Miracle Mirror

Wow, already 3 days out of Madison and we are already in Indiana. The first day out of Madison we biked through some beautiful country, lots of tree covered and meadow covered rolling hills. We also entered our 9th state, Illinois (10th if you count the 5 minute detour to Kansas). Coming out of Madison I biked with a fellow of the name Johnny Peirce, a jail guard from Michigan’s UP and also the camp clown. And this guy can bike... fast. I kept up to him but there is a reason for that. At the beginning of the tour I was riding my bike with the tires I bought it with, size 700 x 32c. These are relatively large tires as far as road biking is concerned. In Sioux Center, IA I bought some new tires, size 700 x 28c, the smallest that could fit in the rims I have. Only problem is that in Madison, only a few days later, I noticed a hole in my front tire where the tube was bubbling out: an explosion ready to happen. So in Madison me and my friend Leslie went and bought some new tires as I didn’t trust these ones anymore, and was rather disgruntled. Anyway, my tires now are great and smaller which is why I could keep up with Johnny, less tire less friction. It all makes sense. Arriving to Woodstock, IL went without a hitch, except Illinois failed to have a welcome sign, much to our disappointment.
Woodstock, IL to Palos Heights, IL: our first day riding through the greater Chicago area. I was also with my team on sweep that day. It was fun, long but fun. We first went for coffee in downtown Woodstock, which is very nice and also the place where the movie Groundhog Day was filmed. Again while downtown we started talking with some of the locals we received $40 in donations. The generosity and support continues. So while biking south first to Aurora, IL down the Fox River Trail we got lost, and so did pretty much everyone. The path and a few choices, a lot of us apparently made the wrong choice. Us, the sweep team, made a 12km detour wrong choice. We split of the Fox River Trail from South Elgin and ended up in Wayne. So we figured we would just cut across to St. Charles instead of biking all the way back. We also a combined total of 7 flats as sweep, 3 of which were mine. But only one real flat, one was a broken stem, the second was a real flat from hitting something rather big (I’ll get to that soon), and the third from a faulty tube that burst after about 500m. And the traffic was unreal. I’ve never been so focused on everything around me in my life. Don’t forget, I was on sweep, we started coming into the bigger part of the Outer Chicago area around 5pm, also known as rush hour. Cars were whizzing by mire feet to our left (some honking other giving the Trudeau Salute and others yelling. But it really wasn’t bad as far as drivers go. It was just really busy. Anyway we split into two groups of three, I took up the rear. And as Jason Veldhuizen, Melinda Booy, and myself (in that order) were biking I hit something, not sure what, and didn’t see it coming. And if you are on a bike and don’t see something of considerable size coming you are in trouble. So I hit it, full force. My hands flew off the bars from the impact, my chest hit my handle bars or arrowbars (it happened pretty fast, all I knew was that my chest hit something), and I was headed off the road. Remember this is happening real fast so my hands are now on their way down missing the handle bars, except my left, which clasped onto my mirror at the very end of my bar ripping it off, but with enough force to correct my front wheel back into a straight path along the shoulder. God at work through a little mirror. The rest of the day went well, we got to camp at 7:35 due to the extreme traffic, wrong turns, and 7 flats.
Today’s ride from Palos Heights, IL to Chesterton, IN was very short (90km) and spilt up with three churches wanting to greet us, with the last one providing a full out lunch of subway. Anyway, we are at the beautiful Indiana Dunes State Park on the south shore of Lake Michigan. I water is cool, the insects are chirping, and the mosquitoes are biting. I should go now, I anticipate seeing my family in the CRC’s Jerusalem (Grand Rapids, MI) and hopefully some more of you when we start our travels through Canada next week Wednesday.
Peace&GodBless
Matt