Day 11, April 30, 2014

  At the lunch stop today, somebody asked Rich (The Brit), whether his step-daughter, Rose was having fun on this trip.  He said; "Well, I'm not really sure she's having fun, but rather feeling a sense of accomplishment".  For those of us who finished the day on the bike and not the van, today was the ultimate test of mind over matter and a real accomplishment.  It was the antithesis of "fun".  Our track   was an unwavering northeasterly slant to Dalhart, TX.  The wind was blowing 20-30 knots, with gusts, at  45 degrees to our port (from the North), so there was a headwind between our left ear and nose.  Our average speed was 12.9 mph.  To put that in perspective, I averaged faster than that when I pulled my two grandsons in a cart behind my mountain bike on the rail-to-trail.  I averaged faster than that when I rode over three Colorado Mt. passes, including the 12,000' + Continental Divide.  Jere and I both agree that this was likely the hardest day of riding we ever had.  Adding to the misery, the route was a two lane major trucking route.  Trucks would literally blow by.  If they were heading our direction, we would get blown to the right by their bow wave, only to sucked to the left by the vacuum created by their passing.  When trucks passed us in the opposite direction, we'd get slammed by a wall of air that would almost stop any forward monmentum.  Adding to the misery was the inability to communicate because you couldn't hear anything above the howl of the wind.  Consequently everybody rode in their own silence for the 8+ hours it took to finish.  You couldn't even enjoy the scenery because a) your head was down, into the wind, and b) there's nothing to see in East N.M. and West Texas.
  Jere became a little un-social today.  The Pennsylvania boys, as we're now referred to (including Frieder), had a rhythm going of rotating front-to-back in echelon formation (like geese flying) so no one person bore the brunt of the wind for too long.  We had some other strong riders mix in after a SAG/rest stop, which messed up the whole thing.  Jere got annoyed and expressed his dipleasure.  On a good note, he didn't use the "F" word when telling the interlopers to get out of our formation.  With 50+ miles of mind numbing riding to go after the event, I doubt anybody will remember the event. (Except I did an now memorialized in the blog forever).
  Tomorrow's ride heads in a south-easterly direction to Pampa, TX (northeast of Amarillo).  The wind may be our friend tomorrow.  At some point, I presume we will stop zig-zagging across the US, and will head east.
  I've been taking pictures, which I'll upload our next rest day.  I'll post on the blog when they're up.
   Till tomorrow ....