Day 13 - Mississippi Crossing

Today our regular group of five (Will, Clay, Steve, Brian and myself) started as the first group, joined by Tom and Jerimiah as we rolled through the rest of Arkansas, across the Mississippi River and well into the state of Mississippi for 184 miles of Mississippi delta, some rolling hills and a variety of roads surfaces from glassy smooth to very rough.

Pace lines were the best way to get through this day.  The roads were relatively flat until the last 40 miles.  The seven of us worked really well together, especially over some long stretches when we faced a brisk quartering head wind.  We practiced different echelon techniques, including 2 lateral echelons and a 2 line rotating pattern, both of which helped to take the edge off the wind and let us keep up a decent pace.  We finished at 5:40p well ahead of the next group of riders, averaging close to 18 for the day.

Crossing the Mississippi was cool, over a new bridge. 

Tom heading over the new Mississippi Bridge

 

In other news, Alan Johnson, who was clipped by a car a few days ago, was able to ride in the parking lot last night and rode part of the route today.  Alan has been one of the slower riders, but has shown a lot of persistence.

 

Jacki, our lone woman rider, has been cruising along nicely - she is a tough rider and has done really well.  She had to go to the ER room today suffering from edema, swelling of the legs, possibly due to too many salty beverages or endurolytes.  Hopefully she will rejoin us soon.

 

Most of the riders are still on track to RAAM qualify by riding every mile.  Pretty well everyone is in the groove and we have our bodies and minds trained to the Elite Tour schedule.  We get up 1/2 before breakfast, get everything ready, eat, head out, ride 25-40 miles between rest stops until we are done, then clean up, find a restaurant, get ready for the next day, do a blog or other email catch up and hit the sack.  Four more days and we'll need to figure out how to manage our own lives again. 

 

Many of the fast riders from the first 10 days are now settling into a much slower, manageable pace.  It is very difficult to ride hard every day, given the difficulty of the course and some of the really hot weather we had in the first week. 

 

This tour has been very different than the 2010 Elite Tour.  The basics are still the same - finding friends to ride with makes all the difference to enjoying the long hours in the saddle.  Being part of a pace line is definitely a much easier way to get through the flatter or even rolling countryside, especially when the winds are not in our favor.  Overall we have had pretty good luck with the weather (other than the hot weather in the desert and the Oklahoma thunderstorms and potential tornados), so some headwinds on a few days are to be expected.  There are a number of riders that typically ride alone every day, this makes for a long day for them and some tough slogging at times. 

 

Tomorrow we have our last long day, 195 miles to Camden, Alabama, with more hills again, 6,500' worth.  After that we cruise in to Tybee Island with three shorter days of 140-160 miles.