Bike MS 2010 Day #2

After battling the weather on day one we awoke Sunday morning ready for a relaxing day on our bikes. Day two is by far the prettiest scenery of the two routes as part of it takes you around Lake Perry. I had been really looking forward to it and was so glad that we both felt strong enough to conquer it. Unfortunately the day started a little different than we had planned. First of all our cycling shoes did not dry out overnight so I had to resolve myself to the idea of riding in tennis shoes all day. We got everything packed up and carried it down to the truck to head over to the middle school for some highly anticipated "Chris' Cakes" (pancakes) for breakfast. As I was backing out of our parking stall I heard the sound off a flopping flat tire.


Realizing that there was no way we were going to get this tire changed and make it in time for breakfast I started getting a little cranky. So I pop the hood and grab the crank handle for the jack which is also used to lower the spare tire from under the truck. I stick the handle in and start cranking....and cranking....and cranking, but no tire was lowering. Then my memory kicks in and takes me back in time 2 years prior when Amy had a flat and had to have a tow truck come get the truck because the spare tire wouldn't lower........pause.......Shit....shit.....shit. Yeah, I never got that fixed. So there we were in the dark, flat tire, no Chris' Cakes for breakfast, no ride around beautiful Lake Perry and no way to change the tire. In my mind the day is over, Sears doesn't open for another 2 hours to fix the tire so we may as well go back into the hotel room and go back to bed. Luckily Amy was thinking rationally and suggested that we just ride our bikes to the school to let the MS staff know why we didn't make it to the start and pick up our medal for completing day #1. I continued to sulk as Amy laid on a huge guilt trip about how the people with MS don't give up when they face a challenge. The more I thought about the more I realized that she was right and how that had been our motivation the day before and in last years ride. So we hopped on our bikes and rode ten miles to the school, walked in and explained the situation.

These were taken as we rode from the hotel to the school. I was still a little cranky.



Luckily the staff told us they would have one of the SAG vehicles give us a lift to the SAG stop closest to where the pack was riding. A sense of relief and joy came over the both of us as we realized our day was not ruined. We hitched a ride from Bob who was a former rider of the event but had chosen to volunteer the last several years. He was a very nice man and even offered to give us a ride back to the hotel after the ride. He dropped us off at SAG stop #3 where most of the group was included most of our teammates.

This is the only pic we got of Bob as he was driving us out with the rest of the group.


We were 30+ miles from the school at that point and the first thing we got to do was ride around Lake Perry. The hills were tough just like last year but the wind was not near as bad so were able to make good time and get back to the school with enough time to eat lunch and then head to our hotel to deal with the truck issue. That will be another post............

Explaining our morning to our teammates.

Total mileage for the weekend was 91.6.