Life On A B-I7

Route

• Fletcher Lake to Salomonie River State Park

Metrics

• Miles: 53
• Average Speed: 10+ mph
• Travel Time: 6 hours 45 minutes

Note

• Human life is a sequence of special moments that cannot be relived. Enjoy them as much as possible while you are living them.

Thought For The Day

• Every choice you make has consequences. Making good choices is a sign of wisdom. Making choices by relying on what other people think is the opposite of wisdom.

Today’s note literally came to me out of the blue while I was peddling. This is one of the beautiful things about taking time out from your normal life to experience something unusual and special, like this journey.

Today I was on the road before dawn. When you’re cycling in the dark with just a headlight to light your way, you can’t see the elevation changes coming toward you. You have to trust your legs to tell you when you’re going up and when you’re going down. Shifting becomes a physical experience. Pre-dawn riding is not something I normally do. I wouldn’t think of doing it unless the road I was taking was remote and less traveled.

Another interesting aspect to pre-dawn riding is temperature. Sometimes descending as little as 10 feet over a distance of maybe 50 yards, the temperature might decrease noticeably. Sometimes you’ll experience pockets of warm air that don’t seem to rely on the terrain around you, but are simply just there. Once the sun comes up, these differences disappear.

Early morning riding is also the best time to see wildlife. I saw seven deer this morning. That’s more than I’ve seen during the day over the course of the last 300 miles.

I stopped for breakfast about 25 miles down the road. I was in the town of Denver (Indiana). You know the food is going to be good when the restaurant is full of locals. I had just seated myself at a table and was looking at the menu when a gentleman walked up and started talking to me. We chatted about the trip, the usual stuff. I also found myself telling him what was special about it and what it meant to me. I could see his interest. He patted me on the shoulder and told me good luck, paid his bill and left. Shortly after that a nice couple sitting at the table next to mine came over and joined me. They had a lot of questions and it was a fun conversation. I gave them my card with a link to this blog so they could follow along. After enjoying a terrific breakfast just like I had suspected I would, I went up to the cash register to pay my ticket. The lady working the restaurant told me it had been taken care of already. I don’t know if it was the nice man or the couple, but whoever it was, thank you.

I’m camping tonight at Salamonie River State Park. I’ll be getting up early tomorrow, probably not pre-dawn. By the end of the day tomorrow I should be in Ohio. As I was telling the gentleman this morning at breakfast, one of the things I think about is what will I do with myself once I return home? Even though my days are almost entirely free of worry and concern, they are also extremely structured. I’m not sure what I’ll do to replace that structure once I’m home. I hope the memory of this trip will help me find ways to bring a healthy structure into my daily life that will make me more productive.

Pre-dawn riding is an entirely different experience.

Four miles of beautiful cycle-way today.

Itinerary Maps