Deputy Pike Road is a good example of what you?ll find when you venture off the numbered Indiana State Roads. Photos by the author.
I was born in Indiana, so I am, by definition, a Hoosier. I didn?t learn to ride there, but I spent 10 years in Indianapolis honing my skills on its city streets and country roads. One day early on, when I was about 21 or so, a co-worker invited me to join him on a ride ?down south.? Making our turn off the four-lane highway and onto a narrow piece of blacktop that curved into the dark green forest, he pulled to a stop. ?This is the road that made me fall in love with riding,? he said. Then he snapped his face shield down and took off. Twenty minutes later, my heart pounding and a grin smeared across my face, I understood. The Ohio River makes a wide horsehoe bend near Leavenworth, Indiana.
Indiana is known as the ?Crossroads of America,? and for good reason. No fewer than seven major Interstates cross the state, four of them through the capital of Indianapolis. Sticking to those, you?d swear the state comprises mostly truck stops and cornfields, but as Hoosiers like to say, ?There?s more than corn in Indiana,? including some surprisingly good roads. I?ve always wanted to return and ride my old favorites, so I flew to Chicago, where I picked up a rental bike at EagleRider and pointed the front wheel east, heading out of the urban sprawl and into the heart of Hoosier Amish country.
The Wabash County courthouse was the site of a momentous occasio...