Hi All,

Yesterday was a day from hell. My initial thoughts was to use the lyrics from the old Arthur Brown song “Fire”, but the heat did not tell the whole story.

It was a long rode with two very long climbs of 7 and 10 miles early in the ride. The climbs are “highway grade” meaning not too bad. It is always tough riding through the desert though. I rode most of the day with Howard and Lou and we came in pretty fast but each of us had our doubts at times.

The heat seemed to peak around Hope Arizona and paradoxically there is a sign as you leave town that says (sic) “Your Now Beyond Hope”. I wanted to get a picture but my iPhone was so hot, it quit functioning.

The day featured our first state line crossing with the time honored tradition of sprinkling sand at the state line sign. Kevin said he wanted to ride with our group and we waited on the road for him but he never showed so we pushed on.

Turns out that Kevin was the story of the day or at least half of it. The reason  that we didn’t see Kevin at the state line was that he had not one but two flats. When he eventually got to the state line, he neglected to sprinkle sand because he was desperately trying to catch up with us. Rumor has it that failing to sprinkle sand is akin to not passing on a chain letter – bad luck ensues. He was using Greg Lemond’s famous 8 second Tour De France victory that he secured in a time trail with aero bars as inspiration. When even got to the sag, he slipped and feel with a few scratches. He kept asking how far he was behind and it seemed that he was catching up.

A little later Kevin managed to run into a “Work Crews ahead” sign and again went down and had another flat. Kevin eventually had two more flats for a total of 5 which I also had on my ride in 2012. However, the coup de gras was still to be forthcoming. Kevin eventually caught up with some folks and they started a pace line to make the miles go quicker. Seems that Jim was leading Mary and they touched wheels. Mary went down very hard and cracked her helmet. Kevin ran over Mary and he went down hard. Jim, who as luck would have it is a physician turned around and the word he used was carnage. Kevin was bloodied and laying o the ground and Mary was not doing well either.

Kevin did get back on his bike and finished after 3 crashes and 5 flats. Oe tough dude. Mary went to the hospital for all the tests and took at least one day off but should return in a day or two. Most of us did not find out that Mary would be ok until the nest day. The group is gelling and we want to see everyone stay healthy and live their dreams.

For those of you who have offered up a few prayers for the riders, looks like they have been answered. While we are not in constant danger, their is an element of risk .

Thanks for reading

Chuck