Miles – 55
Miles From Start/To Finish – 2,391/1,954
Ave Riding Speed – 10-16 mph
Hours Start to Finish – 6.5
Weather – Sunny and 91
We were slow getting up this morning after a great night’s sleep at the Lazy R Motel. We changed over to Central Time, so we lost an hour and woke up at 7:30am. Kim walked over to the motel office and Evelyn and her husband, the second-generation owners of the place had coffee ready. Kim returned and we started our routine to get out the door. I returned to the office for a refresh of the coffee and heard from our hosts that there was a big storm last night with rain, lightening and thunder. Kim and I never heard a peep.
Breakfast was pretty sparse. We shared a Clif Bar. We made a couple trips to the motel office to get ice for our new Yeti insulated water jugs. After returning our room key to the office we finally rolled out of the parking lot at 9:30am.
The wind tends to pick up throughout the day and it was coming from the east as we started out. I think I can remember 2-times we actually had a noticeable headwind on our adventure, prior to Pueblo. Since leaving Pueblo a headwind is more the norm. The constant wind sweeping across my ears can get annoying and more importantly it slows our pace. My hands are increasingly giving me trouble as I lean into the headwinds. I was talking with my brother Duke last night and he said to try changing up my riding gloves as that might change up the pressure points. About halfway through the ride today we stopped for some water and Kim was taking hers off cause her fingers are only tan from the finger knuckle down, so I thought I’d try that and see if it would help with the pain in my hands. It worked pretty well. If the pain in my hands continue, we’ll likely take a couple days off in a row. Either way we’ll keep moving down the road.
Since we’ve gotten on some more level ground Kim has been rock’n it and even taking the lead during the day and leaving me in the dust. I think the elevations affected her more than me as she seems to have more energy at our current altitude (2254 ft). When I can keep up with her, I draft. Drafting is when a rider moves in close behind another rider and it reduces the wind resistance and makes it easier to pedal to keep up. Kim and I have both bumped each other doing this so the person behind needs to pay attention to any sudden changes from the lead rider.
We rode 23 miles east on Hwy 96 to Dighton, with a headwind. We pulled into the convenience store to pick up some water. I had a hot dog and Kim had a corndog and we ate them next to our bikes in front of the store. It was fun chatting with most everyone that passed by and talked about everything from the weather, people going to one of the few lakes in the area and our ride. It felt like we were out front of an old smalltown barbershop saying howdy to all our local friends.
We left Dighton and kept riding east to our destination 32 miles up. The makeup of the large truck traffic changed over from grain hauling rigs to cattle hauling rigs. Overall traffic was lighter today. As our ride continued, the wind became stronger and the sun was getting hotter. We started stopping about every 5 miles to rest my hands until we reached Ness City.
We road through to the east end of town to our motel, the Derrick Inn Motel. Rooms are cheap and it’s better than camping out in this heat.
Kim and I walked 5 blocks to the grocery store. We grabbed a grapefruit, bananas and yogurt for breakfast. For dinner we each had a frozen dinner for the microwave, cottage cheese, pickles, blackberries, salsa, chips, Powerade and water. We walked back to the hotel, took a shower and ate our dinners, in bed.
Hoping to get to bed early so we can try the early start and beat the heat and the wind, for a 60-plus mile day tomorrow.
Doing great guys!!