I never in a million years would have thought I’d say that! I’ve had my best rides so far in Nebraska, though. Today was 111 miles with 100 in under 6 hours! I haven’t done a century that fast in years! It was great! Good road. Cool temperature. Enough small towns to keep me occupied. And we’re just about half way!
I had the privilege of meeting more LCC Comfort dogs too! Moses, Eddie and Joy came out to meet us. They brought us gifts too! I received brownies, Nebraska beef (did you know that Nebraska is the “Beef State”?) and a wrist band from Eddie Comfort Dog (don’t tell Aaron). Joy’s handler has MS too. I sure hope we can make a difference with this ride!
Day 11 we left Wyoming and headed into Colorado. What a great ride! Beautiful vistas and nice smooth road (a little hairy with the semis at times). I was making great time too. It looked like I would make it to Fort Collins by 2:30 pm. A nice early day (rest day)! The only problem was, we had no campsite reservation and couldn’t find anywhere with an open spot. Mr. SAG had started calling as soon as we changed routes heading into CO.
Back home, we are part of a Comfort Dog ministry team through Lutheran Church Charities. Mr. SAG is a handler for Aaron Comfort Dog and I am one of his photographers. Aaron is one of about 150 Comfort Dogs deployed around the country through LCC. Luckily for us, Cubby Comfort Dog is in Fort Collins! So our “Top Dog” helped reach out to Cubby’s “Top Dog”. We connected and were able to set up camp in their church (Redeemer Lutheran) parking lot. What a great group of people too! We met several from Cubby’s team, were able to worship with them, and went out for a wonderful dinner. It turns out that a couple of people have MS and were excited that I am raising funds for MS research and assistance through this ride.
Speaking of dinner, we nearly had a huge catastrophe! We followed Cubby’s handlers to the restaurant in the RV. About five miles out, a car pulled up beside us honking away. As soon as we heard them, we knew what it was about! My bike had just been bungee corded to the bike rack on the back so it wouldn’t fall over in the wind. It wasn’t secured for driving! Mr. SAG and I were sick all of a sudden. We stopped the RV and ran around the back to survey the damage. Nothing! The bungee cord had held the bike up enough to where it never actually touched the ground/dragged. Wow! God surely was looking out for us! Of course He was shaking His head thinking “Seriously? What’s next?” We needed Cubby Comfort Dog after that! Thank you Kathy, Denny and everyone at Redeemer Lutheran for your hospitality! God is good!
Pics of the day:
Songs of the day:
Day 12 – Onward! Nothing much exciting today except lots of rolling hills and more wind! I dealt with a 10 mph straight on headwind for most of the day. One of the toughest centuries I’ve ever ridden! And according to Mr. SAG, we were on “alien abduction highway!
When you have a tough day, God follows it up with a Glorious one. And this one was oh so glorious! We re-positioned around the washed out roads and the non-roads. Then I headed out for a mile high century into Laramie. It was a bit breezy and chilly to start but it warmed up right away, and the breeze was a welcomed tail wind. This was the view in the beginning, so I thought it might be a boring day.
Wrong! There were so many great vistas and lots of animals. I think I saw over 100 antelope throughout the day.
For Tom J. 🙂
After I stopped for lunch with the SAG (I’m so lucky) at about the half way point, that tailwind started to turn into a cross wind and then headwind. It was sustained over 20 mph. Ugh! You know how I like the wind! The last 15 miles into town were particularly tough. I was spent!
Songs of the day:
This first one got into my head this morning and kept coming back all day for whatever reason.
The second one was playing in my ear during the last climb before the run down into town.
Day 9 of this grand bike tour was interesting to say the least. It started out with a wonderful peaceful ride over rolling hills through big green lush valleys. Almost perfect! Almost. At about the 9-mile mark, my tire started losing air. I pumped it up and it slowly lost it again. Since I was only 9 miles out from camp, I called in the SAG Wagon. They met up with me about 20 minutes later. We decided to just switch out wheels rather than change the tire so we could take a good look at it later (it was the same one that went flat yesterday. And off I went. Several miles later, I was concerned about a rubbing noise that had developed. I wasn’t sure what it was, but the bike just didn’t feel right – wasn’t shifting well. I called ahead and had the SAG wait for me. After inspection, it turned out that the wheel was never quite seated right. Once that was corrected, everything was great again!
On to Wyoming!
Was cruising along just fine until we learned a couple of the roads I was supposed to be on were washed out. The rivers are all running really high! Unfortunately, we learned there are no other viable roads through the area. So…I hitched a ride with the SAG for 30 miles to our stopping point. We are going to re-position tomorrow and head out on an alternate route. It looks like I’ll be dipping into Colorado for a couple of days after all.
Thanks for the help all day, SAG Team!
By the way, it ended up being a small piece of glass that was imbedded in the tire that gave me the flat both days. All cleaned out now!
Song of the day: Went back to an old favorite of mine.
When I headed out today, it was smooth sailing! I was going downhill and even had a bit of a tailwind! What a difference a day makes! And then I hit the service road I would be on for most of the day. Turns out it was a road that is not maintained. They weren’t kidding either! For the most part, keeping up a good pace depends on your fitness level, weight of/on the bike, wind speed and direction, elevation gain and road surface. I learned quickly today that road surface is a really big factor. The road was bumpy and gravelly and beat me up for 30 miles.
It wasn’t all bad, though. I met some really good humans. Work crews were out doing major work on the Union Pacific railway which ran parallel to the road I was on. At one point, a truck stopped near me, and the supervisor got out and came towards me. He asked if I was riding all the way through on the road. When I answered in the affirmative, he radioed along the work line and warned them all that I was riding on and asked all the guys to keep an eye out for me especially when coming out onto the road. How kind! Then, every time one of their trucks passed me, they stopped to ask how I was doing and if I needed anything! LaVoy, stopped to give me cold water and a couple of ketone packs (Pruvit Max). And the last one I saw, offered me a cold Gatorade, a package of nuts, and use of their portapotty. What a great group of guys!
I met up with the Sag Team at 40 miles and then I was off again. The road was nice and smooth and I was making up time – For 10 miles. Then the road turned to gravel. It got deeper and looser the further I went. I made it about 5 miles as it went uphill and then disappeared all together. Needless to say, I backtracked, called in the Sag team, and they gave me a carry of about 20 miles around it until the route connected with us again. Smooth sailing into Salt Lake City! Phew!
As a side note, our coffee maker stopped working so no coffee this morning. Not a good thing if you know me (or Mr. Sag). Poor girl! I had to get my coffee from an Rx bar. I think it saved me from a full blown head ache!
Song of the day: I had to go back to Journey for motivation –
I can do heat. I can do hills. Wind, not so much. Today was really tough! I rode into a headwind all day long and the scenery didn’t change – until mile 93. Then I had a great ride! I hadn’t been able to keep much above 12mph for most of the day so when I was able to hit 50 coming down the mountain straight into town, I was pumped! (It was a smooth road with no potholes, drainage grates or cars/trucks.) 🙂
We knew it was going to be a tough day from the get go. I was all packed up and ready to leave when I realized the SPOT tracker was not on the bike. We couldn’t find it anywhere! I posted earlier today that it was not functioning. Well that was a half truth. It wasn’t functioning because it wasn’t turned on, because we couldn’t find it! We looked everywhere and tore things apart to try and locate it – to no avail. It was going to be a long day in the saddle and I had to get started. We prayed and I launched without it. I even backtracked to the grocery store we met at when we first got into town to see if anyone had found it. A big NO. Onward. At about 35 miles into the ride, the Sag texted me that it had been found! Mr. Sag “dumpster dove” and found it in the trash. It had apparently fallen off a shelf into our garbage bag! Thank God it was found because once they caught up to me and I was again able to be stalked, there was no cell service for the rest of the day.
Route 50 might be the loneliest road in America, but it was a nice ride all in all. Route 93 was just boring and long and harsh! I kept thinking I just want to go back! So this song kept popping in my head all morning…
So there were several songs of the day. Of course I kept thinking of “They Call the Wind Mariah” and “Colors of the Wind.” Some friends tried to implant others to stick in my head all day. Kathy W, this is not a Small World After all! You can’t imagine the vastness of it all. BB, 500 Miles doesn’t count anymore. I’m way beyond.
I kept coming back to one song all day because I really needed. I was reminded about REO Speedwagon by my friend Tom. He suggested it in an email I read just before heading out. It worked in the wind and I went back to it at the 90 mile point while climbing back to 6400 ft.
To anyone living in the Midwest, I can unequivocally tell you that America is definitely not flat! I always thought the hills between Hammond and South Bend, IN were tough. Boy, was I naïve! Then I thought the hills around Napa Valley were tough. Well, they were. Just in a different sort of way. Today, I started out with a 2.6 mile climb of about 800 feet starting at around 6600 feet elevation (Remember, I live essentially at sea level)! Then I got to ride down a 6% grade for about 2.5 miles! What fun! I LOVE the descents! I thought it was pretty cool. Not too tough given that my legs were fresh. Oh, but not to be outdone…I ended up doing 6 more climbs with the same amount of elevation gain throughout the day (when my legs weren’t so fresh). We even topped the day off with a swirling, mostly cross, sometimes head wind at a steady 17 mph. with gusts up to 35mph. Even the big box (think sail) sag wagon was nervous waiting for me in that! Made it through, though, and survived Route 50! Ride on!
Lesson of the day: when you take off your sunglasses, don’t touch the lenses with your fingers!
It sure is the loneliest road in America! There ain’t nothin’ out there! There was a stretch through the day where I didn’t see any cars or other humans for 61 minutes. And yes I was tracking that. How else does one keep their mind occupied?
I started out the day from Fallon. After navigating through the back streets for about a half hour, I met up with Route 50. Once I turned onto 50, the next prompt said “In 100 miles, turn right. So I turned it off. I think I could find my way. 🙂
The rest of the day was just pure nothing! A lot of long slow relentless climbs, though! 97 miles with 3970 feet of elevation gain. I did get a nice max speed of 36.7 mph coming down from the last pass. The whole reason you climb!
Speaking of descents, this is what it looked like coming down from Spooner Pass yesterday (view from the Sag).
Lessons learned today…
Don’t ride over cattle grates! (Luckily I didn’t)
The rumble strips are nasty!
And here are the other pics from today. Don’t get too excited
I always thought that I was riding through God’s country around the Napa Valley. Then on day 3 of this journey, I got to ride around Lake Tahoe and up and over the Sierra’s. God’s country for sure! Oh that’s right, it’s all His. Well day 3 was remarkable for breath taking beauty and magical descents! And then we hit the Carson Plains…
Day 3 Stats:
72.6 mi., 2717 ft. elevation, 7075 ft. max elevation, 12.7 mph avg., 36.9 mph max speed
Pics of the day:
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Michele Across America 