Hello everyone.

I am having a lo

Pat, Cindy and Chuck at SAG

I tested it and it works

SAG goodies

t of internet issues and bandwidth is terrible. Back to old days of 48 baud modems and dial up.  This was to be a short day and we started an hour later than usual. However, i got in a lot later than usual and that is the kind of day it was.

Today we hit the highest elevation on the tour (7300 ft) and that meant a bit of climbing early on. We spent part of the day on highway 40 and the shoulder was terrible. I got my first flat (front) about mile 8. The second flat (rear) came at mile 21. Since we start in two groups and I am in the later group that starts 40 minutes after the first group, I figured I would ride alone all day because of the early flat. However, when I got to the SAG station, Julie, Ed, Cindy and Pat seemed excited to have me ride with them. I was happy for the company. I should say as well that today was by far the windiest day of the ride. We had some gusts of over 40 mph but most of it came from behind.

We were ring along at a good pace with a pace line whenI had my third flat (rear). i was grateful for the help in getting in fixed. The wind was starting to come in from the side and our overall speed was slowing to under 15 mph when Cindy got a flat. I had to race dow the road to catch Pat and Ed who didn’t realize that Cindy had stopped. Cindy and Julie had the wheel off  and were well on their way to fixing the flat. Cindy did a great job and did most of the work herself (Ed and I tried to help but Cindy wanted the experience  – after all she was the bull riding champ from the previous evening.

The wind continued to worsen and we stopped in town for Sonic Hamburgers and Hotdogs – Ed treated. We made our way to the hotel and checked in. I took a nap but awoke to another flat – no nightmare. I skipped dinner with the crew and did some work on the tire to find a piece of wire embedded in the liners that I put in yesterday. Hopefully that will help. I plan to get new tires in Santa Fe, if not sooner.

Another item of note is that we cosset the Continental Divide today – now all water will flow eat. I might note that in the final 10 miles or so, I rode most of the way with Julie and she told me a lot about herself, Ed (her husband of 30 years) and her job as Life Coach. It really made the time fly by even with the great wind. This is a great group of folks that we have on the tour. It was fun and an honor to bring up the rear today with my 4 friends.

I mentioned that i didn’t go to dinner with everyone tonight and quite a few folks asked me about it in the hotel. We all stick together and if anyone needs support, quite a few step into the breach immediately. Makes one feel good.

I caught our British contingent Nick, Tony and John in the lobby and they had stopped off for a beer after dinner. We laughed about the day we had. Tony is about the only one with worse luck than me considering his crash and 3 broken spokes. John knows quite a bit about American sports and is well-versed in baseball. Someone told me that he is on the British national rowing team and I will have to ask him about that later.

I am going to sign off now as I listen to the wind howling outside. However, I will leave you with one final thought and it comes from Lance Armstrong’s “It’s Not About the Bike”. The longer I am on this tour, i realize that it is not really about getting to Boston. It is about the people we meet along the way, our experiences and all that happens in between.

Ciao

Chuck