Distance: 124 miles
Average Speed: 18.5 mph
Terrain: 1200 feet of climbing. I’ve seen mattresses with more contour.
Winds: Moderate, mostly from the north. More adverse than neutral or helpful.
First, like a spoiled NBA phenom I dedicate today’s ride to my godkid Jack Kardian, who is turning 3 today. Happy birthday, Jack!! All positive energy and tailwinds to you, kiddo.
A long day today. Beyond the riding I stopped in a little town called Danville, Indiana, that has an old school bike shop with drawers and drawers or random spare parts, one of which was a cone that would fit my rear hub. It took about an hour, but I’m back on my own wheel now. Sexybike was thrilled. Yesterday she was looking like Tina Turner before she discovered fishnet stockings, and she was looking at me like I was Ike. Ride Leader Mike was huge in helping me get this accomplished. It did mean, though, that I was on the road from about 7:30 to 5:45.
For the first third everybody was braindead and missing half the turns. Me and another lad took a flyer off the front of the confusion and stayed away to the first SAG stop. Then I waited for Mike to ride the second third, and that’s when we stopped to get my wheel fixed. The last 40 I soloed into Lebanon, where I shot right by the motel into downtown Lebanon where the locals turned me around and pointed me in the right direction.
Riding with Mike is a reminder that boys on bikes will always be boys on bikes. We’ll start out chatting about how we’re going to do a reasonable pace, but then he’ll do a turn just fast enough to begin to hurt a little, so I’ll have to crank it up a notch higher on my turn. This will go on until we’ve got a screaming pace going. I mean, the guy’s older than God. I can’t blink. And he won’t blink because he’s got the competitiveness of a bike racer and retired Air Force colonel. By the time I got to the last third and he ducked out to do SAG, my legs were pretty cooked, and I had 40 miles to go.
Anyway, it’s almost 9:00 now. I lost another hour today crossing into Eastern Time, and I need my sleep so I’m going to shut this down.
I’m going to close with a quick clip of what dorks do when they cross another state line:
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Andy Thanks for the Birthday wishes. I made cupcakes with mom and my siblings yesterday to celebrate and I got a cool new book "Goodnight Gorilla" - you can read it to me next time you come over. I also got a neat Buzz Lightyear that I let Harry play with too! It was a good day and having your ride dedicated to me is kind of cool too - does it mean I am as famous as you? Love Jack PS - See you soon
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