Yesterday, on the route from Winner to Marten, Paige Hicks was hit by a truck. She was killed instantly.

Everyone on the trip is devestated by this and it is unclear as to how we are to proceed.

I would like to thank you for following my blog.

Myself demonstrating my man strength on the state border of Illinois. Since then we have gone through Iowa and we are now in South Dakota.

So today We rode 83 miles but the first 20 miles were on a cheese grater type road surface. Hence the jubilation of my riding friends. From left Ben, Spencer, Anthony D. and Sam.

Also had two flats today, sad times.

So I have managed to upload 1 photo, and now I have to go to dinner. But here is the stateline on the ride today. 65 miles of very fast riding, averaging 23/24mph when not talking. We had to get up at 4 in the morning because of the heat.

Iowa countryside = Americanised Leicestershire

Lots of rolling hills, some trees and a lot less corn fields than Indiana and Illinois. They were incredibly flat with endless cornfields. The only time that is fun to ride is with a tailwind, and that happened for about 20 miles over the two states.

We are staying in Mt.Vernon tonight, and I have just given my bike a good seeing to. Swapped tyres from back to front and vice versa but things are beginning to wear down, brake blocks, tyres etc...

My legs are feeling pretty good, although we had a dodgeball game against a local YMCA team last night which left me with a few bruises from all the dodging.

Got to go to Chicago last day off. There were 4 of us and we had the strangest conversation with a guy on the train. Along the lines of this...

"So we're going to Chicago for the day, where should we go?"
"Well I'll tell you where not to go. Don't go to the ghetto"
"Ok, we weren't planning on it"
"You won't stumble upon it, you'll notice it getting gradually worse"
"Ok, we won't go to the ghetto then"

Very strange guy. But we did meet someone else on the train, DJ Hiko, who navigated us around the station and then gave us 60 dollars in donation.

In other news, good luck Paulo Sousa.

Three days of hard riding have past. 105 miles, 95 miles and 82 miles today, all in the 90s temperature wise. I was trying to list highlights of this week in my head last night to blog about on here, so voila...

1) 4th July. We had a 4 car police escort out of Dayton, with 'We are the Champions blaring out of their speakers.

2) The random dog that decided to run for 2 miles in front of the police escort. Dog escort.

3) Free tickets to Dayton dragons baseball, courtesy of me asking. Also free baseball caps.

4) Breakfast at Kenyon College. Unreal.

5) My Bike and Build Graduation.

6) Fred's diner. Free dinner and 30 dollars in donations from the customers. Myself, other Anthony and Hassan recommended the diner to the rest of Bike and Build. Fred gave them free dinner too.

7) Being able to watch the world cup. Which is why I have to leave.

Build day today. We hung drywall in a house just outside Dayton. There is a city folk festival tonight which everyone will be going to and then we have VIP seats for a big fireworks display.

Last Tuesday would have been my graduation from Edinburgh University, so Bike and Build through me a surprise graduation after dinner. I got my face pushed in a cake, my ears ahave never tasted so good.

The riding is getting easier as we enter the mid-west, as it is incredibly flat. Although tomorrow brings up back to back century mile rides. My bike is starting to wear down with my brake blocks needing replacing, and had to replace a part on my helmet as that had begun to snap.

Current odometer reading sits at 1034 miles. I will try and get some pics up as soon as I find a card reader.