Day 26 May 24th Quincy – Havana Il

  
Back somewhere in Kansas a farmer asked me how many miles you got out of those bike tires? I really didn’t have & answer for him. So if he’s reading this post I have that information for him. 2018 miles ….exactly! I started off early today making my way out of Quincy & out of the river valley. It was a perfect day for a bike ride. I rode for 3 1/2 hours & took a short break in Mount Sterling a nice little farming town. I left there & was making great time on the pretty flat 2 lane road. This road had NO shoulder & traffic seemed to have a difficult time deciding how & when to pass a bicycle. I appreciate their over caution but when your riding off of the white line walking a tight rope of asphalt they have plenty of room to pass by. But they don’t! As they hang back instead of making the pass it forces the rider to ride with one eye in his mirror & the other on the narrow shoulder, greatly limiting the riders option. So that’s when I was forced to ride through some loose stone kicked up on the road. And this is where I center punched one of these stones with the front tire, giving me my first flat tire of the ride. As I had the bike inverted on the side of the road changing out the front tube I made a startling discovery. The rear tire had NO tread left. None , bare cords all the way around. I finished the front repair & decided to ride to the next town 10 miles up the road to address the rear tire. I plumped into a town park under the shade of a tree ( it did hit 90 degrees today) and I changed out the rear with my only spare cold up tire. With no bike shop or even a WalMart close I will be looking to buy a new set of tires asap.

I made my way up rt 24 then onto rt 136 into the town of Havana on the Illinois River. The river is alive with barge traffic, something you don’t see everyday out our way. I found a campsite on the outskirts of town right on the river. Perfect. With 89 miles in today I set up camp & set watching the barges go by & the locals fishing the river. This day got me about 1/4 across the state. A good day by my standards.