Monday and Tuesday of Week 7

Monday

Day 40 Grand Rapids, MI to Shady Hollow State Park, MI

Distance 119km
Saddle time 4:38
Average speed 25.5
Max speed 52.6
Total ascent 537m
Total descent 504m
 
A great day riding with team Blue Rodeo.  We had a prayer before leaving Calvin and a group photo, so everyone was supposed to leave around 7am.  However, Kaitlyn was on sweep, so Team Blue Rodeo helped out (as did teams Top Guns and Zach’s Angels, who both had team members on sweep).  I’ve never seen sweep get done so quickly!  Once everything was packed up, we headed out and made it 11km before Katie got her first of 3 flats.  The good news is, it was a short day, and we were in no rush, so once she was fixed up we made it another 40km before flat #2.  We had a nice break in a small town for hot chocolate and appetizers at the only restaurant we could find before heading out and Katie got flat #3.  It was actually a really nice day.  We joked around and had a break while Katie changed her flats, and still got into camp with plenty of time to spare.  Because we are at a state park, we could have a campfire and roast marshmallows.  Excellent!

I rode 15km more than the scheduled mileage today (mostly by riding up and down the road during delays in the day).  This is because I set myself a personal goal to ride 10000km in a year (Sept 1 to Sept 1).  When I looked at the upcoming mileage for the tour, I realized I’m going to be short by about 150km (due to the delays in Payson, missing a day of riding for illness in NM and missing 2 days in NY state to be in a wedding).  So, I’m going to try to add about 10km to each riding day (I’m not sure that I will actually be able to do this, but I’m really hoping to meet my goal, and since I had 15 riding days left including today, adding just 25min of cycling/day will get me there).  If I’m still short of my goal, one of the new riders, a lawyer from Calgary named Gord, has offered to ride with me the Saturday of the Labour Day weekend to get the miles completed (as he will be camping in Rocky anyway).  So, we’ll see how adding the miles goes and hopefully I can still meet my goal (it just doesn’t sound the same to say I cycled 9850km in a year….).

  

Fixing the third flat of the day

Tuesday

Day 41 Shady Hollow Park, MI to Imlay City, MI

Distance 150km
Saddle time 5:54
Avg speed 25.4
Max speed 45.9
Total ascent 623m
Total descent 628m

Team Blue Rodeo took a day off and rode with some other peeps today, so I set off this morning with Malori (from Blue Rodeo) and Betsy (a new rider who joined in GR).  We had an awesome day.  The pace was exactly perfect for me, so we (I…) decided to call us Team Baby Bear, because the speed was not too fast and not too slow, but just right!  Around 1130, it started to rain pretty hard as we left Flint, MI, which was  a bit of a bummer, but it only lasted less than an hour and we could dry off/warm up.  We picked up a few riders as the day went on as well, so there was some negotiating of speed.  Still, we rode into camp with our original group at a pace that was JUST RIGHT. 
 
When I got to camp (at 125km), I was feeling good, so I asked Chris (a rider who is leaving us in Imlay City) if I could ride with him to his inlaws to add a few clicks.  I explained why I needed to add some miles and he agreed to ride 10 km extra with me.  25km later and I was back at camp.  The original route was only 119km, so I actually added 31km to subtract from my 175km deficiency!  Excellent!!! 

As we were eating supper, I heard an announcer at the Eastern Michigan State Fair in the distance and thought I caught the word “rodeo.”  I made some inquiries and found out there was a rodeo starting at that exact time, so my mom and I went and watched some Michigan teens get their rears handed to them by some bulls.  Still a good time!  Tomorrow we cross into CANADA, which I’m very excited about (not just because I’ll be able to use my cellphone!).