by Pamela Blalock
Last year when I signed up for PAC Tour, I had planned to do this sort of thing ONCE. Having recently completed my second US crossing, and with PAC Tour's Ridge of the Rockies scheduled for next year, it would now seem that it is going to be an annual event for me.
Two years ago, I did the Northern tour mostly on my single bike. I occasionally managed to get a ride on one of the tandems that Lon and Susan brought along. I was positively thrilled with the opportunity to ride with former RAAM winners like Pete Penseyeres, Lon Haldeman and Susan Notorangelo. And the afternoon I spent stoking for PAC bike mechanic, Mike Bishop, was an absolute blast. But when Lon let my friend, John Bayley, and I borrow the tandem for a couple of rides, it changed our lives forever. Rumor has it that tandems can weave romantic magic, and it would seem that this one did. Soon afterwards our friendship turned to romance. To confirm it was fate, our custom tandem arrived on Valentine's Day.
We filled this past year with various tandem rides, including the Assault on Mt. Mitchell, Boston-Montreal-Boston and PAC Tour's Central Continental route. Well, OK, these aren't exactly tandem rides, but rather rides we did on our tandem. And admittedly Mt. Mitchell and BMB aren't exactly rides one might deem tandem friendly, but the Central PAC Tour route was most definitely a tandem friendly course. The grades in the mountains out west seemed quite shallow, at least when compared to climbs of BMB and Mt. Mitchell. We hit rolling terrain that seemed made for tandems, as momentum from each downhill carried us up the next uphill. And the flat lands with tailwinds made for days where we averaged over 20 for 130+ miles. Riders on single bikes should enjoy this ride as well, especially if they can find a tandem to draft !
I must confess before I go on, that John and I actually crewed for PAC Tour this year. Crewing, for us, involved riding every other day, and working every day. Some crew members chose to ride partial days every day, but we chose to go for the longer rides. There were certainly times when it was torturous for us to be in the van as we drove through spectacular terrain and scenery, but we really enjoyed crewing on one particularly cold and rainy day in Texas ! Everyday we would help set up breakfast. Then we'd help clean up a bit, before being shoed away on the days we rode. When we got in, we would help prepare the next days lunch and snacks, restock coolers with water, Gatorade, lemonade, and ice. On our non-riding days, we would get in the lunch van after packing up breakfast, and head out to the scheduled lunch stop, where we'd set up tables, benches, and of course, food. We usually shopped in the afternoon for perishables like milk, juice, yogurt, fruit, and whatever was on the menu for the next day. And occasionally, when we could, we'd even get to sneak in a short ride to an early snack stop. Crewing was a great experience. We learned a tremendous amount about the logistics of this type of undertaking, and while it is altogether different from RAAM, we think we picked up many useful tips that will come in handy when John does the race in a few years.
Speaking of RAAM, this ride definitely draws RAAM veterans, RAAM hopefuls and RAAM fans, and even those who find the whole idea ludicrous. Many riders use PAC Tour as a training camp for a qualifier or the race itself. In addition to Lon and Susan, other RAAM veterans on the trip this time included Muffy Ritz, Steve Born, George Thomas (from Team RAAM), Victor Gallo and Roger Mankus. John and I used this as an opportunity to ask lots of questions and get lots of tips for his future attempt at this cross country race.
But in addition to RAAM-types and ultramarathoners, there were a few racers, many recreational cyclists and even a few very recently non-cyclists, who had simply decided they wanted to ride across the US and took up cycling. There were many PAC Tour veterans, including 67 year old Richard Lawrence who completed his second crossing in as many years. Richard wasn't the only rider over the age of 60. This years rider list showed 4 participants over 60, proving that age is no limitation. And also in the category of those who refused to accept conventional boundaries was Dan Courtney, who did not allow diabetes to keep him from crossing the country in 23 days.
There is no doubt that PAC Tour is tough. The central crossing covers an average of 122 miles per day, with some days as long as 160, and a few others quite short due to sparse services out west. While these mileage's are shorter than the northern route's 140 miles per day average, the amount of daylight is shorter as well, making some of the longer days a real challenge to get in before dark. The extreme heat in the desert the first week made the going tough for those who live and train in milder temperatures. This is not to say that either route can't be successfully completed by a well-trained, average, but determined cyclist. In fact it was the non-elite, non-racers who really demonstrated the ultra-marathon goals of pressing beyond our perceived limitations. The determination to finish a day despite all adversity, to cross the country fully under one's one power was evident in all the participants throughout the ride.
And the scenery was magnificent. After the absolutely breathtaking beauty we experienced the first 10 days of the northern route, I was worried that this route would be dull in comparison. But the desert southwest provided as many spectacular photo opportunities as the northern Rockies. We went through an entire roll of film as we pedaled through the Salt River Canyon. We did a rare thing on the tandem, actually stopping several times on a fast descent to take more pictures. We had to stop to just catch our breath !
And the ride was fun. Lon has very kindly marked Dairy Queens along the route, and we rarely passed by one without stopping. There were times that we sprinted off ahead of the group to be first in line for DQ blizzards, since these stops became more and more popular as the trip wore on. After finishing the trip seriously underweight last year, I learned a valuable lesson not to starve myself this year, and in fact to indulge at any opportunity !
For us, an unforeseen advantage of doing the ride in the fall, when the days and miles are shorter was that we had a lot more free time in the evenings than on the northern route. Even with all our crewing duties, we had plenty of time to write postcards, swim, lounge around in Jacuzzis, when available, and socialize. And socializing was one of the best parts of the entire trip. We got to know a lot of great people on this ride. As we talked with different riders, we learned that many of them had done a lot of their training miles on their own. We are very fortunate to belong to a club that has many distance oriented cyclists, and many longer trips. We have numerous weekend trips throughout the year with rides of 100+ miles a day, as well as a brevet series and a few doubles. I've got to say that having others to ride with makes a tremendous difference in my enjoyment of a ride. It didn't take long for riders to form groups on this trip, with some really hammering and others taking it a bit easier. One group named themselves Team Dairy Queen, after their fondness of this particular establishment. Yet there were others, who seemed determined to reach the hotel first each day, and preferred riding alone.
With no other tandems to play with, except when Lon and Susan rode at the same time we did, we sometimes found ourselves alone in both tandem friendly and tandem unfriendly terrain. But more often than not, we had company and it was great. I can't emphasize enough how fun this route was for a tandem, and I really encourage those of you with big bikes to do this ride.
But enough of this. Let me tell you about our ride.
We flew out on Friday September 9. Neither of us has a lot of vacation time, so we weren't able to help drive support vehicles across the country to the start. We did hear incredible stories of breakdowns and non-stop driving that made us a bit thankful we had missed this pleasure, and a bit worried that the bad luck might continue on the trip. Despite having to replace the radiator, water pump and fan belt in one vehicle, and have the trailer hitch collapse as they pulled into the parking lot on the way out, we had an almost trouble free west to east crossing, with one dead battery, and one flat tire.
When John and I arrived the welder was busy working to repair and reinforce the trailer mountings. Since we were unable to start loading vehicles and trailers until this work was done, we reassembled our tandem. After a few hours in the sun, we both noticed that we had sunburned the tops of our feet - a part, that for us, is rarely exposed to sun, given the amount of cycling we do. We decided that we would really have to be very careful using sunscreen throughout the trip. We were eventually able to start loading the vehicles and met the other crew members. We first met Victor and Gladys Gallo. I had actually met them a few years before in France before riding PBP, when the hotel had accidentally put me in their room. After flying all night, I wanted some sleep, but the key turning in my door prevented that. I was eventually given another room. I must say that this meeting was much better, and we really enjoyed getting to know them both. Victor's sense of humor was fabulous and Gladys was great as she put up with our constant requests to stop and take pictures on our non-riding days. Having crewed for both PAC Tour and RAAM many times, Gladys was also a great source of information about both.
Roger Mankus had joined the crew at the last minute replacement. John had met Roger last spring while in Texas for a RAAM qualifier. Roger had done PAC Tour before, crewed on a few RAAMs and attempted a solo and a tandem crossing with Nick Gerlich. While his inclusion as crew was last minute, he was definitely a great addition.
Beau was the resident massage therapist. Beau has done many, many US crossings as a massage therapist on RAAM. He gave the most incredible massages. John and I both were recipients of his magic touch. Roger is also a certified massage therapist, and served as a backup. Massages were available for an additional, but very reasonable charge.
Eric, the bike mechanic, arrived later in the evening, driving the van with hopefully the final repairs. The last crew member we met was to be our roommate off and on for the next ten days. One female rider had signed up for the first week, and once she left, Karen would join her former roommate. In the meantime, the crew doubled up. We actually knew quite a bit about Karen before the trip, since she is the mother of a good friend. Of course we had to promise not to spill any of Terry's secrets to his mom.
Saturday was quite busy, as riders arrived throughout the day, checked in and assembled bikes. John and I tried to run last minute errands, but ran out of time before John was able to get his hair cut. Fearing a meltdown in the desert, we bought a battery operated trimmer, and at John's request, I proceeded to give him the worst buzz cut he's ever had. It looked pretty bad, but he assured me that he was happy with it and that he wouldn't have considered riding through the heat of the desert with his former locks.
Our crew duties had us alternating riding days with Susan and getting to ride on the first day. Susan actually seemed quite willing to NOT ride on day 1. The first 70 miles of uphill and the scorching temperatures in the desert may have had something to do with her willingness to work on Day 1. Despite all this, we were thrilled to be riding.
Riders are supposed to leave in a staggered start over a half hour period with the slowest riders leaving first and the faster riders heading out last. When done right, most riders will reach lunch within an hour of each other. This makes life easier on the lunch crew and means everyone gets fresh food. Unfortunately on the first day, adrenaline was pumping and most riders wanted to get on the road early.
The 70 miles of uphill had me a bit nervous as well. While we climb fairly well, I didn't think we'd do very well staying with the hammers for this much climbing. I wanted to leave about halfway through the half hour window. But 15 minutes into it, we looked around and saw a deserted parking lot. We headed off to the ocean for the obligatory shot of the west coast water and then turned east. We did meet up with Kurt and Tim while taking pictures and stayed with them for most of the day.
After climbing well past lunch we were rewarded with a 55 mph descent into hell. Well not really hell, but the temperatures rose steadily as our altitude fell. I had my Vertech watch mounted on the handlebars in the shade of John's saddle, and shortly before we reached the final snack stop, it read 116F. While leaning against a signpost in the sun, it reached 126F.
In the final 30 miles, the wind turned vicious on us as we tackled an incredible headwind. I sucked down a full Camelbak and three bottles of very hot water. I'd definitely have to look into insulation for these bottles if it was to stay this hot for long.
We reached the hotel and began our crew duties for the afternoon. I offered to take Rebecca swimming, a popular crew duty on last year's northern trip, but thanks to school and other conflict's Lon and Susan's daughter didn't make the trip this fall. But I still lucked out with a cushy job that afternoon. For the first time in PAC history, Lon and his brother Ken, had planned some stage racing. There were to be a couple of time trials and some road races held throughout the trip, usually starting after the first 20-30 miles and finishing up before lunch. Having checked off computer skills on my crew questionnaire, I got assigned the task of typing in the schedule in the air-conditioned room !
While I was doing this, John, Lon and Eric decided to destroy our tandem. We had been having some trouble adjusting the eccentric, and had dropped our sync chain a couple of times. John asked Lon for a little help fixing this problem. While trying to make the adjustment, they discovered that the eccentric was actually broken into several pieces. They pressed it back together, and reinstalled and assure me it would hold up for thousands of miles. In the meantime I called the shop and asked to have a new one sent out.
Our first full day of working came on day 2. This was a pretty short day, so we served lunch in the parking lot of the motel. We worked quickly and just barely managed to get setup before the first riders arrived. This motel turned out to be the nicest one on the trip. Each room was a suite, complete with refrigerator, microwave, and separate sitting room. The pool and Jacuzzi proved to be quite popular in the afternoon. The next morning we discovered that they even had free beer happy hour by the pool later in the day.
But we were busy checking out bike shops and trying to find a place to ride. While looking at maps, we saw some potentially interesting routes, and asked about them at a local shop. They weren't of much help, and recommended a supposed 30 mile ride, that turned out to be on our next days route - and at least 60 miles. I wouldn't normally complain about that distance, but we only wanted a 2 hour ride (to finish by dark) and we didn't want to do roads we'd be doing the next day, so we decided to check out my original idea. This road headed into an Indian reservation, and appeared to climb a canyon. We didn't make it very far though. After the first time we stood, I looked down and screamed at John to STOP PEDALING NOW, as he was about to carve out the bottom bracket shell with his right crank. The eccentric that should have held for thousands of miles had slid an inch or so to the left.
We looked around the side of the road for repair tools and came up with a large branch and some rubber material to cover the cranks while we tried to hammer the whole assembly back into the frame. Of course, we took a couple of pictures first ! This didn't work too well, so we eventually removed the sync chain, so I could pedal us home without the front cranks destroying the frame (or getting scratched). In all my years of tandeming, it's amazing how many smart-alecs have hollered out, "She's not pedaling." But despite the fact that John really wasn't pedaling, and I was sitting in the back huffing and puffing and struggling to get us back to the motel, not one person said, "He's not pedaling." We passed by several PAC Tour riders on their way to dinner - and I tried to point out something was wrong. We even passed Lon with his video camera and got him to tape a few seconds of John being lazy, but I guess the missing chain was too subtle.
Lon offered to lend us Susan's tandem for our ride the next day. Susan offered to RENT it to us, $30 per saddle, plus mileage.
The next day, we rode from Yuma to Gila Bend. There was a road race scheduled for that day and John and I had planned to enter the race before our bike broke down. We had gone back and forth about whether or not to race on the borrowed bike, since odds were that we'd need to stop a dozen times to change seat heights.
At breakfast we decided we would race, but apparently my nervousness about racing made John think I didn't want to race, and we ended up having an enormous fight that started out about the race and ended up covering every little problem for the last 6 months. Tandems have a reputation for exaggerating any little differences and have been known to end up in divorce settlements. This typically happens to a couple who doesn't communicate well off the bike. For a couple that does communicate effectively, tandems can really enhance a relationship since they can work together as a team for a common goal, and really share in the rewards. I have to say that this is usually the case for us, but this time, we simply failed to let each other know what we really wanted. We stopped twice and sat on the side of the road, while I generally lost my cool. We got back on the bike, and I tried my hardest to not work. I soft pedaled and even pulled my feet out entirely for a while (Hey, John owed me 5 miles from the night before anyway), but I actually found that riding this way is more painful, since ALL the pressure is on my butt. On top of all this, we were on this very small and cramped bike that left me even grumpier. I really, really wanted to get off that bike - and would have given anything for a single.
But to John's credit, he refused to take the easy way out and we stayed on the tandem. But we hardly spoke for an hour. Then John blew a shift. We'd been having a similar problem with the front derailleur on our own bike, where we could occasionally overshift off the big ring. John kept blaming the bike. When it happened on Susan's bike too, I said that it had to be him ! Now, I suppose this could have made things worse, but it actually served as an icebreaker, and we finally started talking again. Had we been able to get off the tandem and on singles, we might not have ever resolved the problem, but by being forced to finish the day on the same bike, we had the time and the proximity to work it out.
Last year when I first mentioned to a friend that we planned to take the tandem on a cross country tour, she warned me that it could be difficult, since if we had differences, we couldn't get away from each other, and it is certainly a concern. But what we learned from this experience was how important it was to really communicate and that the tandem doesn't always have to make a fight worse !
We were back to work on day 4. Gladys, Karen, John and I headed out to the designated lunch stop to set up a delicious burrito lunch. But first we tried to destroy Susan's tandem. The lunch van is a big Ford van pulling a small trailer. We keep most of the lunch supplies in this trailer. There are several bike racks on top of the van and the trailer. Crew members kept their bikes on the vehicle they were in. So our tandem was on the roof of the van. Susan's tandem also stayed on the van - on the other side. She was either riding her single or the other tandem with Lon that day. Anyway, as Gladys was pulling the vehicle in toward the shelter, the handlebars snagged a low tree and got tangled up before I looked up from what I was doing to scream STOP. Unfortunately this tree was full of thorns, and we spent the next 20 minutes attempting to free the bike from the thorny tree. We finally got it down, and managed to setup lunch just before the first riders arrived.
Riding in the van that afternoon was one of those truly torturous experiences as we passed through spectacular scenery. John and I drove Gladys crazy asking to stop to take pictures over and over again. We probably sounded like people who had never left home with all our oohs and aahs about the cactus and mountains and clouds and such. We stopped in at the final snack stop to report on rider progress, grab some snacks and head in.
We drove up through a breathtaking canyon, and then saw an absolutely heartbreaking sign. My favorite ones show a truck on a triangle aimed downhill and usually have percentages over 10. While this percentage was only 6, the miles indicated were 12. Oh how I wanted to be on my bike. But in less than a mile, something seemed terribly wrong as the slope was decidedly up rather than down. Was the sign missing a slash to indicate 1/2 rather than 12 ? I could imagine a few bummed out cyclists ! The next sign claimed seven miles of downhill, but this descent ended after only 2, with more tough climbing ahead. The final truck on a triangle sign truthfully reported 4 miles of down, but after being burned twice, I wouldn't have believed it.
After all the false descending, we reached the motel. John and I could have predicted that it was on top of a killer steep hill and across from McDonalds. Lon seems to have a sick sense of humor this way, and ALWAYS finds motels on top of hills, and for some reason, they are usually quite close to his favorite eating establishment.
We got in, checked the mail and found our new eccentric. So after working on lunch for the next day, we played bike mechanic for a while, and even got in a very quick 2 mile test ride.
Day 5 turned into one of our best rides in ages. It was only 88 miles, but had over 8300 feet of climbing. As usual, most of the riders had left before we rolled out. We took it easy for a while and warmed up, but picked up the pace as the rollers increased. Riding every other day left our legs fairly fresh, and after 4 days of riding, other riders were starting to fatigue. We zoomed past quite a few riders on these fabulous tandem rollers that we could fly down and use our momentum to zip up the far side at over 30 mph. We caught quite a few riders by surprise as we flew past on climbs, and joked that we would need to reintroduce ourselves, since so many of them seemed to think our names were Oh and Jesus. Fellow crew member, Roger Mankus reserved the spot behind us for his own. Roger has a fair amount of experience riding and drafting a tandem, and it showed. Staying with a big bike on this type of terrain takes a little practice, but he was quite proficient. Usually it means working your tail off on the downhill, and eventually getting a little break on the climb. Let a gap form at all, and all hope is lost.
None of the climbs were really bad, usually just long and gradual. They were the type to just get into the rhythm and go, and we did. Then we hit a descent that could have been a complete speed rush, but unlike East Coast roads, where trees block the view, we could see forever. After hitting 58 mph, we had to stop for pictures. We stopped over and over again until we ran out of film.
Fortunately we had another roll handy and reloaded. Then we saw one of the best signs of the trip that proclaimed "Animals on Road next 20 miles." I had to get a shot of the sign and the two cycling animals I was riding with.
We beat the lunch van to the motel, so we had a little time to run errands before getting back to work. John found a barber to fix his haircut. I made him promise not to tell the barber that his girlfriend did this to him, since he'd get teased mercilessly.
We reached the highest point on the trip at 9300 feet on Day 6. Gladys let us ride down the hill from this point to the lunch stop at our motel in Springerville. This was the shortest PAC Tour Day ever, and we started serving lunch at 10 in the morning. Lon had tried to tempt John into racing on a single, by offering him use of a bike. So I began looking for someone to try the tandem, since there were no spare singles small enough for me. Most of the people interested in tandem were also racing, but Jim Smith decided to try it out, so we set the seat heights, swapped pedals and went out for a quick test ride. Then we were left with the rest of the afternoon to relax.
The next morning, I quickly learned that Jim likes to push bigger gears than I do, as we headed out to climb over the continental divide for Jim's first ever tandem ride. The scenery again was spectacular and we had a special treat with a rainbow appearing on each side of the road ahead of us.
The racers came zooming by us at around the second snack stop. For a while, they seemed to be taking it easy and we almost caught back up to them on a descent, but then they put the hammer down and tried to hurt each other on the final climbs.
The race ended on a long steep hill that hurt me quite a bit. I could just imagine how it felt to sprint up this thing to the finish line of a race. When we stopped, we heard lots of comments from the racers about how bad it hurt, but John seemed to like it and had a second place to prove it. We quickly moved Jim's pedals back to his own bike, and set the bike back up for John before heading off to lunch.
John and all the other racers talked about taking it easy for the rest of the day, but the race seemed to continue all the way to the motel, as we ended up averaging almost 20 mph for the day.
The next day was uphill for the first 78 miles, and Susan kicked us out of the lunch van and made us ride to lunch ! Oh, poor us ! As we rolled out of Socorro, NM, we both swore we saw a UFO hovering over the mountains. I think sighting of UFOs is pretty common in New Mexico. The scenery is pretty nice there. I suppose if I was an alien from another planet, I'd certainly visit New Mexico!
Just before lunch we rode through a large lava field called the Valley of Fire, definitely not a place to have a flat tire, since that really was molten rock on either side of the roadway. The lava flows were pretty impressive, but we had work to do at lunch, so we pressed on.
On the 9th day we rode from Roswell, NM to Brownfield TX. After a short warm-up, we were joined by Lon and Susan on their tandem. This was a real rush as we hammered along climbing hills at 25+ mph. Maybe it was the high speeds that caused us to break the unbreakable fender. Living and riding in New England, we consider fenders an absolute necessity. Unfortunately we haven't been having great luck with them on the tandem lately. We seem to break them regularly. We've gone through three Zefals since February and decided to try some fancy French aluminum fenders. The shop where we purchased these assured us that we wouldn't break them, but here we were, with yet another fender snapped off at the brake bridge. We removed the broken part, strapped it on to the rack and resumed our ride.
Later in the day, we began to notice the really intricate metal signs for all the ranches, and stopped for a few photos as we passed through the town where they are made. Every light post in town was adorned with one of these carvings, and all the businesses had them on display.
That evening as part of our crew duties, John and I headed off to buy 150 two liter bottles of soda. Apparently this is a common occurrence in Brownsfield, Texas, because the cashier didn't so much as bat an eye, or even ask if we were thirsty !
Crossing Texas would be easy for those who hated reading cue sheets. We would stay on route 380 for days. Getting to Texas also meant we'd be meeting up with or friend and fellow ultramarathoner, Nick Gerlich. Nick planned to ride out and meet us for lunch and then ride half of the next day as well. John and I traded jobs with Roger, so Roger could ride with Nick after lunch and we could work the snack stops on the caravan. It was a nice change of pace. After manning the first snack stop, we stopped in the town of Post to get some ice, and check out a Texas Main Street town. Later, we got some video footage of riders. We did a little from the side of the road, the side of the van, and even some with John sitting in the back of the van with the tailgate open while riders sprinted up and tried motorpacing until I sped up or slowed down too much for them.
Finding a good spot for the afternoon snack stop was a chore as there's not much shade in this part of Texas and it was hot. The humidity was rising as well. Despite the high numbers, the heat had actually not been terribly unpleasant so far, thanks to the lack of humidity, but that was about to change - dramatically.
Nick joined us for the first part of Day 11 from Aspermont to Jacksboro. It's kind of depressing to have fresh legs join riders with 10 days of hard riding in their legs. Nick really hammered folks into the ground, but we had a good time despite watching him pull away from all of us. Roger resumed his reserved spot on our wheel as we cruised to the second snack stop, but Lon got us into hammer mode speeding into lunch.
After lunch, we got our first chance to ride with the Myers, the couple most folks referred to as the tandem team in need of a tandem. Mike and Nancy dressed like tandem twins - even off the bike. They rode identical Cannondales and stayed together all the time. We had a great time chatting about tandems (they are interested), brevets and BMB (we had sort of met at BMB in 92). As part of their preparation for this ride they had done three complete series of brevets, since they had three different series within easy driving distances. It was surprising to us that most of the riders we talked to did a lot of their training on their own. Very few rode with a club or found organized longer rides.
After 11 days of warm sunny days with tailwinds, it was time to pay. Rain and fierce headwinds, along with lots of big trucks, creating drafts that just tossed riders around mercilessly, made this day a great day to be a crew member. Plummeting temperatures left many riders unprepared and cold. John and I lent out all our rain gear and warm weather gear until it seemed that we had clothes on half of the riders.
About 10 miles before the designated lunch stop, we started looking for a spot with some sort of shelter, but saw nothing. I convinced Gladys to drive a few miles further and we were rewarded for our persistence with an empty outdoor flea market, complete with bathrooms. I knew riders wouldn't mind a few extra miles to lunch in exchange for shelter. John and Gladys figured out how to operate the propane stove and got water started for soup and hot cocoa. We had prepared a great pasta salad for lunch, but it was hardly touched. The soup, on the other hand was a great hit.
Riders had found all sorts of creative ways to deal with the wet messy conditions. Many had gone on shopping sprees, and came in wearing all sorts of assorted garb. Team DQ spent quite a bit of time in a Waffle House, eating everything in sight, and then in a K-Mart filling one of the riders credit cards with long underwear purchases. I continued passing out clothing, until I was down to minimal attire, but I could get back in the nice warm van after lunch !
Lon had scheduled a team time trial for Day 13. We'd tried to convince him to do a team with him and Susan and John and me on tandems, but they had to run the race. So instead, we had a team with us, Roger, Eric, and Tim (with Tim being the only non-crew member). I was actually pretty excited about this. Other than 24 hour time trials and RAAM qualifiers, I have never raced, so this would be a great first one. Lon had tried to balance the teams out fairly well. This race was just for fun and the standings would not be affected by the outcome. We all took it fairly easy riding out to the start, which was scheduled to be at the first snack stop. But when we arrived at this designated area, it was deserted, and paint on the road indicated that we should keep going.
When we finally found the stop many miles down the road, we discovered that the reason for the relocation was a cranky cemetery watchman. Snack stops and lunch stops vary from wide spots in the road to road side picnic areas, abandoned stores, parking lots, church picnic areas, etc. We roll in, setup a few small tables with snacks and drinks, a few benches, and trash bags. We clean up thoroughly and leave no evidence that we were ever there. Some of the snack stops can be chosen ahead of time like roadside parks or church picnic areas. Wide spots in the road are chosen by the crew on the fly.
This particular stop was listed as a church picnic area, but apparently the cemetery caretaker felt we were trespassing and ordered people off of the church property, somewhat forcibly, with a gun, and threats to call the authorities. Victor packed up the snacks and moved on. Apparently the caretaker called the police and that was his undoing, since the police seemed almost eager for Victor to press charges regarding the threats. The police were actually quite friendly and supportive of us. This served to revive my good impressions of cycling in Texas.
So we finally started the time trial, a few miles later than planned. And it was a good thing. Lon had described the course as flat, and it was anything but. I'm not afraid of hills, but I knew that a tandem and three singles would have a little trouble staying together on this terrain. The route flattened a bit, but still had a few good climbs. Despite averaging almost 30 mph, we still fell off the back on some of the climbs. But the team worked together to keep us around, since we were such an assett on the flats and downhill.
I have never ridden so intensely in my life. For the first 4 or 5 miles, I was sure my heart was going to explode through my rib cage at any moment. I was sure I would not be able to hang on for 27 miles the way I felt, but suddenly I got into a good rhythm and while I was still working harder than I ever had, I felt better.
Then we hit construction. We actually had to stop while a bulldozer pulled out
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