First off, I can't believe I forgot to write about the Fountain County 4-H Animal Fair for Day 36.
Not sure how many of you know about my 4-H days. In rural North Carolina where I grew up I had a horse there were a lot of activities based in 4-H, including tons of horse stuff - shows, horse judging contests, horse knowledge bowl, and tons of other projects. I was on county teams that were actually pretty good - we won state level competitions and went to nationals. So between the time I was 11 and 17 I spent all my free time either riding the horse, caring for him or cleaning up after him - no doubt smelling like a barn.
So when I saw the sign at for the 4-H show in I went. And sure enough, there they were - mop-headed horse crazy little girls riding horses ranging from high quality and well trained to the backyard swaybacked pet.
It was a hoot to watch a few classes. I'm quite sure I looked just like those bouncing little girls out there -- very serious, nervous, and barely in control (or outright no control at all in many cases as their horses shied and balked). I saw Bryan, Meiri and Norbert in there and as usual we made quite a site in our spandex and helmets.
One nice thing in Crawfordsville is we went to a nice local cafe for dinner and breakfast. This cafe served healthy balanced meals in proportions that would feed normal people. For us though, used to chowing on all you can eat buffets of marginal to outright crummy food, it didn't seem like enough. Some just went to McDonalds after dinner for a second dinner. I didn't but was interested in how hungry I was on the bike all day - maybe I am burning all that food off I'm stuffing in. I do feel like I'm eating so much food I'm getting sick of bothering to eat and in some ways it will be a relief to just eat when you are hungry and not eat out of fear of bonking and passing out on the side of the road.
Our ride into Indianapolis was short - 65 miles but we had lots of great stops and fun coming in.
Roark titanium bicycle factory was on the route and some of us went in and got a tour and met their frame maker. That was pretty interesting. He only makes about 100 frames a year - all custom. It was fun to ask him how he would build a bike differently to support a heavy rider verses a light rider (thicker tubes for the down tube and head tube) and how he might build a race bike different from a touring bike (race bike needs more reinforcement around the bottom bracket where the cranks come in to give the racer as stiff a possible platform when she pushes peddles for max speed and reinforced around the fork for strength). The factory also does work for the defense department on nuclear subs and he was very excited to show me this fusion drill that is an engineers dream toy but honestly I had not clue what he was talking about for most of it.
They are beautiful bikes. For non-bike folks, when you decide to buy a new bike and you are ready to advance above what's available at Target you have a ton of complicated decisions to make about what bike is right for you. Because it is a gear intensive sport, nothing can be simple or straightforward. One of the basic decisions is what do you want your bike frame made of. Steel (my first bike a Bianchi - heavy but solid and a comfortable ride), Aluminum (like riding a tin can and will jar your teeth out - hate the feel of aluminum), carbon (what my Orbea is made of - light and comfortable - what Boeing is making its Dreamliner out providing one ever actually gets built. Bad thing is carbon is basically fabric wrapped in plastic and its fragile and can crack and isn't repairable. Expensive but prices are coming down) And Titanium which is light, strong, will last forever ... and really expensive. One of the custom Roark frames will run around $3000 - that's just the frame, no wheels, saddle, handle bars or the expensive components in the gears and the breaks. So a custom Roark with good quality components and pieces is probably a $7000 bike.
After drooling over the bikes, we rode on through Eagle Creek Park and saw the first evergreen trees since California if you don't count the half dead cedar tree in someone yard in Missouri. It looked like home.
And of course you can't go to Indianapolis without going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We got pretty lost getting there and once we found it were greeted by a cranky old lady at the guard house who gave our bikes a nasty look and said we couldn't ride across the parking lot to to the bike racks we had to walk the bikes and we couldn't take all the bikes in because the bike rack wasn't big enough. Clearly we are in CARland - bikes not that welcome.
Again, I'm not a car person. So once in the museum I enlisted Lois, a very nice woman in a red jacket who spent 20 minutes answering all my dumb questions. The short version: there are only 3 races a year there. Indie cars, NASCAR and motorcycles. Indie cars are different than NASCAR and Formula 1 Cars, but look more like Formula 1. NASCAR goes slower and gets in more wrecks, which explains North Carolina's obsession with it. Formula 1 raced there for a few years and then won't come back because of some dispute about the track, but she thinks the track has made changes and F1 may come back. They must make a slug of money to operate a facility that size on only 3 races a year. It's unbelievably huge and got to cost a ton to operate. Even though they charge $8 for a brat and a soda for all the visitors that still can't do it.
So after the car racing we headed back to our own kind and went to the Major Taylor Velodrome. If you don't know, Major Taylor was an elite black athlete and cyclist at the turn of the century and competed and won in Europe since he couldn't compete here. Pretty amazing history - here's more info: http://www.majortaylorassociation.org/who.htm
A velodrome is a track for bike racing. It's oval and has steep banked ends. Races on there are single speed and have no brakes. I like my brakes so I think track racing isn't for me. But even though we have a Velodrome in Seattle and I've been to some races there I've never ridden on it. We had a good time flying around the track, and then got the competition on and started timing laps. I got a lap in 29 seconds. Not fast by racing standards but I beat a lot of our guys which is what I cared about :) That's a lot of fun and a good workout ... heart pounding and gasping for breath. You go up those steeply banked turns and it's unnerving to feel like your wheels will slip right out from under you down the bank ... but they don't. I could see doing this again ...
We followed a great bike trail into Indianapolis that went right through the river and came into the city in front of the capital downtown. Indianapolis is a great city - they've done a nice job developing their downtown. Store fronts are full - no vacancies. Lots of green space. Bike and pedestrian friendly. They've done a lot of things right here. I was impressed. And had we not been biking through I might never have thought to come here. Went and explored the city a bit today including the NCAA Hall of Fame which features all the NCAA sports and a lot of audiovisual and experiential exhibits (shoot hoops, kick the ball in a goal ... good place to take kids.)
Tonight we go over to Jay's house - he lives here and rode with us on the first leg to Salt Lake. He's hosting us for a BBQ- very sweet of him. I'm looking forward to lounging in his back yard with a beer.
Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016!!
9 years ago
