DAY 19 - Let the many many hills begin

For me on this day, TABR unleashes a series of up and downs that seem to surprise most racers who feel that the toughest part of the course was behind them. I believe that the actual elevation change from here to Yorktown is more than everything we have had to do previously. The ride out of Pittsburgh wasn't very well planned, and I missed a chance to have a big breakfast before leaving this college town. My bike was sounding good and I was all washed up from my motel stay. It was another bright sunny day and soon I would be in Missouri.

The roadkill count seemed to be actually increasing with new species of animals such as racoons and turtles joining the armadillo death pool.

Road signage in Kansas and Missouri were the best of the whole route. They proudly showed the route 76 sign at every corner. I wish the other states would have been as proud of this bike route. I particular liked the letter road signage used in Missouri.

There was plenty of chatter on facebook about the pies at Golden City at a place called Cooky's Cafe. The pies where literally incredible and would bigin a pie eating binge that would afflict me all the way to Yorktown. Thank you Cooky's at converting me to love USA pie. At this place I would find Russel's smiling face as he was starting his second slice

Poor Russel had had his second Park sprinkler shower wake up of the race. Lesson to all: Don't camp in the city parks on the grass. Signed the visitors book and noticed many familiar names

Many miles later we would meet up at a fun lunch place and all eat the house burger. The race was becoming fun and I enjoyed the company. In this part of the race there was plenty of places to resupply as the population density increased.

The rolling hills would increase in depth and steepness throughout this day (see map above). And my LOOK cleats where beginning to slip out on my right foot....again. It's not good to slip out when you are standing on your pedals pushing hard up a steep hill -- not good at all. What I should have immediately done, is have cleats mailed to a post office 2-3 days down the road as the small bike shops along the next several days did not carry my style of cleats. On a side note, my toes where starting to tingle as if they had fallen a sleep. I couldn't really feel most of my toes on my right foot and I had lost sensation on two toes on my left. Not knowing what this meant, I just kept on pushing ahead -- Not much else one could do. These sleeping toes did not hamper my pedalling or walking. Sensation to my right toes would take over eight months to return fully. My fingers where fine, but I had heard of several riders loosing one or more fingers during the race. I suspect that their nerve endings repaired over time as well. My leg muscles, that I complained about before, could only slowly accelerate from a stand still. Most likely, I had burned out the fast-twitch muscle by day 10. Definition: "People have two general types of skeletal muscle fibers: slow-twitch (type I) and fast-twitch (type II). Slow-twitch muscles help enable long-endurance feats such as distance running, while fast-twitch muscles fatigue faster but are used in powerful bursts of movements like sprinting"

So the trick would be to have strong hands and toes, and protect fast-twitch muscle by not exploding out of food stops.

TABR NEWS

In other TABR news - the first 2 racers have finished!! First place rider, Evan Deutsch, finished on Tuesday evening, with a new course record of 17 days, 8 hours. Second place rider, Jon Lester, finished last night, 18 days and I don't know how many hours. Third place will go to our friend Janie Hayes today!! She will break her own record of 22:11:11 sometime this evening!

Luckily there was no high water

Food everywhere - nice for a change.

SUNSETS

I'm on vacation after all, so sunsets should be expected. The sunsets would be amazing night after night this week of the race. I got in the habit of sending my mom and wife an evening picture. And then this happened.

First flat tire happened at sunset in the middle of nowhere. Ok lets change it... that's easy. Let the comedy skit begin. I reached for the micro pump that had been electrical taped to my seat tube for the last 19 days. When I went to test it, water came flying out. After all those water battle dousing and dripping down, the pump was full of water and useless. With the last light, I took it apart and tried to clean it all out luckily I didn't lose any of the tinny parts in the grass field, yet. I was able to rebuild the pump and could generate some pressure. But the replacement tube had a damaged valve stem. I uncrewed it and then something fell into the grass. Crappola. So, I had a patch kit, I set off to find the hole in the punctured tube. Found it, repaired and reinstalled. But the pump wasn't getting any air into the tire. That's when you stand up and look around in the dark and wonder what to do.

Now in total darkness, I could here some voices about 1/2 miles away down the hill. I got on my bike and coasted down slowly, hoping to not damage further my flat tube and tire. I didn't want to walk for fear of destroying my cleats further. I found a large family all out in the driveway and the first thing the guy shouted was to watch out for the dogs. I was able to walk passed the two dogs unscathed and I asked if he had a compressor and he did. But, it was full of water as well and didn't work. I was surrounded by about 10 friendly adults and kids everybody trying to help. Finally he said let's get you to town and the air pump at the gas station. Yikes, wasn't that illegal? Well, not if I get back here and resume my ride. Ok let's go. That ride in the pick-up truck felt like a rocket-ship after traveling under 20 MPH for almost three weeks.

The pump at the gas station worked and my tire inflated nicely. Now, I had to decide, do I go back the five miles in the pick-up to my rescue point and ride back tonight not knowing if my tire would hold out for the ride back to where I was standing, or I wait the night close to the air pump and see how my tire is in the morning. I looked at my rescuer seriously for about a full minute as he stared back at me. I decided to stay, which means I would have to ride my bike both ways.

Better get some sleep. Found the town park with open bathroom and settled in under the pavillion on a picnic table. I startled Mike Benigni who was on one of the tables sleeping already - sorry Mike.

I had lost two hours of ride time and now would have to lose more time returning to the rescue point in the morning. How would I make up that lost time? I was already riding a long day and didn't have room to fit more ride hours. About 141 miles done today. And yay I get to do an extra five miles tomorrow.