Days off are supposed to be restful, and while it was the first time I got to sleep until I was done sleeping in the past 2 weeks, it was still full of business and busyness.
Daniel had jokingly suggested that anyone awakening before 9am would receive some punishment so I snuck out once I was awake at 8:30 and headed up to the gym on the top floor (a full sized basketball court with wet bar, roller skates, bleachers, pool tables, a TV, and more...on the 4th floor of a church. What a church! Thanks so much, first baptist church of oklahoma city!)
Claire and Alex M were playing ping pong and chatting with a church worker named Dale. Dale had been nothing but wonderful and friendly to us, helping us get set up and pshawing our offers to vacuum up after ourselves. Turns out, he's been a medical assistant for years as a direct result of losing his mother and grandmother to cancer as a kid, and he had a soft place in his heart for our cause. His lost loved ones were one of our dedications the next day, before we rolled out of OK City.
Shortly after chatting, a group of us took off for one of two freshly opened bike stores within walking distance (but of course we rode =)) of the church. We discovered that they were missing some of the stuff we wanted (a derailleur hanger checker/straightener, and Trek derailleur hangers) but they had a lot of other stuff we needed--I got some CO2 cartridges, some degreaser, and some free advice before hurrying back to a mysterious team meeting/lunch.
Lunch featured Keat Wilkins, president of our primary sponsor Sense Corp. He got us a quasi-tour of Sonic's corporate HQ, and then he bought us lunch at Sonic as well. Sonic is quickly becoming the unofficial official rockies team eatery--we've done 4 rest stops at, and multiple side trips to, the south's fastest growing fast food drive-in chain. It does seem to be sufficiently caloriffic to help us maintain equilibrium on days like day 9 when some burned as much as 4000 calories on the bike alone. Of course, the tour guide admitted that the corporate employees don't eat Sonic every day for health reasons, but she allowed as how hungry college bikers might be able to pull it off a little more reasonably than desk jockeys.
After lunch, Keat took us shopping at Wal-Mart (unfortunately, Wal-Mart is the universal "they'll have everything anyone needs" store) and we showed him our powers of saving...buying store-brand salt at a 6 cent savings, buying dry beans that will be a royal pain to pre-soak before cooking, and other thriftinesses. We weren't aware he'd be buying until the end, so we weren't really trying to put on a show so much as espouse our philosophy of "spend less, donate more". While all of the donations we fundraised individually will go to cancer research, the corporate money goes toward infrastructure (vans, trailers) and expenses (food, gas, team supplies)...and if we can keep the budget tight, some of that money can go to the better cause as well!
After the shopping spree with Keat (and, I bought myself a belt to keep these shorts from getting obscene!) we revisited the bike store and got some free tune ups from Chris @ Bicycle Alley who admitted his incredulity at doing Longhorns a favor deep in Sooner territory, but then took a serious moment to tell us about his dad, who's been living with and fighting prostate cancer for 2 years. He helped us out because he believes in our cause and he loves his dad. We thanked him profusely and rode out into the afternoon, smooth and happy. His dad was another ride dedication for the next day.
We took care of some miscellaneous errands in the afternoon, cooked some dinner, and readied everything for the next day. I got a real treat when my friends Ben and Nadja drove over from Tulsa and took me out for a few hours to catch up--it'd been a few months since we'd last seen eachother. It was great to see them, and I got back just in time to welcome a new team member, Katy, who'd left team Sierra to join the obviously superior (but definitely more concerned about everyone finishing safely) team Rockies. After a lot of hugs, we slept.
After a rest day, I was feeling pretty good. We got breakfast taken care of quickly, and circled up for our dedication with some guests! Terry, the owner of bicycle alley and a friend of his had come out to lead us out of town on a route that didn't involve a busy highway, and had a dedication of his own in addition to an absolute flood of ours--after all we had Dale's and Chris' from our adventures the day before, and a lot of team members felt like expressing dedications of their own. In addition, we officially welcomed Katy to the team during our dedications, and then got underway. The locals took us on a very scenic trip through some ultra luxurious neighborhoods and then around their equivalent of town lake, which was really neat--the pavement was closer to the sort the veloway has, and the crowds were definitely out on a cool if cloudy/windy saturday morning. We enjoyed the ride a lot more than we would have enjoyed the highway, and picked up a trio of triathletes who led us further out of the city. Brett was the last to hang with us as we headed towards his house, and we chatted with him at the first rest stop and found out a little more about him. We told him how to read our blogs so hopefully he'll see this very heartfelt thanks for his company and directions.
While at the bike shop in Oklahoma City, I'd admitted to having a fairly low cadence or frequency of getting my pedals through an entire revolution. The bike tech informed me that most people get their max power at around 80 rpm, but I ride closer to 50 rpm on average. I feel pretty comfortable at 50, and I'm definitely fairly quick, but if I could be better...why not try it? Fortunately my bike computer lets me know how fast I'm pedalling so I started paying attention and made a conscious goal of sitting at 65--I figured I'd split the difference to start out. It turns out that I had to do a lot more shifting than I normally do to maintain 65rpm, but I felt really steady in heart rate and level of exertion, and I felt a lot smoother in my riding, even if my actual ground speed varied pretty wildly.
At our lunch stop, Brett had suggested we check out Eischen's bar, which claimed to have "the best fried chicken in the state". It was chock full of character, and the chicken was good, but not great, even versus our extreme hungriness. It was definitely the first time in my life that I've ever ordered an entire chicken (though I shared half of it with the rest of the team).
At about mile 50, I stopped and waited for the last group to give directions at a turn, and hung with Katy, Claire, and Eric (who was sweeping) for the rest of the ride. It had unfortunately heated up to about 90, with perfect sun and a ton of humidity, so we started to slow down...and then we hit some rough pavement...and then the hills started up. After we pulled into the last rest stop, I got my first flat (thorn! how I despise you!), changed it quickly, and then hit a wall. I absolutely dragged all the way toward town, unable to keep any kind of speed and holding Eric and Katy back on occasion. Town was, as usual, a few miles further than promised.
The discovery that I could no longer shift into my smallest/easiest front gear made the hills more of a workout than I was looking for but I suddenly found a burst of energy and outpaced Katy and Eric (surprising them and myself) and cruised into town, found the destination, and then headed back out to meet my buddies at the main street. They weren't far behind me, so we headed into the church, were fed and socialized/showered, and turned in early.
[I originally posted this from my cell phone, which means that it is both more concise than usual (5,000 character limit) and that I fought for a long time to make it go. Whew!]
Tonight we're in Woodward, Oklahoma, and today was my first day as a driver. Every 8 days, each person has to drive, and we have two support vehicles. So, someone gets to drive the cute minivan (aka Mama van) and someone gets to drive the huge honking 15-passenger-van-with-trailer that (aka Papa van). The drivers are full-on support for the day, doing everything from cooking breakfast and dinner to driving the route, picking up stranded cyclists, bringing spare tires around, and making rest stop food. Today, this meant myself (and Collin) got to stay dry for the first rain day and become heroes by serving hot cocoa and ramen at a rest stop. I think this was one of the first times we really felt like we were "on the road" in the serious sense--we set up the camp stove in the parking lot of a gas station and boiled water for the libations! At the beginning and end of the day, I started a tradition that Collin and I would continue to follow all summer, and took the lead on cleaning the vans and trailer before and after driving. A bonus to that achievement is that we now have an accurate survey of available food and sent most of the team off to Wal-Mart in the evening to stock up on what we lack.
At the magical ramen rest stop, Alex M ate a corn dog. Many other folks did as well, but I mention Alex since he managed to get a chunk of it lodged in his throat to the extent that he couldn't swallow! Apparently he has a skinny esophagus (known medical condition) and so he wasn't as freaked out about this as I would have been..but he still wasn't able to bike since he couldn't hydrate and was in a constant state of severe discomfort. After a few rounds of forced vomiting and lots of "put water in, spit it back out since it cannot pass", we stopped by a local hospital and asked their advice. This is practically a one-room hospital--there's not much in this region and this was the biggest we'd see short of driving back to oklahoma city. The nurses were very concerned and turned to an old fellow wearing suspenders and hillbilly clothes, who said to drink some maalox. Alex and I were pretty convinced that the guy was the janitor rather than the doctor, but tried it anyway, and eventually (not sure if it was the maalox or just the passage of time), he felt better. This adventure cost us about an hour but we caught up with the tail pack before the end of the route.
It was a nice day for riding despite (or because of) the rain: low heat index, and people hurried to get from stop to stop. And it dried up by the end so we got to unpack in the sun and hang stuff out to dry.
Tonight we're staying at the First United Methodist Church and they fed us burgers, cookies, cake, and provided a surprisingly attentive audience for our team's first ever presentation. We talked about the organization, cancer prevention, the American Cancer Society and MD Anderson Cancer Center, and why we ride. It went far better than we were expecting, but especially wonderful was Michael Choate's segment on why he rides. Touching, heartfelt, and it definitely connected with the audience--primarily the youth group of the church. It even got them talking--we were asked questions at the end and then had a minor throwdown on the basketball court with the youth group and took home 3 wins in some games of knockout. Of course, twice the 2nd to last contender was a young girl =)
I cleaned and checked my bike and I'm ready to ride tomorrow--one of our shortest days of the ride at 30-odd miles. I think I'll ride it straight through and enjoy the wind, but not kill my legs since the day after is another border race! Daniel says he's hurting so it may not be as exciting, but at least there's no rest stop confusion since the border is something like 12 miles from our start point.
Heading north from Woodward we travelled a very short 35 miles into Buffalo for our last stop in the OK state. We slept in an extra hour since we knew we'd arrive plenty early and then headed out with another local guide! Apparently her daughter had passed on my invitation during the previous night's presentation about riding out with us in the morning, and she took us up on the invitation! She showed up at 8:30 and we did our dedication and followed Cindi out onto the streets of Woodward, and out past the edge of town. She fortunately lived just down the street from the highway out there and headed home after wishing us the best of luck. Nifty thing is, I got a call from her later that night (since we couldn't blog from buffalo--even on my cell phone. Someday, technology will catch up with global coverage, but it's not there yet!) to verify that we'd made it safely.
The road to Buffalo went through sleepy Fort Supply, OK, and then turned north onto US 183 (yes, that 183!). The pavement was great...and we rolled past a huge wind farm at a distance of a few hundred yards and appreciated aloud the beauty of the spinning blades, discussed the engineering possibilities, and lauded the green power. Eric had done a series of newspaper articles on a similar proposition in New York and gave us a lot of the lowdown on some things we were interested in. Informative and beautiful!
Then the road turned to rolling hills, the kind that are wonderful to zoom down, and glide up on momentum, so Daniel and I stretched our legs and were out in front of the rest of the pack by quite a ways by the time we got into town. We weren't racing, but we were enjoying some zooming without killing ourselves---after all the next day was to contain a 12-mile border race! I'm not sure if it was the short day, our good moods (I was feeling much better than I had been when I got in the night before), or just the way things were, but the colors seemed especially vibrant on this stretch--very red soil, very black blacktop, and very lush green grass. I felt a little like I was in Africa on safari as we saw few cars, many cows, and this beautiful countryside. Tucked up in the northern panhandle of oklahoma, it came as a real surprise to find something so easy on the eyes.
Our extremely gracious host Mike had actually driven out of town and was waiting for us at the edge of things and led us in in his truck. Incidentally, Mike and his wife were extremely wonderful hosts--they opened their church up to us (Mike's the minister and lives next door), called in their congregation to cook us dinner, arranged showers (cold but nothing compared to what we'll see later this summer!) at the local high school, and then even called in another congregation's ladies to cook us breakfast! It was swell!
Since we'd arrived so early, I spent the afternoon giving my drivetrain a cleaning that even Robin might have grudgingly accepted as passable (she actually takes hers apart, which I didn't do, but I did go through a prodigious number of q-tips and some degreaser and was left with a chain that doesn't mark my leg when I touch it...which happens pretty darn frequently!) Nearly everyone else napped after our huge lunch at the town's newest diner (1 of 2 total eateries in the place, to give you an idea of scale. I think the town was about 4 blocks wide, centered on the highway we came in on and left on). Collin was out there cleaning alongside me though, so it wasn't too boring.
Not so early to bed, but very early to rise (we'd asked the ladies cooking us breakfast to serve at 5:30 and they were there at 4:45. Before we'd actually woken up. Oops!) since we wanted an early start. And we got one after breakfast--at which I fueled up on burritos the size of hot dogs (sans bun), a half cup of coffee, and some clif shot blocks. We were on the road at 7:15 after a group photo by the local newspaper (sadly, they have no web edition. The reporter was fairly confused by the question, actually.) We were all kinda jumpy for the race and so I didn't pay it much mind when my stomach went a little queasy and I started sweating profusely--after all, I am a champion sweater! I definitely sweat more than anyone else on the team and often end up coated in salt at the end of a warm ride, as the sweat evaporates and leaves all the electrolytes behind. Still, by the time we'd gone 10 miles and dropped all but a few of the fellows, I was feeling downright ill. I'm gonna blame the coffee and shot blocks, since the burritos were great for lunch later. Daniel and I were both hurting, but we picked up the pace enough to leave the others far enough behind to not be a threat, and then he drafted off me til we got close. as we were working our way past the first cow farm we had the pleasure of smelling...I attacked over the crest of a hill a mile from the border. I powered down the other side in my aerobars, but he stayed with me, and he had enough in him to pull ahead at the state line. I was just not hungry enough (or feeling very well, for that matter) to chase him in the last few hundred yards. He didn't get too far ahead of me, but he won fair and square, so we gave eachother a high 5 and calmed down and cruised to the first rest stop.
I'll get him into Colorado! I tend to have great legs in the middle of the day =)
The rest of the day was all about rolling hills, a big basin, and a fierce tailwind. We heart tailwinds! Except when the road turns and suddenly we have a vicious crosswind...I actually had to ask Alex S not to ride next to me today because I was having that much trouble controlling my bike and jumping around on the (fairly wide at that point) shoulder. But for the majority of the ride, the wind was at our backs, and Nelson, Usman, Alex M and I were out in the front by a good bit, and we weren't even pushing it too hard. in fact, between rest stops 3 and 4, I didn't even change gears once from my 2nd highest gear, and maintained an average of around 22mph as close as I can figure.
As a result of leaving early and making fabulous time, we got in before 3 and found first methodist church with only a little trouble, and got showers in the public pool across the street before cooking ourselves dinner and doing a little team shopping at some vast megachainstores.
Now that I've blogged and it's after 8, I can safely attempt sleep and give Alex C (a different Alex!) back his computer.
Up early, packed quickly, and an emergency...no milk for the eggs! The sky is falling! I offered instruction on making them without milk since I don't usually bother, and was rebuffed. I offered to go buy some milk and was told to be back in 15 minutes. I brought back milk and found the eggs already made. We have communications issues sometimes =)
The milk was anyway appreciated and used up in cereal, oatmeal, and I had a cup of it straight. We set out quickly and made great time--the wind was still favoring us and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Daniel asked me if it would rain, and looking up, it seemed pretty likely. Grey, windy, and cold. However, being the eternal optimist and believing in self-fulfilling prophecies (though not actually believing in my ability to affect the weather), I insisted that we would be rain free and someone nearby suggested that my weather prophecy was bound to be true. Daniel disbelieved and wore his rainjacket anyway, though he failed to offer a verbal opinion on the matter at that time.
We set out, and aside from the rumblestrips present along nearly every mile of our 107 travelled today, the road was smooth and the wind was acommodating. We made good time into the first rest stop, and then I got out ahead of everyone on the leadout into leg #2. Alex C caught my wheel and drafted me through the 20 miles into rest stop 2, and we averaged at least 21 mph thanks to the wind and an only very gradual incline. It was fortunate that we arrived when we did, because the two of us were the only ones around to meet team UPS coming the other way (our rest stop was on the eastbound side of the street, and it is likely that nobody would have stopped mid-ride, crossed and ridden backwards to talk to cyclists going the other way, even rare as they are). Their team consists of two cyclists and 2 drivers in a very stylish RV, and they are travelling from San Diego to Washington, DC. I call them team UPS since UPS largely sponsored their trip, but they weren't pro cyclists, just UPS employees wearing the logo. At any rate, they were exceedingly interested in our cause, and we swapped stories as the rest of the team pulled in. We got some group photos, encouraged eachother (it's all downhill from here!) and set out towards points east and west.
Alex pulled on this leg and maintained an average of around 24mph...the guy is probably the shortest one on the team but he has some powerful legs. It was pretty exciting to get some drafting practice in the aerobars at 22-32mph as there were some downhills during this section, though the prevailing trend all day was a gradual climb. Apparently when team UPS said "it's all downhill" they meant that it had been for them--not that it would be for us going backwards on the same stretch of road. Doh! The sun started to peek out during this leg and I laughed internally at daniel's raincoat, still tucked into his jersey. Towards rest stop 4 we were averaging around 26mph as Daniel drove the pace and I lost his wheel for awhile before pulling back up with the last of my juice. We made it out to the rest stop, ate and were immediately attacked by a swarm of biting flies that would give us no respite. After applying insect spray that almost seemed to attract them, we finally decided to pile into the van and leave them outside. This worked great for the 4 of us there at the time, but quickly became unwieldy as the rest of the team pulled up and so we got back on the road and took it easy til the next stop. Near the end we were getting bored with cruising at 18mph so we did some paceline rotation practice. It'd be boring to describe, but suffice it to say that now, 5 of the fastest folks are much better at drafting and pacelining, skills which may not be universally handy on this trip (excepting border races and extremely headwindy days) but which will serve me (at least) well for all my racing days to come.
The second to last leg was fairly brutally sunny and Daniel was still insisting it was going to rain and everyone was laughing and shaking their heads as we mounted ever-increasing hills. Suddenly we were at the county line, which was also the line that changed Central time to Mountain time. I think that was the first time I actually realized how far we'd come. Leaving states is something I've done a hundred times in a car, but changing timezones is a little more sacred somehow. When you're actually covering astronomincally significant, instead of politically significant distances, somehow the realization of the bigness of this thing takes on a little more reality. To me, at least =)
At the timezone/county line, we met a fellow biker who had ridden up from town to meet us. Turns out he's from the church we're staying at, and he runs the donut shop in the town. He mentions that it's the one year anniversary of the opening of his store--June 13, 2006. Which makes me realize it's my best friend Peter's birthday, and so I take the moment to give him a happy birthday text message...and he calls me back immediately. It's so wonderful to hear his voice there in the middle of nowhere, Kansas!
We start the ride into town without a real rest stop since we're at the crest of a hill that exposed a really nasty storm front directly in our path, and we're only about 8 miles out anyway. Daniel smirked. The ride was all downhill, but the clouds were looming denser and darker and the temperature started to drop and the wind picked up. Then the wind started blowing, hard, directly into our faces. Claire was struggling so I fell back with her and we battled the wind bravely, expecting sheets of rain and a tornado at any second. The clouds loomed for at least 10 miles, and Claire and I struggled for 5 of them and lost sight of the group...and we had no directions, but Claire had her cell phone and so we called and found out we were 5 blocks away. We plowed up that last hill and pulled into the church just as the tornado warning was called in...but we made it! No sagging! Go team!
Unfortunately, this evening is just about our only negative interaction of the entire trip (beginning to end) with the people we meet. Our hosts were a church that graciously put us up, organized showers at the pool for us, and even brought potluck food for us to eat. However, they were a bit preachy for most tastes, and did something that was neat from my perspective and awful from others--they'd assigned folks from their congregation to pray for us, and after dinner, those folks took most of us individually aside to chat with us about the trip and our relationships with Jesus Christ. I declined to get into it about religion with my pray-er, and so we had a nice talk about the trip and life in general, but others were made to feel uncomfortable or, in one case, downright awful. One young lady was called a harlot and adulterer and sinner, over and over, though I'm fairly certain she wrote about none of that in her journal where her accusor could have found out. She's a fairly religious rider, and so this was especially crushing in addition to the rudeness factor. It was almost at the point of us packing up to go somewhere else, but it finally blew over and we agreed to leave as quickly as possible the next morning. While it was horriffic to discover this situation, it was awesome how the team pulled together to buoy her spirits and were all ready to go camp on the side of the road if she didn't feel like she was safe staying there--safety is not just physical, but mental as well.
Side note: my cell phone has had coverage almost 100% of the trip so far. Sprint is the way to go, for those who shall follow. Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile have had spotty coverage at best. I'm not eagerly awaiting my cellphone bill, though... [it turned out not to be too horrible, except in canada]
We leave Kansas early, into a cool sprinkle. I'm very glad I have on my rainjacket, even though it turns out to be a 20 mile border race. The jacket turns out to approximate a parachute brake once you go fast enough, but I like warmth more than I like speed on a cold, wet morning! Even so, the sprinkle hurts at 20mph...which we eventually reach, even though the race is a very slow start. Nobody wants to lead anyone else out--especially me! I'm tired of pulling Daniel to victory... It ended up being Collin, Alex, Daniel, and myself out front struggling against the wind/rain. We weren't that far ahead of the main group...and suddenly we were only 2 miles out! So, I sucked it up, and picked it up, and they came along.
We get close to the line (which I didn't realize) and the three of them come off my wheel and break away into the lead, sprinting. I chase, but Collin is a madman and finishes way out front. Alex leaves kansas second, but I make it into Colorado second. It's funny, but most states have this setup where you see the "leaving State X" sign a good hundred yards before you see an "entering state Y" sign. In this case, there's actually a road between the two signs! It's called "Boundary road" but really--what's your address if you live in there? Anyhow, it's a good race--Daniel's fourth =)
We are so happy to finally be in Colorado, but the first 20 miles of our first mountain state is bad road, heavy rain, heavy wind, and a 15mph average pace--and we're leading the pack by at least 15 minutes. I keep falling off Alex's wheel and thinking "I'll just finish on my own"...and then somehow I catch up again. I'm gonna give the credit to Daniel and Alex for slowing down just a little bit when I start to drop. I'm exhausted...except when the doberman starts chasing us at 25mph--he would have caught slower riders! He was just about pacing us at that speed. After a mile or so, he drops off, and fortunately we seem to have worn him out for those who followed, who reported no trouble though I called back to warn the following crew.
I pulled for a couple miles through Granada, CO as my odometer went over 888.8. For some reason, I am fascinated by meaningless numbers.
After we got to the second rest stop (in the rain), I proposed and supervised setting up the tarp, and ate lots. I soon escaped towards rest stop 3, and it was drizzling all the way. Katy and I were together and were third & fourth place into rest stop 3--we passed almost everyone in the town that the rest stop was placed just after, and after which it turned into a beautiful day! We left first from rest stop 3 to be first into #4, but we didn't rush, stopped for pictures and to smell the flowers, as well as admiring the beautiful freshness of the whole just-post-rain area. We didn't beat the rest of the team into the 4th rest stop by more than a minute.
Took a team nap at stop 4 on the ground next to the road, ate Huckleberries that Amy found growing down the side road we were pulled off near, and then hurried into Las Animas for some thoroughly awesome hospitality from the Baptist church there. I slept at the parsonage with 6 others and we all got hot showers, laundry, and by morning we'd been lavished with 2 wonderful potluck (by parishoners) meals.