The Group that made it to Boston, plus random pics

If you can't read this, it says: "Welcome to Hillsboro, The Home of 600 Happy People and a Few Old Soreheads". I wonder if the soreheads know who they are?

Here's the ghost of other tours that have gone through this town.

Another example of something tall on the great plains other than a silo.

This is another one of those towns, like Blue Balls, Pa, that warrants a stop and see just how many double meaning articles can be seen in one store. This place had a plethera of shirts with sayings like: Hooker...a location NOT a vocation. Oh, well, something to do while your traversing this country of ours.
Here we were, 1,000 miles into the ride, and still half way between nothing and nowhere. Man, this is a big country!!!!! Another Winslow, Arizona shot with my roommate and a statue commemorating the song with the name above the statue. Bob was the one on the bike.
Just a monument to my faithful companion after the second century in the desert. Notice that the shadows were getting a bit long as it was a long-g-g-g-g day.

Note that while posing, I was also, unbeknownst to me, incurring my first flat. This was a ramp to a highway, and I picked up some of the famous shards of steel upon the enterance to the ramp, and the tire went flat as I was posing. This was somewhere around the second day as we began to leave any semblence of TREES for what seemed to be weeks, because it was. We were moving from the right of this picture to the left, and heading directly to the Mojave. This was the Manhattan pier and the first and last picture of the first day, given that I managed to NOT recharge the camera before the start of the day.

This is the group that made the XC tour, door to door. I'll use this location to post various random pictures from the ride, in no particular order. The pictures will be posted as I get around to them.

Atlantic Ocean

Day 48--THE END

Burlington to Boston, Mass.

SMILE>>>>>>>>>>YOU MADE IT!!!!!

After all the smiles and drinks, and good-byes of last night, there are even more parting hugs, hand-shakes, pictures taken, and, of course, promises to stay in touch during the day and at the farewell banquet. And, in fact, the web continues to transmit messages and pictures to and from the crew that not only made it door to door but among everyone that rode with us anytime: all the way, at the start and retired, or joined us near the end.

The bonding that occurs from these shared personal experiences is nice and is probably why I do these kind of things. Even the vacation trip to Alaska with my wife was on a small cruise ship in August, still has us sharing emails with a few of the people we met pver the course of that week. The same is true of the friends I've made over the years doing the Anchor House charity ride. I'll probably continue this blog with stuff about the Anchor House ride, and perhaps the Alaskan vacation over the next few weeks, if ever. Just not this minute.

Back to the ride.........
There was a large folded map of the US that was placed in the lobby of every hotel we stayed at. It had a blue trail of the route we were taking, and every evening, a black mark was placed over the blue for the distance we covered that day. It just seemed forever to get to the first rest day, and then I don't seem to recall focusing on the map until we got to Ohio. It's not that I didn't look at it. Actually, I'm sure that I was occasionally found staring at it. It's just that I didn't want to focus on the distance until it became more emotionally manageable.

I guess I was surprised to find how many people do this cross the US trip more than once. For some of our riders, this was their 3rd or 4th time. If people ask any questions of me, then they ask at least two: why did you do it, and would you do it again??

The why I did it question has as many answers as there are days. There always seems to be another reason depending on just I might be thing about when they ask. There are all the glib answers, and the usual answers, and the thoughtful answers; but, I just don't have one perfect answer. If I had to pick one, I guess it was simply for the experience of it all: the people I met on the ride and throughout the country, the wind, the rain, the sun........just whatever happened, and the enjoy it for what it was. It didn't stop me from complaining at times, it just was the power of living it, whatever IT was. Would I do it again? Possibly. But, first, I have a number of other things in mind, not the least of which is doing things that my wife can share it.

These things were running through my head as we all shared our congratulations to each other, and the corresponding good-byes, as we road to the Ocean. We had all kinds of chatter going on during the ride, and the occasional craziness. (We won't talk about the "mooning" provided us as we gathered at the staging stop just before the Ocean. I won't name the person, but those who where there know.) The route through the towns to the Ocean was not a straight shot but we had Al. Al does national level orienteering races at a high level. We just give him a cue-sheet with the directions, turn him loose at the front, and though our cue-sheets away, and make sure we stay close.

I will now go back to post and share some of the pictures that go with this last week, as well as a few that I may just post from prior days that I'll add here. I'm not sure whether I'll add them to a given day or just add a post of just pictures. We'll see. See ya...............

P.S....I did have a few slips with the gears going to the ocean, but not enough to cause me to fall back, just enough to make me slip with a few expletive-deleteds!! When back home with the mechanic who sold me my bike with the SRAM components, he noticed that my cables were a bit more beat up then we gave credence to on the ride. After changing out the cables, and replacing the chain (that had gotten beaten up from all the slipping), I had a great Anchor House ride with all the hills on that ride, have ridden a few centuries to date, and hundreds of other random miles and everything is fine todate. This is not a condemnation of the work that Rick provided during the ride, but just a PS to all my comments in regards to the gears over the course of the last week of the blog. SRAM is relatively new company and like many new things, if you don't work with it, there is a learning curve. I trust my experience will only help those future SRAM riders on the XC ride. See ya...........

Day 47--Last Full Riding Day

Brattleboro to Burlington, Mass.

Again, no stats. The day was again truncated by gear troubles, and I cut things short for all the reasons I've mentioned before. I was torn between that fact that this was a poor last week to finish an other-wise great ride. There were other far more serious situations outlined earlier in the blog that happen during the ride, and my minor inconveniences this past week do not even compare to those.

I hope it's obvious that I would have preferred to end this week on the bike. But, in the sceam of things, all's well that ends well. I started every day; I only lost about 200 miles out of the total 3,415 (not counting the occasional minor detours) despite all the truncated days; I ended up in one piece; I was stronger, in many ways, then when I started; and got to meet some great people, share a great experience, and cross off another item on the "bucket list". No nothing's wrong, it's just a figure of speach.

As with many of the riders, my wife, Chris, joined us in Burlington for the last couple of days. We went out to dinner, and found a Sushi place near the hotel, virtually by accident. We went looking for a steak place, and found this place. Chris works full time and teaches at a community college part-time. So needless to say, she stayed busy while I was gone. However, after living with each other for over 30 years, things change when the other one isn't aroung to help out in the various odd ways, or be around to yell at, or whatever. All I will say about this is that I, like most of the other riders, certainly appreciate the support of our significant others who let us wander off across the desert, over Rocky mountains, across the plains, through the midwest, and over the eastern mountains and on to the Atlantic Ocean. Actually, we had a payback vacation planned to three weeks after the Anchor House Ride: an inland waterway Alaskan cruise.

We still have a final short day (18 miles) tomorrow to the Atlantic Ocean. Compared to most days, 18 miles is just the morning warm-up. See ya............

Day 46--Another Mechanical SAG Day

Albany, NY to Brattleboro, VT
Miles: 60.1 part of 76.0
Time: 4:39
Average: 12.9 mph
Max: 34.1
Est. Calories: 4,681
Ascent: 4,532

I made it most of the day, but was just too concerned for the "ol' knees" to continue. I just didn't want to get into more hills and have to climb in the "big ring". I had been fighting the gears as soon as we started climbing today. I could feather the gears on the flats to get into and keep in the right gear, but the hills were getting to be just too big of a challenge to keep the gears in the right place. As I have mentioned in earlier posts: in two weeks from the end of the XC ride, I will be riding a 500 mile, 7 day ride for Anchor House Ride for Runaways Charity that I have ridden for 13 years, and this obviously will be my 14 year. I really didn't want anything to happen so close to the end of this ride that would compromise my ability to ride the Anchor House Ride.

I rode with Sue and Champ most of the day. We were doing fine, until I wimped out at the last SAG stop. There was less than 20 miles to go, but I just didn't have it in me to fight both the hills, and the rain that was threatening. Hank, Chris, and Nancy had already retired during the day, or did not ride for various reasons.

I obviously put poor Rick to work on the gears again that night, and as in the past, everything worked fine that evening.

Dinner was on your own that night. I wasn't big on walking too far, or being out too late, as there was strong storms coming in, and I was tired. I walked down to a supermarket down the hill, and got a whole bunch of food and drink. I brought it all back to the hotel room, and just "grazed" through the evening and watched TV. And, despite what I said a couple of day's ago, I did one more load of laundry this evening just to have more clean clothes then dirty ones. I was looking forward to the last full day of riding tomorrow, and doing my usual praying for no rain. See ya.........

Day 45--To the State Capital

Little Falls to Albany, NY
Miles: 69.8
Time: 4:38
Average: 15.1 mph
Max.: 30.7 mph
Est Calories: 4,815
Ascent: 2,,341

A relatively short day. One SAG stop, and one stop for a soda. As Harry is like to say: "just peddle, baby; just peddle". For the most part it was just a day in the saddle.

It's easy for me to say because I personally was not experiencing any physical or mechanical problems this day. That was not so true for a couple of my riding companions of the day. Hank had a number of physical malodies that he handled with the same toughness he has displayed the whole ride. Sue ended up with a flat on her front tire which put her out of commission. She rides a recumbant, and she was not carrying a spare intertube for the smaller wheel. We left her where she could be seen, made sure the SAG folks knew where to find her, and then rode on.

There was some major highway and mall construction going on leading up to and around the hotel. After negotiating a fair bit of this construction, we still had to get across the traffic into the hotel location, which was a bit dicey, but all manage to do so safely. See ya...............

Day 44--Another SAG Day, this time mechanical

Syracuse to Little Falls, NY

Again, no statistics. A short day due to gear trouble. As we climb an incline right out of the hotel, I started with slipping gears, not able to move to other gears without slipping back to the gear I was moving from. Rick had worked on the gears a few times now. Not seeing one of the SAG wagons, I rode some 20 miles with 2 gears. I finally saw Mack (one of our smiling, helpful, friendly SAG support people). I stopped and asked if he could mention my dilemma to Tracy, who had helped fix the gears one other time.

When Tracy found me, I pulled over and the other riders kept on. One we determined that we really couldn't fix it, we put the bike on the truck, and I rode with Tracy and helped out where I could. That included putting luggage in the rooms at the end of the day. Tracy was fighting some serious back problems, and Rick, who had been riding, came back to meet us and take over the truck while we dropped off Tracy with Maggie, who took Tracy to the hospital.

It was subsequently determined that Tracy had cracked a couple of vertebra. She toughed it out the rest of the week, had surgery when she got back home, and as I understand things she is back up and out, including riding.

When we got to the hotel, after cleaning up, I wandered down to McD's for lunch, and then across the street for laundry. My last tug of war with the laundry bit, as there were only 3 more riding days to go. In the meantime, Rick checked the bike out and got it working fine.

When Hank and Champ got in and freshened up, we took a walk, got some ice cream, and visited one of the world's largests canal locks located in Little Falls on the Erie Canal. We didn't take too much time because, afterall, we did need to get back for dinner. See ya..........

Day 43--New Blood

Canadagua to Syracuse, NY

We had a new rider with us for part of the day. Hank's friend, Jeff Malone, who hosted dinner last evening joined us in the morning for the first 24 or so miles. He then turned around and returned home on his own. He was a good rider, and it was nice to have a new face, with new stories, to share the ride with. As mentioned yesterday, Jeff and his wife are very active people, and Jeff was just so impressed with our ride, and hopes that he can do it some day. I know we all rode for our own reasons, but it is nice to occasionally have someone else be impressed with our efforts.

While I didn't do it every day, I checked my tires in the parking lot before we left this morning. I noticed 3 cuts, with two down to the cord in the back tire. I really didn't want to wrestle with a tire change at that point; so, I took my chances and started out with everyone else. Despite the 'no luck' with the gears this past week, the tire held up the entire day. I changed it out and cleaned-up the bike at the end of the day.

The day again started out damp, with wet roads, and the occasional rain, but not bad. The weather changed over to sunny near the end of the day, for an overall nice 68 miles. I noticed in my notes that I didn't put anything down as to statistics or why I didn't have or post the stats. I can only assume that I must have had the Garmin 'run out of gas' in the middle of the day from a poor charging process last night. Sometimes the hotel electrical outlets were so used that the plug does not rest tightly in the outlet, slips out slightly loosing contact, and just doesn't fully charge.

Speaking of last night...there apparently was a wedding party that stayed at our motel last night. I know because I saw them as we were leaving for dinner last night, and.......I heard them around 3AM!!!! I won't quote what I heard, but suffice it to say that at first I thought that I was going to have to call 911, and then when I finally figured it out, I was disappointed that they had to do this when I only had 2 more hours of sleep before I had to get up. Everything is about biking on this ride. I did hear that others had been awoken as well, so it wasn't just a hopeful dream of mine.

Willie and Peter passed us at one point in the day. We came up on them two or three times at stop lights that let us close in on them. Unfortunately for Willie, it was his birthday. I almost became rich because of it. You see, every time we came up on him, I sang Happy Birthday, even on the uphill. He started to offer me money to stop, and I got it up to $20 dollars. I stopped, but I never got paid; and NO I'm not using this to geode Willie into sending me money. We just do most anything to breakup the day's routine!!!

Chris pulled a ligament in his leg during the day, which made it a problem for him the rest of the week, but he was able to ride to the beach the last day. Nancy fell and broke her helmet, with no lingering effects. But, she also took a nasty rash on her hip. She did ride the next day, but had to take some of the following day off because the rash acted up. Everything seems to getting stronger but tired, and some bike mechanics are getting worse, and my gear problems never quite vanished (more to come). See ya.......

Day 42--A Second SAG day

Hamburg to Canadagua, NY

We started out with another serious rain day. Apparently the whole East Coast was having major rain and floods throughout the week, and upstate NY was no different. Hank and I were riding together. Like everyone, we were having trouble in every aspect. I had traded in my sports glasses with the doulble glass, for my "civilian" glasses in the hopes of seeing better. That strategy had worked on the lessor rain days. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case today.

At one early point of the day, we had to take a left turn on a down hill, across a busy road. We barely navigate that when we had a number of long down hills with subsequent uphills. Given that we couldn't "let the bike roll" down hill, we were forced to slug it up the next hill. This routine was repeated with the ponding along the side of the road, and small creeks running down the road, whether you were going up or going down. We came upon a small store on the corner of this small village, and Hank said he was quiting the day, and assumed that I would have pressed on if he was willing to ride. I assured him, with absolutely no reservations, the I had been pressing on because I thought he wanted to press on, and that I was pleased that he suggested that we retire. We managed just 22.7 miles.

This retiring bit for weather was almost becoming a habit: twice in one week. In retrospect, I would like to have said I road every inch, but again, long before, I had had to come off the road because of intestional problems, or mechanical problems. Coming off because of safety concerns, ceased being a problem for me. And, some of the other riders had not even started the day on their bikes for other reasons.

The experience of these types of days helped me became impressed not just with the people that rode every inch, but the prudence of those that made other personally tough decisions not to ride on a given day, or down a given down hill, or because of injury, or for any other reason. Even Magic Mike, who took a number of rides on one or more days, rode himself into shape such that he road all the way from Boston to Florida, where he lives, after the XC ride. He did the extra couple of thousand miles unsupported, on his own.

It was days like this, where I needed to make personal decisions, that I learned the most. Things like that it was OK to leave some of my testosterone in the bag, not judge a book by its cover, and enjoy the moment more. Thanks for all on the XC ride, riders and support, who helped me learn more about myself, and accomplish a meaningful experience, and permit me to reach for more in life from myself.

While I look for other things to commit some of my time, I have been able to be more involved with a friend who not only manages a work team for habit but volunteers his time to help other families renovate there homes, and I get to help out on these projects. Wow, I've definitely been writing too long today, I'm getting way too heavy. But, since this is a journal for myself as much as to share the experience with others, you'll all have to bare with me.

At the end of the day Hank was kind enough to invite me to join him and Champ in a dinner hosted by a business acquaintence. The gentleman and his wife were a pleasant ending to a very wet, tough day. The couple have been all over the world in various physical challanges, hiking, biking, etc. The gentleman joined us the next day for part of our ride to Syracuse. More on that tomorrow's post. See ya...................

Day 41--Sugar Shack

Erie, PA to Hamburg, NY
Miles: 80.5
Time: 4:59
Average: 16.1 mph
Est Calories: 5,546
Ascent: 1,820 ft

I was looking forward to this day back in Indiana. I was well aware of what challanges Ohio had in stall for us having live there, and gone to college there. And, I had ridden part of this area with the Anchor House ride in the past, as well as the fact that the Anchor House ride in two weeks was expected to cross the XC route somewhere near Canadagua this year.

The day started out damp and chilly. This was one of the few days that I wore my rain jacket. Others often wore their jackets in the mornings and shedded them toward the afternoon. Depending on the weather, I would bare up to the chilly weather in the mornings, sans jacket, if I expected to see warmer weather in the afternoons. This was not one of those days, and in fact I wore my jacket all day.

This was essentially a flat day. Gentle rollers effidence the 1,820 of elevation covered over the 80 miles. During the early part of the ride, we stopped at the "Sugar Shack", which was a friend of Hank's. This is a lady the makes her own sauces. Everything is grown and picked by hand, and made by her. She often sells the sauces that people use for everything from sauce on pancakes, to flavor in their teas. She had little cups that she put a dollup of ice cream in, and we picked the sauce we wanted to taste that she would pour on it. It would have been so easy to just stay there and get sick eating all the sweets. This was a small nugget of a jewel, with a great lady, doing extroidinary things with natural products. Thanks to Hank for showing us this place.

Having grown up along lake Erie, I asked the lady if she was loosing any land to the lake. I hit a nerve. She had just been at the tax office the past week to argue that they were charging her taxes on property that was sitting in the lake. She claimed that she had lost over 300 feet over many years, and that she was still being charged property taxes based on the survey of when she bought the place. I wish her good luck with the tax man, the lake, and success with her humble, honorable, healthy Sugar Shack.

Near the end of the day, Champ and Hank stopped to take one of those "huh" pictures of a giant advertising statue at some pottery store, and Sue and I continued on. We rolled on together to the hotel, stopping at the last minute for lunch where we ran into Willie. It was a nice day with a nice pace, getting us into the hotel relatively early in the day, sometime around 2pm, even with the stops thrown in. It was just what the doctor ordered, and just what I expected. See ya...............

Day 39 & 40--Biking by Braile, and Rest

Niles, Ohio to Erie, Pa.

I explained in an earlier blog posting about my problems while serious rain. Today was my biggest test todate.

It rained most of the night before and most of the day. The day started wet and dark, with pouring down rain. Most of us started out together. In addition, Willie had some friends that joined us for the day. Other riders had people join us periodically throughout the ride for a day of riding. I'm sure that these guys were second guessing themselves but to their credit they all made the full day's ride. I can't say the same about myself.

We started out down a major road, and were virtually soaked within the first miles. At our first left turn, Hank was in the wrong gear, stop to adjust his gearing, and told everyone to go around. It was a slight up hill, and we all began grinding it out.

I wasn't real fond of the weather, and it wasn't long before I was wondering if the weather would let me continue. The next turn was a left, and Sue and I were together. For some reason, I was pressing. I guess I intuitively knew that if this situation continued for me that I would be off the road at the 1st SAG.

This road was very rural, no sidewalks, few homes, a road with a slight crown in the center. I rode center line because of the lack of traffic, and it took out some of the standing water that ponded near the side of the road. At one point, I looked back and didn't see Sue, but I knew there were others behind us that she could pick up with. Later she said that she didn't know where I was going at that particular speed, but that she knew she couldn't keep up.

I started to come up on some earlier riders and kept going. I then came up on 3-4 of the faster riders, and passed them. Soon thereafter, I was stopped, running my thumb over my computer to see the mileage and trying to decide when I needed to turn. The group of 3-4 riders then passed me and asked if I was alright, and I realized that I needed to ride with them to improve my chances of avoiding getting lost. Some stories of others that came up on to the SAG indicated that they, in fact, had missed one or more turns.

At these speeds we were moving (?) we even caught up at the first SAG (around 34 miles) with the guys who left some half hour to an hour ahead of us. At that point, I threw in the towel, and took a ride in the rest of the way. This is the first time in almost 15 years of riding, including 14 of the 500 miles for Anchor House that I've ever come off the road for weather. Everything I say about this almost seems like whining, but since I had never done this before, I almost feel that I copped out. But, since I had not ridden every F --- inch up to that point because of other factors beyond my control, it didn't make much sense to push unsafely.

I didn't post any of the usual miles, average, etc.,on this blog posting as I forgot to turn off the garmin when I got off the road, and the garmin kept running in the truck taking my average up into unrealistic 40 mph range and all the other numbers were out of wack as well.

Trying to manage my riding in this weather was like trying to ride by Braile, which didn't seem very prudent. I kept hearing in my head one thing that Hank said one time, that we should use some of the wisdom that 63 years was supposed to have given us. I was not the only one who came off the road at that SAG, and some others came off the road at other points throughout the date. As we rode along in support of the other riders, I was a bit conflicted. At one point I would feel sorry for them and respected their tenacity. At the same time, I was relieved from the fear factor I was dealing with given that fact that I couldn't see through the rain drenched glasses, and I couldn't take them off and still see as others could. Plus, I knew that I would be doing another 500 mile ride within a couple of weeks, and didn't want anything to compromise that.

When we got into Erie, Pa, I went down to a laudramat about 5 blocks away (that old 2-3 day laudry requirement). On the way down to the laudramat, I saw Champ coming in and just pointed to the hotel a couple blocks up the road. And, it was still pouring rain, with driving winds. Again, seeing Champ rose up many conflicting emotions. It was still raining so hard that when I returned to the hotel, I had to change clothes to go to dinner, because I was soaked.

The next day was an off day. The first night in we ended up at an Italian place that was OK but not a step up and no alcohol. Some folks found a very nice place that we went to the next night of the rest day. The off day was again overcast and rainy. Some of us found a bus stop that took us to a mall, and a movie theater. The movie was a 50 cents, and the popcorn and drink was $2.50! Don't ask, I guess it was to just barely cover fixed costs? Well, it gave us something to do.

See ya............................

Day 38--Wooster to Niles

Wooster to Niles, Ohio
Miles: 91 expanded to 95.6
Time: 6:51
Aver: 13.9 mph
Max: 29.7
Est Calories: 6,727
Ascent: 4,177

One day after Bob's accident, and I just tried to maintain my routine, like getting up at 5AM for my wake-up shower, often less for hygiene then stretching and waking up. The one treat was that I could spend a bit more time in the hot shower waking up, without taking bathroom time away from Bob. Secondly, I did need to reintroduce myself to some folk with the intent of riding with them for the day. Even though one or the other of us might take off a ride off once in a while, Bob and I usually started and ended the day together. I latched onto Sue, Hank, and Champ for most the remainder of the ride. They often went down hills better than I, especially Champ. That met that I would sometimes give myself a bit of ahead start by climbing a bit quicker, or running them down on the other side of a climb. I just don't have the guts to "let it go" on the down hills, especially after blowing out the tube, tire, and flattening the rear wheel rim in Arizona coming out of Jerome.

While riding with various groups throughout the last week, it was interesting to note the various "group cultures". Each group had little nuances that had developed over the course of the last 6 weeks. Nothing unique, just different from others. One group would slap their hip and then point to the direction they were going when making a turn, rather than perhaps just point or call out the turn. Others might yell, Going, when starting up from a ride light or the like, where others may not. One group had a reconized point person, who by personal preference wanted to be "out front" virtually all the time (Harry!), where other groups would rotate through a paceline, or still others who ride together but not in any type of paceline.. These were some of the minor adjustments I needed to adapt to as I would occassionally ride in and out of the other groups throughout the last week.

This day's ride had some horrendously rough roads. I promised Hank that I would not quote his expletive deleted's. We also had may more turns than in the past. There were days in the west that we had barely on side of a 8.5 x 11.0 sheet of paper for directions. This day we had 3 sides and a bit more on the fourth side, of directions. Other than that, we moved nicely thoughout the day. The extra few miles were due to riding around another construction situation. These extra miles, plus the century the other day, made for some 95 miles a day for the 4 days through Ohio. I know that anyone that has only driven through Ohio via the Ohio Turnpike would say, so what. The fact is that once you get south of the turnpike, you start to pick up the hillier terrain. It was a tough 4 days (almost 4 straight centuries), (including tomorrow), especially with the unfortunate incident of Bob's accident surfacing in our thoughts regularly. See ya..........

Day 37-- Changes and Adjusting

Marysville to Wooster, Ohio
Miles: 98.0
Time: 6:40
Aver: 14.7 mph
Max: 32.4
Est Calories: 6,505
Ascent: 4,453

As stated in my last post, this day started out with a strong carry over from the prior long day, with our strong finish. Bob start out with a couple of other riders, and I with a couple of others. Somewhere in the 10-20 mile range, I saw some flashing lights up the road a bit. This is always a cautious time for any group of riders, just hoping that it's not for one of them. Unfortunately, this was Bob's accident. I came upon the incident just as the police showed up. The CrossRoads people where right there as well, given that they were stopped, as often the case, across the road at an intersection to point the way. Most other riders was now showing up, and the CrossRoads people indicated that we should move on. It was tough to just press on, we knew that, in truth, we could not provide any immediate help, and perhaps could cause another problem with all of us standing around the roadway, or getting in the way of the true first responders. In addition, one of the riders, a recent addition to the group from Oregon, Sue, was out in the road trying to re-direct traffic to keep anyone from just running over Bob while he was down in the middle of the outside, highspeed lane. Kudos to Sue, who of all people was the smallest person barely visible by herself. She was right behing Bob when he was moving left to take the left hand lane and was hit.

At the direction of the XC people, I moved on with Al and Jim, who are normally stronger than me. I stayed with them most of the day. At one point of the day we came up to a early SAG stop. There was a bridge out that we could walk over, but the support vehicles could not. Margerite stop her vehicle to let us load up on food and drinks because the ride around the detour would not let her get to the scheduled stop before us. As I was eating some things, Jim decided to move on, and Al soon followed. By the time I was ready to go, it took me may miles to catch-up with them.

We also stopped in a small town for lunch. (Frankly, I'm not sure now whether this was this day or the day before??) The point is that in this small town in southern Ohio, we met a couple of bicycle guys in the this place, and one guy was from Elyria, Ohio, which was the next town over from Lorain, where I grew up. I asked, amoung other things, what brought him to this part of the state. He said that his wife was at a conference near by and he took the opportunity to come down and ride the rural areas of southern Ohio.

It reminded me of time that I was on RnR (Rest and Recuperation) in Australia from VietNam, were I called some family that offered to host military people from VietNam on RnR. After a couple of misses I got a family that was going to be home, and invited me to visit for dinner. It turned out that the father of the family had spent some time in Ohio, and new my home town.

It just seemed that you can go anywhere, and still meet someone in, around, or familiar with your home town. And, this chance meeting in a one-restuarant, small village, in rural Ohio just reinforced that such chance happening do occur, at least for me.

Near the end of the day, just after the last SAG, we ran into some hills that separate the three of us. At one point, I was glad to see Margerite, just to validate that I was on the right road. When I asked her to confirm how far the hotel was, she said that it was xxx miles ahead, but that she couldn't bring it to me. What a polite way of saying...Get riding!!

My cousin, and best friend and wife, did show up and took me to an Amish place outside of town. Once again, a recurring theme, great food and lots of it. See ya.........

Day 36--after 5 months..an update to Boston,

Richmond, In. to Marysville, Ohio
Miles: 107.1
Time: 7:03
Aver: 15.2 mph
Max: 26.2
Est Calories: 7,223
Ascent: 3,081

(You will notice in the blog outline that this entry is posted in November, which is true. However, I will follow by prior posting entries, and pick these entries up where I left off in terms of "by day postings".)

This was our last official century day, and after a long day I didn't get a chance to post my blog. I was going to do so the next day, but circumstances turned decidedly sour the next day, and now some 5 months later I am trying to reconstruct a brief summary of those last days to Boston.

(PS. I'm just trying to get some narrative down, and I'll review the pictures I did take and add some later, particularly of the last day.)

As you may know from my prior posts, I used my roommate's computer to make my posts, and sometimes, due to a case of the "tireds" or laundry or Bob's posting efforts, it just became to late for me to want to post to the blog, and I would pick up and recap in the next day or two. Well, as fate would have it, the next day 37 from Marysville to Wooster included Bob getting hit by a motorcycle early in the day's ride, and with him went the computer. I will refer you to his blog for more details (see my first blog entry for his blog link), but I am glad to say, as bad as the accident was, and despite the difficulties in his recovery, that he is back riding (darest I say on a new bike). In fact we rode together some 27 miles yesterday (11/09-2009) including some 2,000 ft of climbing.

So, while I will be attempting to recap my final days into Boston on the XC ride, I will be relying on some Senior-memories, and very brief notes I made along the way. Beside some typical procrastinations, my delay in finishing up this great cross-country experience was also delayed because of the 7 day 500 miles annual charity ride for Anchor House (more on that ride later) that I have referenced before on earlier blogs, a trip to Alaska with my wife (just a super experience), and various domestic chores that had piled up during my some 9 weeks away from the homestead.

Day 36, while long, was a great day. There had been strong threats of rain early, but it held off for the most part. Everybody seemed to be stopping to take pictures of some pretty spectacular cloud and sun scenery. All I recall me trying to do was out run the very nasty looking weather.

As you'll hear more later in the week, I just can't see with my glasses in the rain, what with two layes of glass (1 perscription, 1 sunglass) there was water on both sides of each glass leaving virtually no visibility. Top that off with water on my bike computer, and I couldn't tell where I was, or when I was supposed to turn. Often during the ride, I would give the riding glasses to the SAG crew, and try to ride with my none-sport glasses...eventually with little success. And, if I were to take my glasses off, like many of the other riders, would get headaches. Because of all these personal problems, I really don't like getting caught in major rain situations for long periods of time, and just thought that if the weather was moving in the right direction, and our route took us in the other direction, that just maybe we could out ride the worst of it. Fortunately, that is what happen this day.

While I don't recall much of the details of the day, I do recall that Bob and I finished strong during the last 10+ miles of the day. There were a number of do-able rollers that propelled us along at 20+ miles an hour for that last bit of the day. I don't recall if there was any tail wind, but regardless, if there was a tail wind it was not meaningful, and the wheeeeeee-factor of finishing strong for the day. The hope was that this was partly a factor of getting stronger, and we hoped that this would be a forcast of our last days into Boston.

I was looking forward to the next day, as my best fiend, Mike and his wife, Jan, along with my cousin Bob, were planning to meet me in Wooster for dinner. They had about an hour ride from their homes up along lake Erie, where I was born and raised. See ya..........