MUNCIE, INDIANA
I wanted a good Midwestern ride to break up the monotony of the long drive home from Colorado. Muncie was a perfect place. Not only was it directly on my way and dovetailed with the perfect place to spend the night, but I knew that Team Portland was scheduled to be riding this way. I knew they would be on the Cardinal Greenway Rail Trail. I headed towards Richmond, Indiana, thinking I’d ride 10 or maybe 20 miles before intersecting them.
I rode 43. I arrived in Richmond and was near the end of the trail. I began to worry that they had entered the trail farther up and had passed by without seeing them. But finally, around the corner, here came six riders. And they were almost like, “Hey, good to see you.” Almost no surprise.
But it’s all good. I turned around, and we headed back to Muncie. I only saw eight of the Team Portland riders (six riding and two in the water van) because the other riders were hanging back with the father of a scholarship winner. And I still had a seven-hour drive ahead.
The rail trail was beautiful. Almost no riders were on it. It is paved with good asphalt, with much of it shaded.
“The Cardinal Greenway takes its name from the last passenger train to regularly travel the route (Chicago-Cincinnati-Washington): the Cardinal. The train service in turn derived its name from the state bird of all five states which it traversed.” 1
It was a beautiful morning to ride and easy to keep going and going and going. Just like in Kansas, the Garmin froze, and once it came back online, I lost the ride info I had just done. Oh well.
Because I rode from Mile Marker to Mile Marker, it was easy to determine my mileage even though there was a Garmin Malfunction.
TOTAL MILES: 86.9 miles (140 km)
- Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. ↩︎
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