 Ah, those tandem pace lines. I couldn't have completed the trip without help from the two tandems, piloted by Mike and Nancy (shown here) and Josh and Doreen. |
I felt pretty crummy and unmotivated for the first half of the day today,
but seemed to recover in the afternoon. It was really windy again so I spent
the entire day drafting off of other people and that helped me conserve my
energy. I was so focused on staring at the wheel six inches in front of me
that I kept having problems with my contacts nearly drying up in blowing out
of my eyes because I kept forgetting to blink. On previous days trying to stay
up with Nancy and Mike on their tandem on climbs wasn't worth the effort, but
today the alternative -- struggling on my own in the headwind for hours and
hours like I did for most of the 160 miles yesterday -- was much worse than
sprinting to keep up with them when they stood, so I just gutted it out. On
some days my stomach starts to feel queasy when I work too hard so I have to
back off, but today just my legs would burn I'd I have trouble breathing
afterwards, so that was much easier to cope with. After the fifth or sixth
time I realized that after a couple of days of that I might actually get
stronger.
For the last couple of days whenever I climbed I would feel like curling up in a
ball and napping by the side of the road. Feeling a little tired is okay for
parts of the ride, but I've been riding for most of the miles the last couple
of days with my eyes half closed and feeling like my gas tank was empty. I
think the altitude is a main culprit -- our high point today was still around
6,700'. I told Susan that if I didn't get an easy day soon I might need to
take a day in the van playing with Bisti. She said that it sounded like I was
fatigued and a day's rest is usually enough to get people to feel
good about being on their bikes again. It's nice to know that that's an
option, better than throwing in the towel early. I know that sounds extreme
but I haven't been having much fun the last couple of days. I think if I can
keep drafting people I should do okay through Texas and Oklahoma in the wind.
Tomorrow we drop below 4,000', and I think we have as much climbing in the
next three days combined at we did all day yesterday so I should get a break
from at least the climbing and altitude in the next three days.
 A really long train |
I don't have much to say about the terrain today. We rode through wide open
plains that didn't seem to contain any landmark of notice. Although our
previous days have also been through wide, open spaces, there were usually
mountains at least in the background, but not today. The only variation that
sticks out in my mind is "Salt Lake" at the second rest stop. There were white
sand dunes covered in grasses and a body of clear blue water that looked more
like a giant puddle than a lake, as if it been left there by accident, kind of
like a smaller version of Mono Lake in the Eastern Sierra mountains in California. Also, we did
follow railroad tracks for most of the day. Some of the freight trains were so
long they had three engines pulling in front and even had engines in the middle
sometimes. Cyclists would make hand gestures to the engineers when a train
would approach to get them to blow the whistles, and the engineers would
always oblige.
John "Biker Legs" from Placerville, California, (on the right, walking with Jeff from Iowa), warned me about the route ahead. |
We ate dinner tonight in an diner made out of an old silver train car. I had the spaghetti special for
$5.50.The other riders I ate with told me "ghost" stories about the route
ahead. John from Placerville, California, said we'll have horrendous side
winds for the next six days through the rest of New Mexico, Texas, and
Oklahoma, and that the
trees grow sideways there there's so much wind. He said that I shouldn't ride alone in Alabama because the people
there are poor and inbred like in the movie "Deliverance" and don't take
kindly to seeing cyclists in tights pass through. He actually saw a chain
gain working there once. John also said the police harass cyclist to get off
of the road in Tennessee, but at least we'll be out of the head winds by then. I
think there are a lot of other scary things they told me about in the upcoming
states, but I don't remember the rest. I think I'll take everything with a
little grain of salt, although I am convinced about the winds for the next
several days.
My new odometer/speedometer stopped working after a while today, but I wiped
off the sensor surface at the end of the day and it seemed to be okay again.
Despite the winds, I'm looking forward to a bit of a rest tomorrow, with 100
miles and 1,300' of climbing. Tomorrow we'll be staying in the historic
Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico -- an original Route 66 business.
