Day 35 - Friday, June 15th - Crawfordsville to Indianapolis, IN

Distance: 54.7 miles 

Elevation Gain: 1041 ft. or 19.0 ft./mile 

Net elevation change: -51 ft. 

At 55 miles this almost counted as a rest day for the group. The hotel for the night is in the heart of downtown Indianapolis so the real challenge was navigating the final four miles on bike paths and trails to get safely to the hotel. The trails and paths reduce the encounters with vehicles, but this is a city with lots of pedestrians who often are not aware of their surroundings.

Out of the hotel in Crawfordsville, the group went south for a bit over 2 miles and made a left and headed east on Market Street (US-136). About a mile later the road turned southeast where they passed through New Ross (mile 14), a town of about 350 people incorporated in 1870.

At mile 19 the group came to Jamestown, a town of 950 platted in 1832 and named for its founder James Mattock. It was also the home of Herman B Wells, the 11th president of Indiana University who was pivotal in transforming the university into a world class institution of higher education. He spent 27 years at IU in various capacities starting as instructor and assistant professor. Beyond his duties at IU he also served as the US delegate to the Twelfth Session of the UN General Assembly in 1957 and as an adviser to the Ministry of Pakistan in 1959.

The one SAG stop of the day was at a gas station in Lizton at mile 25. Lizton is a town of about 485 people and originally was named New Elizabeth. Under that name it was laid out in 1837 by Jesse Veiley who named it for his wife, Elizabeth. The town was renamed in 1873 but it is a bit murky on why. Best guess is it was renamed by the railroad.

Pittsboro was next up at mile 29 a town of about 3300 people. Founded in 1834 by Simon T. Hadley and William L. Matlock it was originally named Pittsborough in honor of Hadley’s hometown in North Carolina. It is the home town of gymnast Bridget Sloan, a silver medalist with the American team in 2008 Olympics in Bejing.

Another 4 miles and the group reached Brownsburg, a small town of 25,000 that is right next to Indianapolis. Brownsburg’s first settler was James B. Brown in 1824. As the time the area was unbroken wilderness with hunters, trappers and Lenape Indians. Brownsburg was originally called Harrisburg and was laid out by William Harris in 1835. For some reason the post office in town was established in 1836 with the name Brownsburgh. The “h” was eventually dropped and somehow became the town name. I’m guessing that William Harris didn’t have any prominent next of kin living in the area.

At mile 40 the group turned south off of US-136 and onto IN-134 and entered the boundaries of  Indianapolis but 14 miles from the hotel. They headed south for roughly 4 miles directly towards the Indianapolis Airport. Before the airport the group executed a series of turns that get them to a trailhead for the Eagle Creek Greenway at the intersection of Raymond and Harding Streets on the northwest corner of Lily Recreation Park. A bit past mile 51 the trail turned north and merged into the White River Wapahani Trail. At mile 54 the trail turned east and crossed the White River and picked up the Cultural Trail which with a few more zigs and zags got the group to the hotel for the night.

I drove most of the route yesterday. Obviously I couldn't use the trails so I'm not exactly sure how easy or difficult navigating that was. What I can say is that this is a pretty bike friendly city with a good deal of money spent on bike infrastructure.  I spent some time walking around yesterday and today and here are some pictures 

While it has been nice to have three rest days I can confirm that sometimes the hardest thing to do, is to do nothing. Many thanks to the folks at Bike Garage Indianapolis and all the folks at Bicycles International in Florida for making this happen. 

Sneak Peek at Tomorrow

73 miles due east to Richmond, IN which is just this side of the Ohio border on what looks like a slight incline the whole way. The heat and humidity are forecasted to return but the winds look to be under 10 mph and coming from the SSW.

Richmond is the county seat of Wayne county and has a population of about 36,000. The city is sometimes referred to as the “cradle of recorded jazz” with early jazz recordings being made at a studio of Gannett Records including Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” and Louis Armstrong when he was a member of King Oliver’s Jazz Band. The first white settlers were Quakers from North Carolina around 1806. In the 1920s the Klu Klux Klan was enjoying a national resurgence with national membership reaching 1.5 million with 300,000 of those members coming from Indiana. Richmond, home to Whitewater Klan #60, and Wayne County were in fact strongholds with up to 45% of the white male population being Klan members. The Klan polished its reputation by making contributions to Protestant churches and organizations including the Salvation Army.