We woke up at 5 AM today, because one person was late waking up last morning…strict. Breakfast was sponsored by the cyclist from Nebraska, Trent. His parents brought everyone bagels, which was nice and fresh…a change to the usual stale ones we eat every day. We were done and ready to go at 6. However, since we were late, we basically sat around til 6:30 sharp, a complete waste of time.
In the morning, I noticed something wrong with my tires. It turned out that I had a slow leak of a flat tire in my front wheel. Since my tires were shot, I decided to replace it as well as the tube. Although my new tires are a little more grippier, I do feel I have better control of the bike.
Heading out of Grand Island wasn’t too bad. It was nice and warm, especially with the humidity. Unfortunately, that was early on in the morning. By the time 10, 11 rolled around, it was boiling. Everyone in the team was struggling with the heat. I, personally, was drinking entire waterbottles every half hour.On the up side, the scenery was pretty nice. Nebraska is basically made up of many small towns, so we would always pass through each town’s downtown, although quiet were quite adorable. We pass through a small town called Steward, Nebraska, and it had had a sign I’m assuming pointing North West to Steward, Alaska. I wonder if there’s a sign in Steward, Alaska pointing in the direction on Nebraska.
The terrain wasn’t too bad either. It was mostly flat, with a slight downhill. Occasionally, there were a few rolling hills, which are never fun, but were not too much trouble.
Rack point was 90 miles by 12:30. With that being said, my pace line booked it, being the first one to make rack point, and only 3 pace lines made it to rack point. However, because the crew made some serious mistakes, they had to rack us at the 95 mile marker for about 10 miles to lunch. I was pretty irritated about this because A) I made rack point, B) It was only 10 miles to go, C) it was a fast food joint that sponsored lunch…not something too special. What really pissed me off was that we wasted 30 minutes in the morning to “prove a point” which ended up costing me 10 miles…not cool.
Lunch was sponsored by a fast food chain called Rasing Cane. It was pretty good, comparable to a Pop-eyes. A little on the greasy side, but what isn’t these days. When we arrived, we were greeted by a few news reporter, always fun to see.We headed to lodging to shower up and relax. Today, lodging was at the University of Nebraska Pi Kappa Phi fraternity house. They just chartered this past spring, and thus were a little on the nerdy side of the spectrum, but their house was really nice. It was converted from an old dorm, and it was amazing the amount of progress they made in one semester.
After I showered up, it was my turn to do road marshaled. Kind of a pain but I have to do it once in a while. We just scouted the first 20 miles of tomorrow’s ride, filled up the ice coolers with ice (from the basement of the fraternity house’s ice machine) and hosed it with water. The roads for tomorrow made me a little uncomfortable as they were really bad, and a little busy, but that’s tomorrow’s problems. After I road marshaled, we headed back and got ready for dinner.
Dinner today was sponsored by rotary club. I forget their name, but they were really interested in our biking progress. They basically had fried chicken and watermelon. The dinner felt a little bit rushed. After it, we drove to the ARC center where we had a friendship visit with many participants with down syndrome. The night was a lot of fun, and ended up with a dance…never in my life have I ever felt as goofy. After a long exhausting day, and a friendship visit that basically was true cardio workout, we headed back to lodging.
Before we headed back, we stopped off at a gas station to get some snacks and candy bars. At lodging, we were basically done for the day. A few of us over a couple blocks to Nebraska’s football stadium. I wanted to climb the fence and get on the turf, but my friends weren’t as willing, so we just got to see the outside. Maybe one day...We called it a night afterward, and got ready for bed. Tomorrow, I am supposed to do the wake up mix for the morning, so we’ll see how that goes.
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