Day 4
Day By Day Notes From The Road
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This document updated Wednesday, April 26th, 2004
Odessa to Spokane Washington - 75 Miles
By Lucija:
Today vas a very exciting day. But before I get to that, let me clarify that although my previous postings have emphasized my "struggles", I'm actually really enjoying the ride so far. Finishing everyday feels like a great accomplishment. It is fun to see my body get stronger every day. The scenery has been amazing (so nice to explore the country like this), the people on the ride fun to get to know, and the daily struggles kind of entertaining as they reveal themselves every day.
Are you wondering what day 4 could bring? Imagine little me, leaving early again to avoid the heat, making great progress all morning, with only 30 miles to go along a nice, relatively easy road... I was looking forward to finishing the day's ride and to the rest day at Gonzaga university, inside a dorm room (ie - NOT in a tent!!! hoooray!). Just as I was thinking, "wow, this is GREAT, at this pace I'll be done before 2pm", my back wheel suddenly locked up, leaving a nice long skid mark on the pavement, and throwing me into a gravel ditch, upside down and still clipped to my bike. The only thought that went through my head was "oh no, this could be really bad".
I expected the worst (broken bike, bad case of lost skin to the road pavement, broken bones), and was INCREDIBLY happy to discover that there was NOTHING hurt on me, not a scratch. Not so for my bike. I broke a spoke, which lodged itself into my derailleur and ripped the back wheel from my bike.
All this excitement meant that today I got to know Allen, our bike mechanic, really well. He spent 2 hours with me, in the hot sun, on the side of the road fixing my bike. He cut/thread a spoke, built my wheel, and patiently straightened out my contorted derailleur. The man knows what he is doing.
I cruised to the finish line on my own bike - amazing!
By Erwin:
Lucija's accident was pretty scary - I was just half a minute behind her when she suddenly disappeared off the road in the distance. When we got to her, it was great to see she wasn't hurt. After we waived over the ride director's car which was following us and engaged the mechanic's help, we decided it was probably best to keep going. So we rode on over a gorgeous road, under a bright blue sky and luscious juicy light green grain fields.
Earlier that day, we had overcome another hurdle; for 13 miles a new pavement was being built, which meant new gravel had just been deposited on naked tar. That created a surface that was very hard to bike on, with little rocks slipping under our tires. It was a huge relief after about an hour to finally get back on the road.
Overall, I was fearing this day, mainly because I was worried my saddle soreness would get worse. Still, one of the ride volunteers had bought me a big jar of bag balm and, applied very generously to the insides of my legs, my chaffed upper legs withstood the test of another 80 miles very well.
After I arrived, I kept abreast of Lucija's situation through the radio messages from the various follower cars. She made it to Spokane a very reasonable hour, given her two hour hold-up. Well done!
Yet another adventurous day has passed and now we are enjoying a nice rest day. Tomorrow, we're back on the bikes - believe it or not, I am looking forward to it!
Photos:
The broken bike...
Alan patiently working on my bike.