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.......