LOTS OF PEOPLE!!! I don't remember the roads and towns being so packed like they have been the last two days. I heard they counted (don't ask me how they count them) 35,000 riders on Monday. Considering there are only 10,000 or so "registered" riders....that's a TON of extra people. If two riders go by every second, that's something like 5 hours of constant riders....and it's not constant. It's a lot at once in the morning, but by mid to late afternoon there are fewer. They were still straggling in last night after 10PM....and I still see them coming in tonight at 9PM. Many of them start by 4AM too....so that's 17 hours with riders regularly going by.
It was a longer ride today, about 70 miles. The morning was decent weather wise, not too hot until later in the morning.
The problem I had with today was there was not much to see. All the towns we passed through on the route, though nice, didn't have much going on except for food, beer tents, and maybe a band or something. It was like riding a bike for 70 miles, and every 10-13 miles passing through Tennessee, Illinois. Not much to see or do. I only took two pictures, and those are just early morning sunrise pictures. That was the most interesting thing to see.
It was flat almost all day (YAY!!). Right after the last town though, we had to go through the Des Moines river valley and the route had us going down this really long and really steep hill into the valley and then climbing back out again. It was like a mile to get to the bottom and over a mile back up to the top. I was going to stop and do a little video diary there with the camera, but the road curved around at the bottom so the "drama" of seeing riders flying down one side and crawling back up the other wasn't going to work...so I skipped it. They called it "Twister Hill", I think because they filmed a lot of the movie "Twister" there at Pilot Mound and on that road with the hill. On the way down I went faster then I think I've ever been on a bicycle. (Stephanie....close your eyes and plug your ears and say na-na-na-na-na if you don't want to know). 43.5 miles per hour I think was clocked on the bike computer, and I definitely was not pushing to go faster. If I'd started from the top faster....and tucked all the way down I have no doubt I would have hit 50.....and 43 was plenty fast for me. A little scary. One woman in our group said she hit 53 mph. No thanks...
The speed didn't last long however. Soon after reaching the bottom and crossing the bridge the climb started, and I'll bet I clocked a whole 3mph on the way up. I think it was the steepest hill of the week. At least half the people walked it, but I'm proud to say that I did not. Yay for me. :)
After the climb I took a long break at a farmhouse near the top where there was a stand serving smoothies. Then about 10 more miles and I made it into Boone. Once again our campsite was nearly at the farthest point from where we entered....and definitely uphill to get there too.
Oh...Lance Armstrong is here. He rode today, though I never saw him. The rumor is he's camping over at the same site my group is. Maybe I should go say hi? :) He's riding again tomorrow. If I can, I'll get a picture...but he cruises at 27-30 mph...so unless I catch him in town I might just get a blur as he goes by.
So that's it for today. I'm at a coffee shop/bakery. Most of my gear should be charged for tomorrow. Surprisingly my phone made it through the day today even though I was sure it was going to die. Short day tomorrow so there should be no problems there.
I put up my Day 2 and 3 pictures. I need to bring my son Will back to Elk Horn to see all those tanks...I think he'd love it.
Here is the map for the day from the phone.
Getting up early to beat the heat tomorrow so I'm going to go.
Matt
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