Well, that was some day!!

I realize I haven't blogged for a while for various reasons, but mostly because we had no internet for the last few days. And so I am behind and I have made notes to blog those days, but in point of fact, most of what happened on those days is wiped off the mental map by today's ride.

Absolutely Incredible!

Picture screaming down a narrow two lane mountain road at 75 k/hr, the wind whipping your face, you wondering whether something is going put you down on the pavement at that speed. Picture grinding out a 7 kilometer uphill in your lowest gear, sucking for breath, legs burning.

The terrain we crossed today was insane for cycling. 133 kilometers of steep hills up and steep hills down. I started early (10 to 7) with Art and within the first half hour we had hit 8 hills that we had to scale by dropping down to our lowest gear. Art has a lower gear than I do - I do not have a granny gear - so Art told me to just head out on my own.

And that was really the way we needed to ride today. It is just 'one person and the hills'. Early on I noted that my average was about 22.4. By the end of the day I finished at 24.9. This includes grinding up hills at 12 k per hour and flying down at my top speed of the day (and my top speed ever) at 77.6 k per hour.

You've got to understand this is great fun - the flying part I mean - but of course to fly you need to climb.

I did three things today to get me through the most grueling day of my part of the tour BY FAR!!

1. I sang How Great Thou Art a lot; so much that at times I didn't even realize I was. At times I didn't have the breath to sing out loud, so I sang inside.

2. I prayed - particularly on the downhills. I prayed very directly and immediately, in the moment, that God would protect me, because I was certainly out there with all caution thrown to the wind. Flying down a hill at 60 - 70 k per hour, there is nothing you can do if you go down. I hear that 2 people went down today and both are OK by God's grace, but it's crazy. At one point I was flying down a hill into Milford PA, coming down from the Poconos to the Delaware River. And this guy in an old crate stopped at the stop sign on a sideroad starts to pull right out in front of me. As he does this wave of sheer anger washes over me like a tidal wave and I just yelled: "HEY!" "HEY!" "HO!!! as loud as I could. He had his window open so he must have heard me because he got this confused look on his face - he hadn't even LOOKED to see if anything was coming from uphill - I know because you always check the eyes of drivers on the side! - and he lurches to a stop half way on the road. I had a couple of cyclists behind me also cruising along at 60, and that's what made me extra angry. We all swerved around him, and I thought about a lot of bad words I would say to him. I was just livid. Because if he had pulled on the road completely chances are that we would have hit him. Apparently this is exactly the way one of the falls happened today. That rider is also apparently OK but just furious. Only a instant of carelessness and they have a bit of a dent in the car and you're toast.

Let me explain for a minute why you need to go so fast. You COULD probably have done the ride today braking on every one of the 600 down slopes (estimate-- I did not count), keeping entirely safe - but you also would be climbing every fabulous inch of every fabulous hill. The other way to ride is to maintain momentum. Very frequently God has arranged the hills so that you can carry momentum from one downhill to the next up hill. So the technique is this: you actually pedal as hard as you can down the hill until you spin out, and then you tuck in and coast until you slow enough on the uphill so that you can pedal again. This is the best, if not the safest way to ride. But you never know if there is that next hill ahead, or an intersection, or a town, or a stop sign, or a tight curve. You just fly. I will definitely need to replace my brake pads when I get home, let me tell you.

OH, #3 thing I did for to keep me going was repeat to myself, "EFI, EFI EFI". Every Fabulous Inch. I was not going to walk an inch of this day, or of the tour. They would have to pry my feet off the pedals to get me off that bike. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done I think. I am just coming down off the high.

By the end of the day about 100 kilometers in I arrived at the Delaware River and we cycled along the river for about 10 k before the 7 k climb. I had coffee, and chocolate milk and a bagel with Hans Doef, Aaron Carpenter, George VanderKuur in a tony little cafe in Millford. Then we headed for the bottom of the hill. At the bottom we found a bunch of young riders Josh, Josh, Ryan, Eritia, Christeena, Nathan and they threw out the challenge to me to go hill climbing with them. So I started up with them, but for me the "each person and the hill" principle kicked in and I just did it at my own 50 year old pace. If you don't do this you will die on those hills, you simply need to ride within yourself, at you own pace just at the edge of not getting enough oxygen to the muscles, but not beyond or you will burn. I learned this yesterday actually when we had some tough hills I was was trying to keep up with Josh N, Nathan and Eritia. It just doesn't work. I didn't get to the top too much later than the rest and they were all up there waiting for me and there was also this providential SAG stop from the Sussex CRC - Sandy's husband and kids. There was this darling little girl named Anneke who asked everyone politely what they would like, cookies, or watermelon, or lemonade, or water. A wonderful moment when she caught George who is absolutely all business and had to ask him 3 or 4 times before she got his attention. George is about 6'6" so he has to bend down just to hear her. But she got through and they had a good time together.

Sorry, no pictures today. After I left Art, I dumped my pannier with my camera in it at the next SAG stop and rode light from there on. Losing those 7-10 pounds makes a huge difference when you are riding on the edge as we were today. I came in to the gear truck, something like 12th at 5 hours and 17 minutes saddle time at about 2 o'clock.

A great exhilarating day. God is good and I feel as if I, with God help and abundant grace, did something special today.