Today’s essense PIDDLING / DillyDallyiing
This morning we had 60 miles to ride. It feels like a half day at school. Breakfasat and camps dutires start a little later.
I have a flat from the gravel road riding in from last night so first thing out of the gate I have to delay and change my rear tire and tube. We are last out of camp, Scaott, Alison and I.
We rode past Kelly on her hand cycle. It was great to see her out and cycling strong early in the morning. She has been working up to being able to complete the rides from start to finish. Her cycle provides some additional challenges and is heavier, but she has been extending and extending and one of these days shortly she will be going satrt to finish.
Talking with Stephen about my achilles, he advised moving the cleat for my pedals back towowards teh heal of my shoe. Within the the first 3 miles, my achilles is still jsut as painful and now my knee is really hurting. As we start the climb for the divide. I stopo and and readjust the cleat back to its original position. Again amazed at how much differenece sucha small adjustment can make, my knee stops hurting instantly and we start climbing.
As we climb, I see a broken down biker and we come up on Stephen. He has broken his chain and has been stranded for 45 minutes. Scott has a spare link, and I I have a chain tool and once again the roadside mechanics are back at it. We get the chain rethreaded and tensioned and such and get Stephen so he can at least ride up and over the pass and the divide. Maechanic Dave pulls up just as we finish and are setting out. All is as good as can be. Dave will look for spare parts and the rest of us will keep hustling up the hill.
so even though I amone of hte stronger climbers, with all the delays I am almost dead last to the divide. We take a few pics at 6325’. Embrace and know that it is suposed to be downhill from here, but iti sn’t .
I come zooming down the divide againa nd get a good movie on my camera at speed. sort of exciting but not to dangeruos. (Really mom, it wasn’t). 47.1 mph is my top, but I was steering with both hands at that point and just sor of holding on. This is the only seemingly “fast” parrt of my day.
At the bottom I wait for Stephen, Scott and Alison. a bit of PB crackers snack... and viola, here they come. We cruise on in to Helena and get some coffee at the already popular coffee shack.
I actuallly get a coke out fhte vending machine. I have been dreaming of ice cold coke for 3 days. It is only 9:00 a.m. but it already feels like lunchtime.
Moving on, we stop at the midway checkpoint, which is right in front of bike shop and so we shop a little. a replacement set of gloves and a new head sweat and I am out the door for $50. As my siseter would call that, just one bike buck. (Hi N.)
From there I have been looking for post office to get some stamps to mail my postcards. I finally stop at Albertsons and get some stamps. That is when I find the MCDonald’s that Scott has been looking for for a few days. Postcards maild we go to McDy’s . I look at the menu and my stomach turns, so I actuvely choose my PB&J sandwich (Which we are all really tired of) and elect to avoid the burger. Scott and Alison partake of the burgers. Later Alsion’s confirms that my instinct to go PB&J was the better chioce. She regrests that sh did not follow that lead.
Finally we are back on the bikes. See what I mean by a piddling - dillydallying kind of day. At this point w have only ridden 30 miles into our day!
By now it is HOT! and we had picked up a headwind.
Working up one little hill, my ahcilles really flared back up andI could barely pedal on the left side. I wondered how I could survive the next 2 hours and if I could make it to camp. At 90rpm to 2 hours 11000 revolutions, I was pretty sure was not wha the doctor would invision for “Rest”.
Right leg compensation just lead to cramps and it was a tough end to the day.
I thought it might calf might seize at one rest stop, but I was surprised it didin’t and Alison pulled Scott, Stephen and I into camp. We got in, checked int and instantly went for ice cream.
This tour is starting to turn into the ICE CREAM Tour. That is another whle story. But it is pretty funny. I can’t think of the last day that I haven’t had ice cream at least once. Many days itis has been twice.
The ice cream shop was cool and so nice to sit in. The 4 of us just hung out forever in the cool.
we go to slep inthe basketball gym at the high school so we didn’t have to set up our tents. I appreciated the lighter choreload. Dinner was chicken cordon bleu, baked potatoes, salads and there was even some Cherry chip cake. It was Ane’s 21st birthday so her mom sent over 50 cupcakes from a bakery as well.
i spent the evening icing my achilles as Rodney took my shift for lunch prep as repayment for me covering him last week.
I starting taking aspririn every 4 hours tryin to get the swelling down and in my ankle and jsut waiting to see how it would be in the mornig. I already had plans to not ride teh whole 100 miles. I would just ride as far as I felt able and capable. Water break to water break were my goals. But I knew that 100 miles was out of the question.
With pain in my leg, questions in my head and worry in my heart I went to bed after a day where we took as long to do 60 miles as I had taken to do 100 miles the day before.
Oy.
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