8.13.2010
Today’s 90 mile ride is another one of those that I’ll always remember. It was our last full day of riding on the bike. It was the last chance for all of us to kick it as a paceline one more time. I was riding with some of the usual suspects, Mo, Dodge, Tyler, Lawrence, and Troy and we were just reflecting on the trip’s memories the whole day.
About halfway through the ride the skies went from overcast to black, and the rain opened up on us. We could see in the distance the “Wall of Death”. This is the demarcation between wet and dry pavement on the road ahead that indicates you’re about to go into a rain storm. I covered up my ihome and shoved my camera and phone into my back pockets and hoped for the best as we plunged into the rain. It took all of about 5 minutes for all of us to be completely soaked but we really didn’t mind. It was sort of a fun little challenge on the last day of riding, because we had never been more than drizzled on in the past 60 some days. Fortunately at the next crew stop a lot of us were able to ditch our cameras. Foolishly, I held onto mine and proceeded to take exactly zero pictures the rest of the day. Totally not worth almost frying it.
Another cool thing about the day was that we got to ride along with a guy named mark, who works as a pilot for KRG capital. He had flown Bruce Rogers out to Virginia from Denver, and was riding along with us until Bruce was finished his business in D.C. He was a really laid back guy, and it was the first time on the trip that I felt totally relaxed and normal when a ride along was with our pace line. We were all just thinking back on our good times and he would ask questions about some of the stories and inside jokes.
When we got to lodging nothing felt different. When we ate dinner with all the other routes nothing felt different. When I was unpacking my bag for the 68th time this trip, nothing felt different. When we got out our old jerseys and passed them around to be signed, however, it was a little strange. I was just looking around at every person who wrote their name on my uniform and couldn’t help thinking to myself how weird it is that after tomorrow I probably wouldn’t see half of them in person again. We are going to Washington DC TOMORROW. Just teaches you to appreciate every second you’ve got, every day.
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