What do people in Indianapolis do on a sunny Saturday morning? While I have a limited sample, from what I saw today both the Pride Festival and the Indianapolis Zoo are popular options.

I started in the eastern suburbs and ended in the western suburbs while going to the middle to see the state capitol. It was forecast to be in the upper 80s fahrenheit and I got on the road early. That works well for cooler morning cycling though occasionally motels have a 3pm check in time.

Early morning leaving Greenfield.

After a few miles, the Pennsy trail. This was newly paved and they seem to be extending the trail further east though I also had a nine mile gap of farm roads.

A farm along the rural roads. I saw a few other morning cyclists and not much traffic – in contrast to yesterday afternoon when Interstate 70 construction sent a lot of traffic onto little roads like this.

Part of the trail had planetary signs, scaled by the distance to the sun. This meant Neptune and Uranus as ways out and from Jupiter inbound all collected together. This model didn’t have Pluto included.

These folks tout their children or grandchildren. The last six miles inbound switched to city streets with a bike lane. As I started to get close, there were many people walking somewhere.

Aha! The Pride Festival and the parade. It turned out my chosen route picked the parade route for about a third of a mile. The parade started at 10am and I was perhaps 20 minutes earlier so was able to cycle slowly past crowd control and briefly on the route.

Reached the capitol. Hooray! This makes a dozen state capitols.

Another shot of the capitol.

Downtown bicycle rentals. They didn’t seem very active. Instead that area had parking and a fenced area for the festival where they had entertainment and charged admission.

Across the river and time to go outbound.

There is a trail on the other side and it goes right past the zoo. Unfortunately, the zoo has this gate and it took some sorting to find a detour. There was a lot of traffic and the zoo seemed to be a popular place.

Half a dozen miles outbound on roads like this with a bike lane and alternating strip mall stores and more junk type businesses.

Eventually into areas with new patio homes being sold for $250k+ and then a motel by the interstate. I found a UPS store and mailed a box to Colorado. Things like my wool hat and mittens that were useful in New Hampshire but I don’t expect to use before September.

Strava says: 47.27 miles in 5:05:20 for 9.3 miles/hour. 748 feet climbed and 2811 calories burned. Tomorrow has rain forecast so I will see how much and likely have a shorter ride to the next motel.