Tuesday Aug 26 - Byron to Romulus, NY

Stats: 127.15km, Avg 23.7 Max 56.8, Time 5:20

I find that Average very puzzling. I started the day with Pieter, so for about 40km I was going at a good clip. However, we split up after that and I rode alone most of the day just enjoying the solitary ride, going at my own pace. So how did I end up with a pretty high average?

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A Day In the Tour...

As I rode today I thought about how a few people have told how they enjoy reading my blog as they like to learn about the tour. So I thought I would try to write a bit about the minutia of my day, to try and convey some more of just what it is like to be on tour. So I'm just going to try and put together a list of things that I do. But of course I do not carry a book or dictation machine with me, so this is just all from memory.

It's probably a good thing that there is no internet here today, since it'll give me time to re-read and review this once or twice.

It's now about 4:30pm, so I'll go back to dinner yesterday. Dinner is at 6pm. They sound the truck's air horn to call everyone to dinner, and the people come rushing. You grab your eating utensils and rush into line. Actually there are two lines, to accommodate all the people. Last night there was spaghetti. My kids would have hated it, as they like the sauce kept separate, but at camp the sauce, meat and mushrooms were already mixed in with the noodles. I had about 50% more than I would normally eat at home. Then a dollop of garden salad, some chick peas, one wedge of tomato (it was rationed out) and two wedges of green/red pepper (ditto the rationing). A nice big piece of garlic toast, and a bowl of fruit salad for dessert. Oh, and a half-liter (best guess) carton of milk. There is also coffee/tea if you want it.

Actually they had a few cartons of chocolate milk as well. I wonder if this was left over from London? It looked like the same size, but I don't know why they would have waited until NY to hand it out. Anyway, we saw the chocolate milk while we were still in line, so some people started dodging out of line to skip to the end of the food line to make sure that they got a carton of chocolate. I got the last one. Some people drank it right then, but I was saving it (so I thought) to drink with my meal. However, 2 minutes later I saw Justin Helder, and instantly knew what I had to do -- I called him over and held up my carton of chocolate. His eyes lit up and dashed over and I gave it to him. My line-mates were shocked -- chocolate milk at the end of the ride is highly prized. But I explained to them that I owed Justin for working on my bike. Twice now he has helped me make some tweaks to my bike. The first night he adjusted my front brakes, and yesterday my front derailleur. He told me back on the first night that he'd be delighted to receive some chocolate milk as payment.

Supper was extremely satisfying. It took me a while to get through the mound of spaghetti but I persisted. Afterwards you head over to the washing station to clean your dishes. First you get a squirt of Purell (hand sanitizer) to clean your hands. Then you put your dishes in the rinse bucket and scrub them. Then move them to the soapy water bucket and scrub them again. Then move them to the final rinse bucket and rinse them again. Then we all look silly shaking our dishes to get the water off of them because essentially NO ONE brought dishtowels to camp. Then there was some free time before Peloton. I managed to get on their overburdened WiFi and publish Monday's blog which I'd written earlier.

Purell is everywhere here. They are very cautious about make sure we keep things sanitary to avoid illness. You purell before every food line, before the make-your-lunch line, and before you wash dishes. There is purell at every SAG stop so that you can clean your hands there also. It seems to be working, as no one has really got sick as happened on the 2005 tour.

Peloton is the nightly meeting at 7:30. Tonight it was chilly and they had a nice big campfire. I had put on my one pair of jeans, and my one sweatshirt earlier. But now I put on my one jacket as well. It's camping, you pack light. Besides, you need almost double clothes otherwise, as you have daily biking clothes, and then after biking you shower and change into camp clothes.

Art Smit is a younger guy (ie: early 20s) from Grimsby/Hamilton area. Before I joined the tour he was the only Art on tour. Now there are two. There are two Mulders also, as there is a Chris Mulder from Holland. Art was also wearing his jacket to Peloton. He and I have the exact same bright orange biking jacket from MEC. We both agreed that the other was possessed of astute fashion taste, not to mention being rather handsome. I found it funny to hear that some of the younger riders referred to me as "old" Art in conversation, to differentiate between us. Some of the Johns (I think there are 8 or more of them) have adopted knicknames as well. Art says a big "Hi Art!" every time he sees me. He told me that where he lives he knows NO ONE named Art, so he gets a kick out of having another one around.

Len opens the Peloton with the nightly gathering of stats - how many flat tires, and how many falls. I think there were about 13 flat tires today. Len made a joke that 12 of them were from before we crossed the border... All of us had previously agreed that the Michigan roads were absolutely terrible, compared to the roads in Ontario. However, the NY roads have been pretty good as well. One of the riders told a funny story about getting a flat and having one of his cycling parters pull into a driveway and then suddenly come racing out yelling about a dog, a huge lion-sized dog... which they later realized was pretty darn old and really no threat. A couple other general announcements were made. We heard an update on Sarah T who had had to leave the tour due to an illness. She's now in a hospital and her folks are going to see her. Her brother Bob now asked if anyone else on tour can now give him a ride to Toronto at the end of the tour, as his folks will not be able to go get him. We talked a bit more about the later part of the week. Ed Witvoet came up, as he always does, and then spoke about details concerning the next day, as well as details about the route. He typically warns us about construction, road conditions, and any particularly nasty train track crossings. On Tuesday we'll have a "lunch" stop provided by the Palmira(?) crc church, which is about 25 miles north of the route. They'll set up on someone's farmyard right on the route.

Finally, someone comes up and reads the "Prayer for the road" from the "Shifting Gears" Devotion book (the one for tomorrow's route) and someone else closes in prayer. Normally we then split into small groups, but tonight we were invited to just stick by the fire and roast S'mores. One per camper. Some other Christian folks in the campground had offered to come over and share musical talents with us. So they played some country gospel sort of stuff. I had one S'more and then sat down beside Jen Vanbeek, who was the "S'more Police" to chat with her and get to know her a bit. Jen is Ed's assistant. It was funny how just by virtue of the fact that I was sitting beside Jen, a lot of folks assumed that I was also somehow in charge of the chocolate/marshmallow/cracker distribution and came to me asking if they could have more or such like. It was fun.

Things wound up soon after nine, and I headed towards the tent around 9:20. However, I did take my laptop with me. The camp had free wireless so I pulled it into my tent and wrote Heather some email as there was no handy payphone so I could not call her. Finally towards 10 I turned off the computer, put on my shorts and popped out of the tent to put the laptop on my shelf in the gear truck -- I wanted to be sure I could plug it in to the truck power so it'd be charged over night. While it is in camp, the truck is plugged in, and there are power bars all along the inside of the truck for people to plug in their laptops, phones, cameras, chargers, etc. Very nice. If they can get building power, that's good. Otherwise they plug in to the generator on the back of the kitchen truck. The generator is always on.

However, it was foolish of me to stay up that late. I don't seem to sleep that well on tour. I wake up 2-3 times per night, and always around 5am. I dunno if it is just my nerves, or the hubbub, or the whole sleeping-on-the-ground issue, or what. I do wear earplugs, but they only nicely mute things, not totally block noises.

Finally around 5:20am I got up. I was not the first one. I hear folks already at 5 quietly stirring. I first do just a handful of core stretching exercises to work in my lower back a touch. I should do more, probably! I first get dressed in my cycling clothes for the day, which I'd brought in the night before. I pop the plugs on my pad, and then roll up the sleeping bag and stuff it away. The foot of the bag is usually damp. My tent is 7'8" long, which I thought was enough for my 6'3" frame. But I sleep stretched out on my stomach and I touch at top and bottom of the tent, which means that the foot of my bag touches the wall and gets damp from the tent condensation. Oh well, it'll air later. I next roll up the pad -- took me 3 days before I mastered the sitting-on-it technique so that I could roll it up and put it away in one go. Otherwise I would need to roll it twice to get it skinny enough. Then it is off to the bathroom. There is already a line up in the mens room to use one of the three stalls. I take care of business and then shave and brush teeth. I can handle not showering in the morning, but I hate not shaving.

Then I pack up the tent, which is soaked with dew. No matter, it'll be dried out later when we get to camp. I stuff the pillow and sleeping bag into a heavy duty garbage bag so that they do not get wet from the wet gear in my gear bag. I take the gear bag and put it by the truck. It'll be loaded in there later by the sweep team.

Breakfast next - purell, oatmeal, cereal, fruit, and so on. Purell, wash dishes, put 'em away, brush teeth, put more stuff away in the gear truck in my two baskets. Get together my lunch/snacks. Since we're getting fed a lunch, I don't bother making sandwiches, but I grab two apples, a banana, and 3-4 granola/protein bars and some string cheese packages. Stuff them into my bike bag along with my wallet and camera.

For some reason, I forget why, I took a photo and the camera told me the batteries were dead. Something is wrong there, I just charged them a couple days ago. I quick plug them in, in the gear truck, to hopefully give them enough of a charge for the day. Fortunately my camera can also be used with a viewfinder and the LCD display off, which saves a LOT of juice and can help squeeze some more shots from the camera. (It worked, by the way, got several shots today with the camera.) I'm guessing that either my batteries are old or my charger is flaky. Darn it.

One more pee break at the bathroom, and then the final trip to the gear truck to swap my sandals for bike shoes. It's still chilly, but I make the decision to take off the jacket and pants and just go with my shorts and two layers up top (short sleeve and long sleeve jersey). I'm counting on it warming up soon, and then I'd have to either cart this stuff along all day or drop it off at a SAG wagon and hope I can find it later. Brr it's chilly.

There's one last delay as I try to swap my dark lenses for the lighter lenses in my sunglasses (I have replaceable lenses for different conditions). However, I find them snapped in my bike bag. I guess I crammed in too much stuff at some point.

That's it for the morning routine. Pieter and I hit the road a bit before 7am. The sun is peeking through some trees and above the hills in other areas. The ride starts off pretty uneventful. The sun gradually gets higher and we get a bit warmer. It can be a struggle at times to keep up to Pieter. He has a quick/light road bike and is a strong athlete. I think I'm pretty strong by now, but I have an upright heavier hybrid bike and on uphills I especially drop back. A few times I drop behind him to draft, with his permission of course. He gets a bit more of a workout, and I get about 4-5 more km/h with the same effort.

We're cruising along, and while we like to go fast we're really in no rush (is that an Oxymoron?), and so decide to hit a coffee shop in the first little town, but there isn't one. The next town is Avon, around the 40km mark. I went through Avon once way back when I was in my early teens, so I know it is a bigger town. It should have a coffee shop, and it does. Right at the top of a pretty steep hill we find a traffic circle and pull over to stop. Both of us pick up a large hot chocolate, and I have an english muffin, while Pieter decides on the 2nd breakfast option, and orders a cheese omelette. As we're getting finished Mike Talsma shows up, and then Claire and Al, and then 2-4 more and as Pieter and I pay the poor overworked waitress (only one on duty) the place is filling with cyclists and as we step out the door there are four more looking to park their bikes. Glad we got in there first!

More hills and valleys are on the menu for today. Avon seems to be the edge of this change in terrain. I'm not that surprised when Pieter starts to pull away. it only takes two hills in a row and before you know it he's 2 km ahead. I decide to not bother fighting to keep up. (we both find out later that the other had come to the same conclusion, and that was fine.)

Normally I prefer to ride in a group, but today I actually enjoyed the long solitary ride. It's one hill and valley after another, and on my own I can just pedal as I choose. It doesn't matter if I drop down to 14km/h on the uphill and only 35km/h on the downs. There were many, many beautiful vistas of rolling hills. I stopped a few times for photos, and to snack on a granola bar, and to shed my long-sleeve Jersey. On Sunday I had heard a story from another rider about trying to think about who they should pray for that day. And then this morning in my own prayer cards I received the same challenge to find the one person that God wants me to pray for. So as I rode along I thought about the various people I knew on tour. I never did end up settling on one person, but rather prayed for many people at different times.

Walter's SAG was around the halfway mark today, and I had a nice break and sit down for a few minutes, as well as a walk into the bushes to take care of business. I've heard several gentlemen on tour giving thanks for being a guy as they did the same thing. All those girl riders who have to find their way into a cornfield...

Around the 80km mark was the promised lunch stop. There were 15+ riders already there enjoying a delicious spread. Like the Woodstock stop, these people have very wisely provided a "johnny" for the riders. Pieter was already there, but basically done and getting ready to head out. He hooked up with Eritia for the rest of the day. I enjoyed a drink, a sloppy joe, some cheesecake, chips, and fruit salad. Very nice. One of the riders was very surprised to find that she was related distantly to one of the hostesses. We all agreed that the 2/3 mark is a great place for this sort of a stop, since there was just about 40-45km left which is not a huge amount.

I continued on enjoying the views of the rolling hills and going slow up, and fast down. Eventually I came into the town of Geneva and 4 other riders caught up to me as we made our way down to the lake. (We're into the Finger Lakes region of NY) Around the lake we came across Joe's SAG, last SAG of the day - just 25km left around the lake.

Back home, Pieter lives almost exactly 15 km from my place. We cycled together many times during training, and I had made that bike ride more than a few times. When I started training, it was a long way to Pieter's house. But towards the end of my training when I was regularly doing 60km solo rides and longer group rides, I started to view 15km as "almost home". The same thing has carried over into this trip. I'm always glad for the "just 15km more" part. That's "almost home" and I can do that no problem. It's a fun psychological boost.

After rounding the lake two riders dropped off to visit a winery, and the other two (including Rick on his speedy racing recumbent bike) left me behind as well. I stopped for a couple more photos over the lake, and one of a house that bore a striking resemblance to the "Addams Family" TV house.

A couple more km -- and boy was my butt glad that it was only a couple -- and I was rolling in the main gate of Sampson State Park on Seneca(?) lake around 2pm. Some people have more pain than others. Today my butt started already at the 15km mark. Pieter told how he'd asked Reuben, who rides for the University of Portland, who told him that it never really stops hurting. That sucks.

The gear truck was late today, though that may be just our opinion. We lazed around on the grass for the next 90 minutes. Munched on the goodies remaining in our bike bags. I walked over to the Concession stand and bought a chocolate milk and lazed some more. A couple guys went down to the lake and jumped in the water, which the rest of us disdained, as we didn't like the idea of our biking shorts (with their thick pad) turning essentially into a wet diaper after jumping in. More cyclists arrived, and finally so did the trucks.

I start sweep duties tonight, and my first duty was to help unload the truck. Fortunately, most people just pitch in and help at this point and it only takes about 10 minutes to get all the gear bags out of the truck. Pieter has already picked out a nice spot for our two tents. Both of us pull out our tents and spread them out to dry in the sun, and open up our sleeping bags to air as well. Some people grab the bike stands and immediately start working on their bikes. I grab a bag and head off to the bathroom for a shower. Unfortunately the close bathroom has no showers, and I decided that washing at the sink is enough for today. In about 15-20 minutes the tent is dry enough to finish putting it up.

That's about all there is to bring us back to the beginning. At 5:30 I have to report for duty to help set out and serve supper, then clean up. Tomorrow again at 5:30am I need to do the same at breakfast. And then we need to clean up the camp and load the gear truck before heading out last to ride sweep.

Thats all, folks.