Our tandem couple by the crotchless cowboy

we saw a lot of these

New state!!

Tom and Michelle at the state line

Larry climbing THE WALL – gives you some perspective

Hello everyone,

Hope that everyone is doing well and are enjoying the early stages of summer. It will be over before you know it.

The other day, I mentioned the climb up THE WALL. Pat took a very good photo of my roommate Larry ring up THE WALL ad it gives a good perspective on the steepness of the climb so I am going to post that photos as well.

Today started out with something that we have not experienced since LA – cloud cover. It was also less than 60 degrees at the start and I wondered if I made a strategic mistake by not bringing my rain jersey for both the rain repellant factor and the addition warmth. It did stay cool for most of the ride (comparatively) but the sun finally poked out later on. The day was really flat with only 500 feet of climbing but we did contend with wind for most of the ride. Overall, the road conditions were excellent in both states although we did have a couple of miles with no shoulder and road construction. A lot of big rigs passed us but for the most part they gave us a wide birth.

For most of the ride there was the ever-present odor of cattle. It wasn’t overpowering but you know that we are in farm country. WE passed a lot of super irrigation areas, silos and cattle yards. The towns were all small. Overall I was very pleased with my ride today. I rode with groups for a while but finished the last 20 miles riding solo within 5 minutes of the leaders. After a very hard day yesterday, this was a fairly easy one . Tomorrow is only 42 miles so we tend to treat it as a day of rest.

Most of us have been together going on 2 weeks. The most common complaint that I hear is for lack of a better word – saddle  sores. All the riders are trying various remedies to relieve the posterior pain.  Some are wearing 2 sets of cycling shorts. Everyone uses Chamois Butt’r but others try other concoctions such as Bag Balm or Aquaphor (I am looking for it). Tracey our tour leader had recommended Johnson Healing Pads and I bought several boxes on Amazon. Seems like I was the only one who had found them so I got a lot of requests for me to sell them some (I gave them away free). I tried one the other day and after 8 hours of riding, you wind up sticking to your shorts. Then you can’t get the dang thing off and pieces tend to stick in various places. So I m looking for a better solution….

The other issue that I have noticed after being in a different hotel room night after night is that  you begin to forget your room number. Sometimes our access cards get decoded or don’t work and we have to go to the front desk to get them fixed. The other night Larry came to me and said that our key was deactivated again (as he was heading to the front desk). I shouted out to him, what’s our room number and he said “236” to which I replied – we are on the 3rd floor it is “336”. I think that I saved Larry from a potentially embarrassing situation if he changed his card to 236. A couple of the other riders told me that they try all the rooms in a certain area to find the one their key works on. I am beginning to feel sorry for the folks who travel all the time for a living.

I have only a few pictures to post to night, one of a giant cowboy statue with the crotch area shot out, the Oklahoma state line and maybe one or two others. By the way, many of us did the ritual state line sand tossing dance (from a vial of Pacific sand we each received). Tomorrow we cross into Kansas and have been encouraged to visit some the museums and other sights (Wyatt Earp, Dalton Gang etc). Perhaps there will be some good photo ops there.

I have been asked to start a “Meet the Riders” section of the Blog and hope to start that up shortly and spotlight some of my fellow riders and their pictures. If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be happy to consider. I am also trying to build a stats page with the various numbers from each day’s ride – thought it might prove interesting.

I hope that everyone id doing well and enjoying the Blog. My only real complaint is the saddle sores.

Cheers

Chuck