Longview, TX

7.20.2010

Today sent my emotions for a loop from the very beginning. My room woke up in the morning to a call from our project manager, about an hour after we were supposed to be up. Not a single person in the room, myself included, had decided to set an alarm for the morning. Each of us had just assumed that one of the other two would set one. We were even staying in a hotel, so getting up would have been as easy as scheduling a wake up call. There was a police departure that morning, and there was no more time to spare. The three of us ended up being racked for the whole day.

I was really upset that I was missing out on a 100 mile day. By the time we had everything together and ready to go, the police escort was still preparing to leave, so I thought we would have had time to make it. Sitting in the van for a while I was able to calm down, and caught up on some reading as I sat around in my new cowboy hat. When the first pace line had come through, Matt told us about the salt challenge, where the game is to eat a spoonful of salt without ralphing all over the side of the road. The fact that there was a challenge made me pretty excited, but the fact that my stomach tried to strangle me from the inside after I had finished my spoonful brought me back to a pretty solid level of unhappiness.

I then continued on with my bizarre day. When we were about 45 or 50 miles out into the day, we received a call from the crew chief that Brent, one of my unfortunate roommates this morning, had left his bag back at the last hotel. Our van, Matt Adam, Brent Freeman, and myself, had to turn around and go get it. This meant that we were going to miss out on the sponsored lunch, and that we wouldn’t be able talk to the other cyclists on the road for the rest of the day. I had succeeded in becoming pissed again.

As we were driving back, I recalled a thought that had occurred to me earlier that day, a challenge designed specifically for people driving the vans. The challenge is called the “Hot Box Challenge”, where you roll up the van’s windows, and turn the heat in the car on to full blast. The goal is to make it from point A to point B while riding in your own personal oven. I suggested we start the challenge when we got back to the last hotel, but Matt suggested we start right then and there. We cranked the heat and started heading back. At one point, we had to pull over to the side and fish some ice out of the cooler to make an ice pack. This was not because we were overheating, but instead because Brent and Matt’s iphones were displaying a “Heat Warning” message, and needed to be cooled down. We later went online to discover that this message is displayed when the phone’s temperature reaches 115°F.

Doing the challenge made me feel like I was on the bike again, looking for a fun way to pass the time, and I was once again in a good mood. Brent added to the happiness by buying us both Sonic for lunch. We continued back down the road once we picked up the missing bag, distracting ourselves from the heat and driving by playing the alphabet road sign game. The object of the game is to work yourself from A to Z with letters you find on street signs. Brent and I came down to a head to head search for Z in both games… and he won by a split second both times. When we finally arrived at our new lodging, we had ridden 150 miles with the Hot Box Challenge, and we were glorious sweaty heroes. It definitely was not the experience I thought it would have been when I found out I was racked that morning. We made it fun.

When we got to lodging I took my bike down off the rack but was unable to find the bike’s front wheel. I checked and double checked all the vans, but it was no where to be found. Low and behold, we called the hotel that we had JUST DRIVEN BACK TO and found out that they had it there. I was beyond any type of upset I’d ever felt before. If only I had set my alarm properly, If only I had realized it was missing sooner, none of this would have happened. The crew vans were not authorized to make another trip of that length, so the hotel told me that they would be able to ship it to me in about two to three days…which meant that I would have been racked for another two to three days. Also, when I was making the phone call to the hotel, a wasp flew up my pants and stung me in the leg. I was in such a bad mood that I could barely enjoy the biggest and tastiest steak dinner that I will probably have in my life.

I was able to calm down again, coming to terms with the fact that I would probably be racked for an extended period of time. That was when the most epic display of broness ever demonstrated occurred. A friend of Mo Awadalla’s, Allen, heard my story and offered to drive me the 200 miles there and back at 9:00 that night. I knew there was no way that I would be able to make curfew, but getting racked for one day seemed better than getting racked for 3 so we went for it. The conversation with Allen was awesome. We talked about the trip, his chapter of Pi Kapp, movies, college, everything. It was so awesome that this complete stranger was able to help me out so much. We got the wheel, headed back to the new hotel, and stopped for some late night tacos while he explained to me the greatness of Tex Mex purchased in Texas. I snuck in under the radar at 1:00am, an hour late. I don’t know if Todd just felt sorry for me, or just never found out, but I was able to ride the next day into Louisiana. And I remembered to wake up this time.