Data: 107.3 miles Riding time 6:11 (17.4 mph avg)
Yes, I finally got a flat tire, and it seemed to be the big news of the day for everyone on the ride. Word spread quickly, and rider after rider offered their condolences as I encountered them later. It came after 2425 miles. Lucky for me, the van pulled up almost immediately, so I didn't even have to change it myself (Shane did).
I was with five others when it happened, and all of them wanted to stop and "be part of this event." The funniest thing was that the two horses across the highway kept doing a horse laugh, so my buddies teased me that the horses found it funny too. Of course, I also got the jokes that my buddies had let the air out of my tires at the lunch stop, or that they had driven in a wire and it finally punctured the tube. It actually was just a tiny thin wire that had gone straight through the tread. Notice how my buddies have all stopped and the van is approaching.
This happened out on National Hwy 40, which is also called Old National Road. The original road was from 1806, and was the first road funded by the young national government, with the hope of helping the population head west and settle new land.
The ride today was another beauty. We got started late (9 am) because we had an early-morning visit to a bicycle-making company about 30 minutes away by car. The tour leader's site has more on this, since he owns this kind of bike and loves to talk about it. Here we are hearing about how they make their bikes. The tall fellow near the left with the white hair, Bill Reenstra (Berkeley Bill), actually bought one of their bikes as a result of this tour.
Today's route was, in large part, an upscale area just north of Indianapolis, featuring huge estates with big fancy homes, and many horse properties like those I see in Thousand Oaks back home. The lawns were massive, and we made jokes about how they have to start mowing again as soon as they're done. My photo shows one example of these huge estates.
Our route later was along pretty country roads, through small-town-America villages, with some buildings dating from as early as 1834. I saw roads with huge trees on both sides, making the road look like a tunnel. Lots of tree-lined rivers too, each one making me think I could have fun rafting around on them as we did on the South Fork of the American River on Hwy 50 when we were kids. I wanted to take so many pictures of everything, that I took none; how can you choose just one? Mike Munk took this one at the beginning of today's ride. That's me at the back.
Luckily I don't need to buy a third camera, after mine flew out of its holder in my pouch when I hit a bad bump. The camera hit the ground, but it still works! Each day out here in middle America, we have smooth roads at times, and bumpy roads at other times. We all verbalize an "ahhhhh" when we move from bumpy to smooth; it also translates into an instant increase in speed of about 2 mph.
We get some funny road names across the country too. Here is one from today.
As opposed to the previous two days, we had a tailwind much of today, explaining why I had an avg speed of 17.4 even though we took it easy. In general, it seemed people were tired from the days of side- and headwinds. Of course, we still need our Dairy Queen milkshakes when we're done! Here are my buds Jerry, Dave, and Geoff as we found our DQ entering Richmond, IN.
Only 9 more days of this fabulous ride. We really have been lucky with the weather, even when there were tornadoes and lightning storms in Kansas, since we were able to make it through even those days. Tonight it's supposed to rain, and tomorrow will be cooler. Also, tomorrow I will be visiting my friends at the Nestle R&D center in Marysville, and Brian will drive out from Columbus to have dinner with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment