Who Will Stop The Rain?

We started out this morning with Claudia driving us Harrisonville in some fog. Have I ever told you why I don't like swimming? As someone who wears glasses, I don't enjoy not being able to see. Riding in the rain is similar to swimming. My glasses get all wet and I can't see that well. No, I don't swim with my glasses on. In the first 20 miles we had a lot of mist.

I started thinking of the farmers who fields we were riding past. Most of the farms were for grazing cattle but occasionally we rode past fields that were planted with crops. A couple of weeks ago we were riding past fields that were being irrigated by huge irrigation systems. At the restaurant in Meade, KS there was a picture of the area with a dust storm. Today the farmer's fields were flooded. Farming is a tough life. 

The nice thing is that while I was working on that profound thought we had almost finished 50 miles and the misting had stopped. 

A  couple of other things about the morning ride:

• It is really hilly on the backroads of Missouri. While we spent most of the day around 1,000 feet above sea level, we climbed over 3,000 feet. That's a lot of up and down. At one point Thom was a couple of hundred yards ahead yet level with me however there was a big dip and a big hill in between us. It was interesting if you were there.
• At one point I stopped to relieve myself. As I was leaving a man in a pickup stopped. I thought "he is going to yell at me." so I waited. He got out of his truck and yelled over "You can go. I just have to pee." Even farmers have to pee.
• When we riding in the hills in CA, AZ and NM, I was stronger than Thom on the long hills. That had a lot to do with Thom working in Rhode Island while I was training in California. Thom kept saying "Wait until we get to the plains states." He was right. He is much stronger on these up and down hills in Kansas and Missouri.

We had a nice lunch at the Sidetrack Cafe in Windsor, MO. The waitress was really surprised to find out how far we were riding. Right before we went in for lunch the sun came out and stayed out the rest of the day. After lunch we turned onto the Katy Trail which runs across Missouri. We were looking forward to riding off of the roads. Also the Katy, like many bike paths, is built on an old railroad right of way so it doesn't have the hills of the local roads. Even though the surface of the Katy is crushed limestone which is normally firm enough for our bikes to ride on, the recent rains made the ground too soft. My bike in particular objected to riding on the trail and stopped shifting into the easier gears on the rear derailleur. That made for an interesting seven miles. We did see a huge turtle on the trail.

When we turned off the trail and back onto pavement my back shifting when back to normal.. Someone is going to have to explain that to me. Also the hard riding on the trail seemed to fire up my muscles and when we hit pavement I was much stronger than before lunch. We ended up riding nearly 75 miles. We probably could have gone further but there were some logistical issues that made more sense for us to end at our hotel in Sedalia. We had a nice dinner at a local Mediterranean restaurant the Brick Front Grill.

Here is the ride on Strava:

Donations  

Rich and Thom

Go to www.diabetes.org/tdcnewengland

You can stroll down the page and will come to where it says Find a Rider and you can search for Rich or Thom by name.

Here are some short links that can take people directly to our pages.

Rich: https://bit.ly/3ov02AT 

Thom: https://bit.ly/3v2zGZn

Here is the mailing address for anyone who wants to make a donation by check.

American Diabetes Association

ATTN: Tour de Cure: New England

PO Box 7023

Merrifield, VA 22116

The donor should include Rich’s  name or Thom’s name on the note line. A note included with the check works, too.

Claudia

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=J8U88VFPXDMGW&source=url

​or

Africa Teacher Foundation

28 Hall Road

Portsmouth. RI 02871​

Let us know if you are having any issues.

Here is the same info as a picture:

 PROGRESS:

We feel we are back on a roll. If the rain holds up, we are hoping to make some good progress over the next few days. We should cross more than 2,000 cumulative miles on the trip tomorrow. Here's the table. I know the type is small but it is a picture that you can click on it and expand to make it readable. Maybe for my next adventure in blogging I will figure out how to include the table the right way.

TOMORROW

We hope to be off to what James Taylor would say is "Oh Mexico." I think he was talking about the country. We are talking about the city in Missouri.