Chicago to South Bend

None of us wanted to leave Chicago. We woke up early and had a sponsored breakfast in the park overlooking the city. Breakfast was awesome and so was the view.

We started out riding south along the bike path in the park until it dead-ended on the south side of the city. The view of the city and the lake early in the morning was beautiful. We stopped and took pictures of the skyline from in front of the aquarium. Once we got off the bike path, it wasn't quite as scenic. We entered Indiana without much fanfare because we were riding through a pretty heavy industrial area east of the city. From there we rode through Gary, Indiana, which a lot of guys said was a scary ride. The neighborhood was pretty bad, but all the people who came and talked to us were really nice. They had a great big banner in the middle of town in memory of Michael Jackson since that was his hometown. Also there was a nice little minor league ballpark in Gary too. Once we left Gary it became a lot more rural and the riding was much more relaxed.

Unfortunately we got racked at mile 70 when we were scheduled for 90 because we had to get to town to do our Kids on the Block puppet show. However it was totally worth getting racked because the show at the HealthWorks Kids' Museum in South Bend was hilarious. It was probably the best show all summer.

After dinner, which was sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, I went to McDonald's with most of the rest of the time to witness the 10K Challenge. All summer guys have been attempting several different challenges on the bike to make the ride more interesting, such as:
- No Seat Challenge - don't sit on the saddle all day
- Saltine Challenge - nothing to eat on the bike all day, but saltines and water
- Black Coffee Challenge - black coffee in the water bottle all day instead of water or gatorade
- Starvin' Marvin Challenge - eat nothing on the bike all day
The 10K Challenge was to eat almost nothing on the bike all day and then make up for it by eating 10,000 calories in two hours at McDonald's. Three guys signed up. No one came close. But Scott Asher ate 6,600 calories before losing nearly all of them on the side of the road on the way home. The most impressive part might have been the fact that he started off by consuming over 3,500 calories in the first 20 minutes we were there. It started off entertaining to watch, then progressively got less fun.