Team Photos Got off to a great start today: while eatin breakfast I noticed my back tire was going flat (even after all that hard work last night tunin up the bike!) Pops was having a similar morning, so we both ended up with the sweeps (Cockrell and Brendle today) right off the bat. This was just the beginning of our series of mishaps for the day. Sollner said this would be our longest ride of the trip…what a great day to have problems!
After setting out both Pops and I were subject to another flat apiece. Then around mile 30 or so I rubbed Brendle’s back tire but was able to recover…only to have Cockrell rub my bike tire and go down. Thankfully came away with just a couple scrapes and no bike damage. Before long we were pretty far back from the other pacelines.
Despite our troubles today we were havin a blast…everything just seemed funny. At Rod and Farley’s crew stop in Douglas (a little town along the way…apparently the home of the mythical Jackeloupe), Pops and Farley got in a hilarious cheese wiz fight: after matrix style dodging Farley’s first attempt, Pops got it right on the sunglasses from a good 20 feet away….causing me to fall over on my bike laughing, haha.
The odometer was just slow moving all day…head winds were really kicking our butt the whole ride. By 1-ish we had only gone around 60 miles…so Ezra set up a little pre-lunch of PB&J’s at a rest stop (side story: apparently when Ez and Grant got to the stop and started setting up, some guy came over and kept yelling at them to get out of there “I don’t wanna hear it; I know what you guys are doing and you gotta go.” Wouldn’t even let them explain. Completely confused Ez and Grant kind of hung for a little…prompting the guy to call up the cops…who came just as the first cyclists rolled in. Upon seeing this the guy realized he was absurdly mistaken, made a fool of himself to the cop (“uh, hey sir, why are you here?” …”because you called us!!”) The guy never even apologized….the guess is he thought we were protesters or something.
After all that excitement we kept truckin on till mile 85, when the decision was finally made that we had to rack up (just weren’t going to make the ride in time for today’s programming). While waitin for the vans we kept up with hilarious antics….took some sweet TA=BA pics…no one was really put out about having to rack, haha.
Seven of our guys who were cruising in the front all day did end up making the full 120 miles….pretty intense. We lodged up at the local Middle School (which was nicer than my high school) and within a half hour had to get ready to go to dinner (it was already pushing 5 pm at this point…looooonnng day on the bike).
Dinner tonight was again graciously provided by the Cattlewomen’s Association…but this time we headed out to their place: a ranch house down about a five mile rumbling dirt road (side funny story: Pops elected to stay behind at the rack point when we couldn’t fit everyone at first, so we had to pick him up on the way to dinner…so his bike (which he had just meticulously cleaned) was on the back rack for our whole dirt road ride…looked like it had been sittin in an attic for 100 years after than haha).
The owner of the ranch was Mimi, who had prepared for us some delicious top round with her fellow Cattlewomen. We even got to take a sweet wagon ride pulled by two beautiful (and huge) Belgian horses, Amy and Liz. Mel, our old cowboy of a driver, was pretty quiet.
After dinner most everyone hung out at lodging…used the computers and whatnot. I stayed up a little extra late to do some blog posting action…it’s truly readers like you that make this all worthwhile, haha.
After setting out both Pops and I were subject to another flat apiece. Then around mile 30 or so I rubbed Brendle’s back tire but was able to recover…only to have Cockrell rub my bike tire and go down. Thankfully came away with just a couple scrapes and no bike damage. Before long we were pretty far back from the other pacelines.
Despite our troubles today we were havin a blast…everything just seemed funny. At Rod and Farley’s crew stop in Douglas (a little town along the way…apparently the home of the mythical Jackeloupe), Pops and Farley got in a hilarious cheese wiz fight: after matrix style dodging Farley’s first attempt, Pops got it right on the sunglasses from a good 20 feet away….causing me to fall over on my bike laughing, haha.
The odometer was just slow moving all day…head winds were really kicking our butt the whole ride. By 1-ish we had only gone around 60 miles…so Ezra set up a little pre-lunch of PB&J’s at a rest stop (side story: apparently when Ez and Grant got to the stop and started setting up, some guy came over and kept yelling at them to get out of there “I don’t wanna hear it; I know what you guys are doing and you gotta go.” Wouldn’t even let them explain. Completely confused Ez and Grant kind of hung for a little…prompting the guy to call up the cops…who came just as the first cyclists rolled in. Upon seeing this the guy realized he was absurdly mistaken, made a fool of himself to the cop (“uh, hey sir, why are you here?” …”because you called us!!”) The guy never even apologized….the guess is he thought we were protesters or something.
After all that excitement we kept truckin on till mile 85, when the decision was finally made that we had to rack up (just weren’t going to make the ride in time for today’s programming). While waitin for the vans we kept up with hilarious antics….took some sweet TA=BA pics…no one was really put out about having to rack, haha.Seven of our guys who were cruising in the front all day did end up making the full 120 miles….pretty intense. We lodged up at the local Middle School (which was nicer than my high school) and within a half hour had to get ready to go to dinner (it was already pushing 5 pm at this point…looooonnng day on the bike).
Dinner tonight was again graciously provided by the Cattlewomen’s Association…but this time we headed out to their place: a ranch house down about a five mile rumbling dirt road (side funny story: Pops elected to stay behind at the rack point when we couldn’t fit everyone at first, so we had to pick him up on the way to dinner…so his bike (which he had just meticulously cleaned) was on the back rack for our whole dirt road ride…looked like it had been sittin in an attic for 100 years after than haha).
The owner of the ranch was Mimi, who had prepared for us some delicious top round with her fellow Cattlewomen. We even got to take a sweet wagon ride pulled by two beautiful (and huge) Belgian horses, Amy and Liz. Mel, our old cowboy of a driver, was pretty quiet.After dinner most everyone hung out at lodging…used the computers and whatnot. I stayed up a little extra late to do some blog posting action…it’s truly readers like you that make this all worthwhile, haha.
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