I awoke later that same day in Dieterick (Illinois) to prepare for the next stage. It was nice to be cycling in daylight once again. Indeed, this was my favourite time to start, as the weather got cooler as the stage progressed, plus you finished in a normal time for sleeping. It was, yet again, extremely hot but my first leg went really well despite having to negotiate several turns. The crew met me about 5 minutes earlier than scheduled and I remember feeling a little frustrated when Mike congratulated me on achieving 19 miles an hour. I wanted to say ‘no, it was just over 20 mph, but you picked me up early’ but instead I just said thanks and got in the SUV. It’s funny how driven we all are to feel like we’re pulling our weight and not letting the team down.

My second leg took us along a winding road by a lake where I was joined by a lady in a car. I say joined, but despite my consistent speed the lady’s ability to stay alongside me was hopeless. As she moved past me I heard her call ‘are you doing RAAM?’. ‘Yes’ I replied, hoping that my aero tuck position would limit any further questioning. As she eased off the accelerator to a more parallel position she informed me that she was originally from Holland and that she loved cycling. To be honest, it was a nice little distraction and I was happy to engage her questions. The crew had witnessed the incident from up ahead and were curious about what was happening. I think they thought she was asking for directions. We made the next change at TS37 where I visited the gas station for what turned out to be a disappointing ice cream. We were starting to catch the solo riders by this point (RAAM starts the solo event 3 days before the team one, so they have 12 days to complete the event. Even so, only around half of the field manage to complete the event), but much to my surprise, shortly after Tom had departed, the German crew appeared. It seems that Jon and Coz had passed them during the night, though I appeared to be the only one who was oblivious to this fact. The British Army crew were also not too far away, though they were still ahead of us.

My third leg, just after entering Indiana, was relatively flat for the first few miles, but then climbed around 400 ft and got considerably more lumpy for the rest of the leg. I remember watching my average speed tumble as I hit the first climb. At least by this point all the training was paying off and hills were just something that slowed us down a little.

My final leg of the stage was one of the most eventful ones. First, the organisers had taken the route past the Indiana University Football Stadium which, although I’m sure was impressive (I didn’t notice as I was too busy trying not to get lost), involved a few tricky turns. Next, I accidentally took the exit road off the SR 46. It was one of those occasions where the main road and the exit road ran parallel for a few hundred yards, making the error difficult to detect on the GPS (an issue which would come back to haunt us the next day). Fortunately, it was after 8.00 pm and the crew were right behind me so we were able to remedy the situation before the German crew caught us. My final transgression on this stage involved the tricky negotiation of a strip-mall at TS38 in Bloomington (IN). As I approached the mall, I noticed that the GPS (still enough daylight to read it) indicated a series of right turns (three in total) resulting in the net effect of a left turn (If you get my drift). It looked a bit like going all the way around a roundabout just to take the first exit. Now, the RAAM organisers go to such great pains to state that you must follow the exact route that, times like this (particularly with the German team close behind) can make you fairly anxious. Anyway, just before the mall, and shortly after chatting with a British solo competitor at a red light, I was signalled to pull over by the time station marshals. I heard the crew shouting ‘no, straight on!’, but I pulled in anyway. At this point, my brain ceased to function and, thinking that the GPS map was indicating that I needed to cross the mall car park, I proceeded to cycle between several parked cars. As the crew were supposed to be following me, this left them completely bemused and several car honks and cries of ‘stop’ were required before I came to my senses. We laughed about it later, and fortunately the whole debacle only cost us a couple of minutes.

Tom’s final stint took him over a sharp 300 ft climb at which point we heard rumbles of thunder for the first time during the trip. I awoke fairly early in the evening to the subsequent storm. It was so bad that I got out of bed to speak to Mike about the speed he was driving the RV at, only to discover that we were only doing 40 mph (it felt much faster in the back of the RV). I wondered how Jon and Coz were coping with the conditions as I drifted off to sleep again.