Day 38, Indianapolis, rest day, 20 miles

Yes, I know what you're thinking; it's a rest day, why the 20 miles? Well to someone who rides 80-100 miles a day, 20 miles is a rest day! Seriously, there were several things I missed yesterday that I really wanted to see, so Sue, Danny, and I set out to see them.

Riding into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on my bicycle brought back pleasant memories of my youth. As noted earlier, my high school marching band marched (after all, it is a marching band) around the track in May of 1971. It was quite a thrill then, and something of a thrill now. We took the $3 van tour around the speed way, complete with recorded narration. For the $25 tour, they let you get out of the van and walk on the speedway, and took you back to gasoline alley, and up to the press box and stuff like that. Not quite worth the extra $22. Anyway, I got to see the skid marks on the track and the big dents in the retaining wall where they hit. That was pretty cool. (No joke.) Dan and I also went into the museum that had the winning car from just about every race since 1909. Early on, the safety precautions were pretty primitive; it would be like riding a motorcycle in a tee shirt wearing a bicycle helmet. (If you are new to the blog, this cross references to the Peublo rest day.)

The Major Taylor Velodrome was even cooloer. It was only another 5 cycling miles away. If you don't know what a velodrome is, imagine the Indianapolis Motor Speedway shrunk down to bicycle size and banked to 28 degrees on the curves. There are only 20 velodromes in the US. There are olympic cycling events in velodromes. The let me take a few laps. (see picture) It was quite a rush to zip through those banked turns, at what felt like 50 mph. After three laps, my legs turned to jelly, I pulled into the infield, and checked by cyclo-computer; max speed = 24.6. Well it felt like 50. (Don't forget to double click on the pictures.) b/t/w, the track was so banked under the sigh that I couldn't get up it with my cleats on. Had to run up it barefoot and then swing one leg over the wall to stay up there..

By then it was two o'clock so we headed back downtown to find something to eat. After a near disastorous turn the wrong way down a one way street (we did get off the road immediately), we worked our way down to monument circle, had lunch at Au Bon Pan, completed our lap around the monument, and headed back to the hotel.

Then I had a shower and a nice nap.