turned back toward Fort Wayne. I spent 7-8 miles going due east, on a long, straight road. I am not used to that! It was fun being able to push a big gear for a while.

I passed the small town of Yoder, which seemed to consist mostly of a set of railroad tracks, and a grain company.

Soon I turned back north on roads I had ridden on earlier, including a little more gravel.

This was a fun ride. It was fun exploring a new area, and seeing a couple small towns. I would like to go back to Ossian sometime and spend more time looking around.

Wednesday, we saw about 15-20 meteors, include 3-4 really long/bright ones. I tried to take some photos, and while I did get some good shots of the stars, the meteors proved difficult to photograph.

In this crop, you can see a meteor. I had to increase the brightness a lot to be able to see it, but it’s there.

The next shot appears to have a meteor, but it’s actually an airplane.

Thursday night, my mom and nephew joined us. I was worried that my nephew, who is 12 1/2, would get bored — even at the peak of the shower, in a very dark location, it can be 10 minutes or more between meteors. It takes a lot of patience. But he was fascinated! And, he was great at spotting meteors. He counted 22 meteors … and he noted that number 5 was the best.

Even if there hadn’t been a meteor shower at all, it would have been a great experience. It’s shocking how many more stars you can see, just by going a ways out of town. We all also enjoyed the sounds of various insects, and the occasional ”ploop” sound of a frog jumping in the water, or a fish coming to the surface.

Watching the meteor shower certainly gave me a renewed sense of appreciation for astronomy, and I’m glad my nephew was fascinated as well. My great-great uncle discovered Morehouse Comet, so I guess it’s in our blood!

You could consider this a mixed-terrain ride, only more on the mountain biking end of the spectrum. It included singletrack, doubletrack, gravel roads, paved roads, grassy trails, etc. Anyway, here’s a map of our ride.

Nebo Ridge is an old favorite of ours. Just a few years ago, Nebo by itself was an epic ride for me. Now, it’s still challenging, but certainly not epic by itself. Fortunately, there’s a ton of other great riding surrounding it, so it’s still a great place to go ride.

This ride on Nebo Ridge can best be described as fast. I think this is probably the fastest I’ve ever ridden it. And, since it has a lot of rolling hills, it’s actually easier at higher speeds than if you’re slogging up each hill. I am in better shape than I’ve been in a few years, so I was flying. Dave hasn’t been able to ride as much this year, but somehow he was going just as fast. I’m not sure how he does it. Regardless, it was just an incredible roller coaster through the woods. Toward the end, I bunny hopped over a log and cleared it completely. I was thrilled, bunny hopping isn’t really something I’ve ever been good at. We were at the end of the trail in a little over an hour. Very fast, for us.

After Nebo, we rode on some roads for a bit. We rode over to Combs Road as if we were going to make the loop it forms with the trail.

Soon we reached the climb at the end of Combs Road.

After making the climb, rather than turn back toward the Nebo Ridge trail, we went straight. This took us back down the other side of the hill, on a narrow ribbon through a field of grass, with some great opportunities to catch air.

Normally I keep my wheels on the ground for the most part, but I couldn’t resist this, it was too much fun! I had read that jumping on a 29er doesn’t work too well, but I found it not to be a problem at all. The trail here received little to no maintenance, so we had to do things like climb through this fallen tree.

After a while, we ended up on a gravel road. We thought this would take us in the direction we wanted to go, but we weren’t sure if there was going to be a bridge over the local fork of Salt Creek.

We saw a great place to put in a canoe.

Fortunately, the bridge was intact.

There was a guardrail at the end of the bridge but we were easily able to get over it and ride on the doubletrack on the other side. It was grassy at first, later giving way to dirt. It was a bit muddy in spots but overall not bad. The road followed Salt Creek to where it feeds into Lake Monroe — and beyond.

After this point, the only “traffic” we saw were people in boats, mostly fishermen.

We saw probably a dozen egrets / great blue herons in the lake, and some geese.

We reached a point where we weren’t sure if we would be able to get across. Our maps showed a road that appeared to be interrupted by water. It didn’t look like it went through. We were hoping the water level would be low enough that we could get through.

Fortunately, there was a small land bridge across the water. We were able to get across. If the water level had been much higher, we wouldn’t have been able to get through. By the way, I checked and the water level was 537.56 feet. Normal Pool for Lake Monroe is 538. So basically, as long as the lake is at or below normal pool, we should be able to get through, I think.

Soon, we were right by the Crooked Creek boat ramp. You can’t see it int he photo below, but it’s back in that cove.

We were very excited that we were able to ride all the way through. This opens up tons of possibilities for linking together some amazing rides. It gives us a much closer-to-home starting point for riding Nebo Ridge, but also serves as a link between Yellowwood State Forest and Hoosier National Forest.  Just awesome.

Tim might recognize the name Crooked Creek Road from the ride we did together when he was here, it was along the route. Now that area can be connected to the HNF tracts on the opposite side of Lake Monroe!

After a break, we headed back the way we came. As we were riding along, I was also thinking that this portion would be quite doable on a touring bike. And we saw a few campsites along the way. I’m trying to figure out what it could all mean. A bike with hauling capacity, combined with remote campsites on the lake. It seems like you should be able to do something with those two things.

By this time it was getting quite hot and I was being eaten alive by insects. Fortunately Dave had brought bug spray with him. What a life-saver!

Once I found some relief from the bugs, I could focus once again on the task at hand.

Oh, but what’s this? Beautiful flowering plants covered with butterflies!

We made our way back to the Nebo Ridge trailhead by way of some gravel roads. It was mostly flat, except one big bad hill at the end.

Somehow, we both made it up this grueling climb, late in the ride, in the heat of the day.

Back at the parking lot I was amazed at all the dirt on my legs. Somehow Dave was hardly dirty at all. Not sure how that could be.

As we wrapped things up after the ride, another rider in the parking lot said, “Hey, do you have a blog?”

Of course, I responded that I did. He introduced himself as Bill … he has left some comments on the blog and we have corresponded about gravel roads a couple of times. It was great to meet him and put a face with a name. He had just ridden Nebo plus a whole bunch of Hickory Ridge trails. A more difficult ride than ours, for sure. But he was excited to hear about our discovery.

So, it was another great day on the bike. This time it was 25+ miles on the mountain bike, over the course of four hours. I can’t wait to take advantage of this newfound knowledge.

HNF offers a great backcountry riding experience. While there, you have to be prepared for all kinds of possibilities. In the past, we’ve encountered horrendous mud, trails chewed up by horses, manure, erosion, loose chunky gravel, swarms of insects, etc. So I have learned to expect the unexpected.

Our ride started off well enough; aside from a few issues with Dave’s cleats, our bikes were working great.

There was a bit of mud, but trail 17 soon took us into a nice climb. It was gradual at first, but got steeper as it went. Still, it remained ridable, except for a couple of boggy mud sections.

Once on the ridgetop, enjoyed some very nice rolling terrain.

Soon we reached the intersection of trails 16 and 17. After consulting a paper map, the sign, and my GPS, we went right, thinking this would have us stay on trail 17, and ultimately take us to 15.

We enjoyed some more rolling terrain, with some very fun twists and turns, and finally a little bit of downhill riding. The trail was rugged and we had to dodge debris, rocks, roots, and erosion, and hop a few logs. It was a great time.

But, the trail spit us out at a strange area with a couple of cabins, and a small pond. It was beautiful, but we realized we were in the wrong place. We found a nice shady spot to figure out where we were.

We decided we needed to go back to the intersection. Apparently our right turn put us on something that’s not an official trail at all. It didn’t take us long to get back to the intersection, and we enjoyed this side excursion.

So, we were back on Trail 16 briefly, having a blast once again. The descent was wild, with a few switchbacks, steep sections, and plenty of technical challenges on the way down. Dave said this was “Quintessential Hoosier National riding” and I couldn’t agree more. Almost immediately after that, we came around a turn to find a shocking sight: a bulldozer was driving up the hill, tearing up the trail! We rode down, off to the side.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I guess this is supposed to be some sort of “trail maintenance?” Someone was with the guy who was driving the bulldozer. His wife, maybe? She was in a small cart down in the ravine.

As we pressed on, we saw that Trail 15 had already been bulldozed completely. Instead of a trail, it was more of a one-lane gravel road. But, rather than normal gravel, the surface was several inches of soft gravel dust. On top of that were indentations from the treads of the bulldozer.  Naturally at this point the “trail” turned sharply upwards to climb out of the ravine. We climbed for over half a mile on this horrible stuff. The surface ranged from nearly unridable, to completely unridable.

Eventually, the soft gravel dust turned into soft dirt. This was a slight improvement, I guess.

After a while we looked at our maps and saw that we were nearly to the road. However, before we would get there the trail would dip down a couple hundred feet, only to climb immediately back up. We decided that rather than deal with that, we would turn around and go back down the way we came.

Riding downhill on this dusty surface was more fun than I expected, once I got over the fact that the trail had been completely destroyed. We were mostly able to descend quickly, although we had to be extra careful not to wash out in the turns. As a bonus, the extra resistance from the soft surface meant we didn’t have to ride our brakes too much on the way down.

We found ourselves back in the creek bottom where we had seen the bulldozer before, but didn’t go right by it this time. We got on Trail 16, which would take us back to the car. Fortunately 16 was still a real trail.

We enjoyed some flat riding in the creek bottom for a while, with some enjoyable creek crossings.

The trail went into an insane climb. I decided to try to ride it, even though looking at it, I didn’t think I’d make it. The climb was steep, but I thought I saw the top of the climb, and pushed up toward it. I was almost there!

… or so I thought.  As soon as I approached what I thought was the top, I saw more trail unfolding above me. Oh man! I was not ready for this. I pressed on, and on, and on. A couple of other times, I thought I was at the top only to see more climbing ahead. It was brutal. There were a couple of switchbacks along the way, but they did little to ease the steep grade.

I have no photos of this section, since I could barely even keep riding. But I made it to the top.

The trail was flat for a while, with maybe some gently rolling hills. But soon all the climbing would pay off, with nearly two miles of mostly-downhill riding. The downhill was pure bliss, the trail was on the edge of a ravine, with numerous twists and turns and minor ups and downs along the way. The trail surface was rough but in a good, challenging way, and my 29er soaked up a lot of the bumps. Dave was having a blast, too.

Too soon, we were back at the car. I couldn’t believe this ride was just 11 miles. With all the road riding I’ve done lately, it’s easy to forget how much harder mountain bike miles are; those 11 miles took 2 1/2 hours!

At the same time, I’m in good shape and did better on a lot of the climbs than I expected. This was tough riding, but aside from the bulldozed parts, the ride was just a blast!

Stay tuned for an even better mountain bike ride from the next day.

Here are the problems I’m having.

• The leather is sagging. I’ve tried tensioning. I’ve tried lacing up the sides. I can make some improvements, but it’s not enough. The saddle simply isn’t as comfortable as it was when I got it. I will probably try tensioning it more, but at this point I am resigned to the possibility that the saddle may never be as comfortable as it once was.
• The dye has started to stain my clothes. I wouldn’t care if I only wore bike shorts on the Long Haul Trucker, where the Brooks resides. But I commute on that bicycle. I have to be able to wear normal clothes on it without staining. I have been riding with the saddle cover on, but this scuffs up the surface of the saddle, and it’s not as comfortable.
• If it rains, I have to worry about whether the saddle is covered, or make sure the bike is indoors. For a commuting bicycle, this isn’t very practical.
• I can’t seem to get the saddle angle set correctly. The angle I need changes as the leather stretches. I realize this could be rectified with a better seatpost, but given all the other problems I’m having, I can’t justify spending money on a new seatpost. It’d be money much better spent on a new saddle.

Maybe I’m asking too much. I’ve put somewhere around 8,000 miles on this saddle. But, I have read stories of people who use their Brooks saddles for decades. I can’t understand how that can possibly work, given the issues I am having. Am I doing something wrong? Or, maybe I’m just too heavy to expect more than this? Would a “normal” saddle last longer?

Meanwhile, the synthetic saddle on the Bianchi is working great. I had only minimal discomfort during a couple of century rides, and the Ride Across Indiana. I don’t have to worry about getting it wet, or staining anything. Maybe it’s time to get another saddle like that one. It doesn’t look nearly as good, and doesn’t have the same appeal, but I’m starting to think it’s more practical.

For what it’s worth, that saddle is a Selle Italia X2.

I should point out that the Brooks normally gets ridden in normal clothes, whereas the I usually have bike shorts on when I ride the Selle Italia.

Despite its recent problems, I seem to have a certain, irrational attachment to the Brooks. It’s served me very well until recently, and I’ve been very reluctant to give it up. When I bought it, I felt like I was buying much more than just a comfortable saddle. I loved the idea behind the leather saddles, the entire aesthetic, the workmanship, etc. I like the way the bag goes with the saddle, and it all goes with the bike. I like the way the saddle ages, as if it has stories to tell.

The Selle Italia is just a fairly comfortable saddle, nothing more.

What should I do?

I intended to get an early start to beat the heat. However, I’m not a morning person, and slept in a little bit. By the time I ate breakfast and got ready, it was nearly 11:00 am. Oh well!

I spent most of the first 11 miles or so on Old State Road 37. The part close to town was repaved recently and now has some of the smoothest asphalt around.

The pavement wasn’t as new outside of town, but the scenery was better.

Old 37 is pleasant, but not terribly interesting most of the way. I was feeling rather sluggish for the first hour so. I was also trying a new (to me) sports drink, Accelerade, and it wasn’t sitting very well with me. The taste was bad, and it seemed rather heavy. When I stopped at a gas station I finished off the Accelerade and filled my bottle with PowerAde instead. I ate an oatmeal cream pie and some chips.

Eventually, I reached Judah and turned off the old state highway and onto back roads. McFadden Ridge Road was great, with some rolling hills, ridgetop riding, and a great descent.

Soon I was at Salt Creek, which feeds into Lake Monroe.

The road followed the flat creek bottom briefly, near a quarry.

I rode back up into the hills on Peerless Road, which had quite a few hills.

I passed some sort of odd gas station/park.

Soon I was in Bedford, known as “limestone capital of the world.” I thought about finding a place here to eat lunch, as it would be the biggest town I’d pass through until I got home. But I wasn’t really hungry yet, and I knew there was a place to go in Williams, or at least there had been two years ago.

In Bedford, the route took me on a four-lane road for a while, which concerned me a bit but there was almost no traffic. In fact, it was almost eerily deserted.

I stopped at a gas station on the opposite side of Bedford to refuel. While there, I spoke with a friendly clerk who was intrigued by what I was doing.

Soon I was back on the road and headed toward Williams.

By this time, it was really warming up. Actually I think the high temp for the day wasn’t too bad — mid-80s — but the humidity was high and I was sweating profusely. I remembered this part of the ride being pretty hilly, but I hoped it would be easier this time around. It was just as hilly as I remembered, and there was very little shade. Up until recently, the ride had been fairly overcast, which was a pleasant change from the very bright days we’ve had. But now the sun was coming out, and it made the exposed hills harder.

Somewhere around here, a motorcyclist passed me and waved as he passed.

Thankfully, it wasn’t all hills. There were some flat sections intertwined with hilly ones.

You really can’t tell at all from the photos, but in the two below there are hundreds, if not thousands, of butterflies, fluttering across this field.

Soon I approached Williams. A recreation area flanked the White River’s East Fork.

I rode up the hill into town.

In a few minutes I was through town and the motorcyclist from before came out of the parking lot for the recreation area. He must have gone down to get a closer look and then come back out. I think he was surprised I caught up with him. You can sort of see him below, disappearing into the distance once again.

I guess I was on the outskirts of Williams, because I kept seeing signs.

Soon, I approached the bridge.

When I arrived, the guy on a motorcycle was there, looking around. He turned around and headed back, and said, “You made great time!” I think he was surprised that I kept catching up with him.

The other end of the bridge has a lot of graffiti.

A new bridge is being constructed a bit down from this one. I’m sure it will lack the character of this beautiful wooden bridge. I hope they’ll keep this bridge intact for pedestrians/cyclists, I think I read somewhere that they plan to do just that, but I’m not sure.

After checking out the bridge, I rode back into Williams.

Once back in Williams, I stopped for lunch at Pinnick’s Country Store and Cafe, which has a very nice view.

When I rode down here last time, there were very few people there. This time I walked in and people were seated at tables, eating and talking. I felt a lot of eyes on me as I walked in in full cycling gear. After a few minutes I felt more relaxed as people went back to what they were doing.

An older man later struck up a conversation. He must have been the owner, or something. I was looking at some photos and he pointed out their old store, which was falling apart and cold in the winter, hot in the summer, and too expensive to maintain. So they built a new store, the one I was in.

I had intended to simply buy a few food items and leave, but I decided to sit and eat. I ordered a ham sandwich and some tea. A few minutes later, my food was ready. I had a HUGE sandwich, and chips, and iced tea … all for $4. I wish I had brought my camera into the store, it was quite a place. Overall Williams, while tiny, had a lot of appeal.

But, it wasn’t all charm.

After lunch, I got rolling again. I had to backtrack a bit before turning off on some smaller back roads.

The roads remained quite hilly, and the heat was getting to me a bit. I took my time, and did fine. At this point I realized I was only about halfway through my ride. It’d be a long one …

What could have been a very long stretch of road was broken up nicely as I rode through a couple of small towns. First Fayetteville, and later Springville.

After I passed Fayetteville, the road remained quite hilly but had some very nice views on offer.

Somewhere between Fayetteville and Springville, a couple of emergency vehicles passed me. I wondered what was going on. Soon enough, I’d find out, as I came across the site of a bad accident.

It appeared two cars headed in opposite directions had collided head-on. EMS were already present and helping. One girl was carried out of her car on a back board. A man sat in the other car and they put a neck brace on him. I waited for a few minutes, and one of the emergency personnel suggested I go ahead and go through. There was plenty of room between the cars that had crashed, but I had to pick up my bike to avoid all the broken glass.

I have to admit, I was a bit shaken by the accident. My guess is, one or both drivers were over the center line when they went around a blind curve, so they collided. There were a lot of curves and hills on this road, and it’s easy to see how something like that might happen. Having an accident like that happen along my route just as I was riding on it was more than enough to make me think how lucky it was that I hadn’t ridden a little faster, or taken a shorter lunch break. Yikes.

The sky was growing cloudier, and it seemed like it might rain. Soon, I arrived in Springville and I stopped to top off water bottles and eat something else. It had only been 12 miles since my last stop, but I didn’t think I’d have another opportunity before I got back to Bloomington.

After Springville, things were a little more familiar, and very beautiful. The road climbed gradually for a little while. The clouds grew more ominous, and I thought I felt a few raindrops a couple of different times.

Eventually there was a bigger climb and by this time I was feeling quite sluggish. It was a tough hill, and even easy hills were difficult from this point on.

A little more rain fell, but never more than a few drops. I stopped to take in a couple of views.

Before long I was back in town, by way of Victor Pike. This meant I had a great downhill, and a couple of climbs. By the time I got home I had ridden around 65 miles. After all the long rides I’ve done recently, I thought this ride would feel short, but it really didn’t. 65 hilly miles is still a hard ride!