Doesn’t it look cute this way!

LOOK HOW FAR WE HAVE COME!!!!!

Good evening everyone!,

Wow – now that we are in the Midwest – there is not a lot of scenery changes every day. The changes tend to be more subtle. Now we are seeing more corn plus the week and the terrain is looking more like my native Missouri. This is small town America and the heart of the farm belt. The presence of energy is og=ften felt with refineries or transmission pipes. When you cycle Kansas it doesn’t feel flat – a lot of rolling hills and generally the grades are manageable.

In the morning, the weather forecast threatened rain, thunderstorms, headwinds and afternoon temperatures of 98 degrees. I took most of my rain gear with me to guarantee that it wouldn’t rain. It was not as cool as prior mornings. The worst thing that happened was that my Garmin went blank after 5 minutes of riding. I got it to work after the ride was over so no stats for today. Hopefully, it will perform flawlessly tomorrow….

I left with the last group and we moved along at a fairly fast clip until the winds picked up (it felt fast sine I couldn’t actually see my MPH.) The terrain was rolling but we could still take most of the hills at 16 mph or so. The first SAG came up quickly at about mile 32.

I didn’t linger very long in the SAG – got something to eat, filled up my bottles,  used the facilities and hit the road. We had some head and cross winds but it wasn’t too bad. All in all, I got into Mcpherson a little after 12 with Mike F. Mike is probably the strongest rider of the group and I like to ride with him (when I can).  I think that Mike can drop anybody in the group if he wants to. His roommate.  What we find though is that most folks don’t get too competitive and everyone tries to mix it up, ride different speeds and spend time with different riders every day.

Tomorrow should be a similar day and then we get a rest day!!!!!

Had dinner tonight again at Applebees. It seems to be a favorite of the group because of the variety and usually quick service. I try to spend time with different riders at dinner and the conversations are usually lively and cross many topics. Tonight I sat with Craig (part of CrossRoads staff and a really good time trialist), Barry and Wendy (From Canada) and John F (our rib injured Brit). Wendy told us about winning a football pool (pick the loser every week) with 1000 guys, being the only gal and winning the pool. I think she said she won $8000. BTW she said she was the only lady to enter the contest. Ladies – you will like this. Towards the end there were 4 guys and Wendy who had not been eliminated. The 4 guys thought they should each get $3000 and then the eventual winner get the remaining $5000. When hey asks her she said “No way!”. There response was “Maybe you should ask your husband.” I won’t print her response.

Tailwinds

Chuck