This was the 13th year that there has been a double century in Bloomington for the BBC. The first eleven years it was known as Rudy's Double Century as Rudy Savich organized, mapped out the route, and provided support for the riders. He also selected a charity that would benefit from any donations that any rider would have liked to make to that cause. Last year did not have Rudy or a charitable cause as six BBC members rode to Paris, IL with the sag support of Eugene Kase.
This year I decided to resurrect the charity angle as the 2012 Tornado Double Century went to the Henryville, Indiana area where tornadoes ravaged that area this past March. Many of us have ridden southern Indiana, and I thought it would be fitting for mostly fortunate Bloomington to give something back. A local charity, HCC Recovery, was selected and several BBC members and a few Jim's CVS customers contributed to the cause.
6am at Bryan Park, three riders and a sag support driver started the journey. I had tried to publicize this event and promote a "share a century" concept where riders could ride the first 100 miles and then help support the riders that were riding the last 100 miles. That was not the case, and so, Sylvia Stoub drove the famous support Subaru with 3 "tifosi" golden retrievers while Nathan Rogers, Rudy Savich, and myself headed off on our two-wheeled steads.
Nathan had never attempted a double century and thought it would be a good test for his first RAIN ride a month later. Rudy, mostly a marathon runner, decided to strart training for this two WEEKS previous. I had planned a grueling 200 miler with a "hill mongerish" 9,600 feet of climbing, but not the mid-90 degree heat in store for us!
We started the route with some familiarity as we paced down to Springville and Fayetteville, and then turned left on IN-150 through Eureka and then Bedford, which was actually new to Rudy. The dogs kept us alert, as Gracie barked at every farm animal she saw.
Rolling to hilly but always enjoyable Tunnelton Rd was ridden, naturally, all the way to Tunnelton on the East Fork of the White River, as we now entered BBC uncharted lands through Bono and Cave River Valley, and highway 60 to Salem. The country roads were some of the best I've encountered, and IN-60 had a nice shoulder. 70 miles showed on the computer so we decided to eat at a Subway south of the courthouse in Salem.
We veered onto a nice country up an downer, Martinsburg Rd, which ran parallel to IN-60, but the scenery was nice and the tree cover cooled our bodies. We came back on IN-60 in Pekin, but that was okay as the state road avoid all the "knobs" that surrounded us on both sides of the highway. After passing over I-65 we then headed north on US-31 and entered Henryville and stopped at Henryville Christian Church to hand over our donations of about $1500. There was so much going on with all the construction of the school and many houses in town. The Church was the mess hall for all the volunteers out there. The kids enjoyed the dogs, while we enjoyed ice cream sundaes. There was so much donated food that they even gave us boxes and boxes of Clif bars. Behind them, I understood the gesture: There was a 10 ft x 10ft x 10ft cubicle mountain of just Cliff bars!
At this 100 mile point, Rudy was tiring of all the hills dolled out on him, so we suggested that he ride on the flatter US-31 to Austin and Crothersville, while the rest of us went farther east and north to Marysville and Lexington. There we followed the path of destruction on Henryville-Otisco Rd. The heat and the country hills were pounding us, but nothing like the tornado that had pounded on the forests, houses, and churches throughout the countryside.
Nathan and I had hoped to meet up with Rudy somewhere between Austin and Crothersville. Rudy even left us a sign, a red rag on a street sign but we missed it in Crothersville. All of our cell phones had lost power by then, so there was no way to find him. Brownstown was our last stop, and some remnants of some rain storms cooled the road off a bit as we now headed north on IN-135. We even had one of those rain showers in the sun later, and that sure felt good. We took the detour around the Kurtz bridgework, but we went the opposite way that the Nashville 90'rs went. We had all the uphill! Arrggh!
Finally, our last leg was IN-446, and it was quite desolate until we climbed Mellencamp Hill just north of the causeway. Traffic piled up behind our sag vehicle and it was getting darker by the minute. We still hadn't seen Rudy, so I decided that we should turn right at the Cabin Restaurant and go to Rudy's house to check on the situation. Rudy was actually ten to fifteen minutes ahead of us. By then it was pitch dark. I figured that 191 miles was long enough for a double century, so we all loaded up in the Subaru and dropped off Nathan.
-From Jim Schroeder
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