I had a great day on the bike today for several reasons. The first is I overhydrated yesterday and last night and I was fine from a hydration perspective. The second is that it was raining in the morning, and that kept us cool. It was a good day for rain, if there is ever a good day for rain. After the rain, it was very humid, and I was sweating a lot, even though the temperatures were mild, around 80. The picture below is from the hotel at the start of the ride.
If you check out the info above, it shows we had a headwind 86% of the time, although it really didn’t fell like it, probably because it was more of a crosswind. The other interesting part of the chart is that is shows rain 21% of the time, again, it didn’t seem that long. Some of the rain, was just sprinkles and spitting, which is much better than a soaking.
The other thing that helped me today was I have been having some knee pain, so I took 2 Aleve this morning, and that seemed to help a lot.
Before we got to the 2nd SAG the rain was gone and the skies were overcast most of the day, which also kept the temperatures mild, and humid. The good news is I kept drinking a lot and took several saltstick capsules at the first and second SAG, and I was fine for the total 94 miles. I have never liked riding in the rain, or wet roads, but it was probably for the best, just to give me another day to recover from yesterday, and tomorrow is another 90 miles to Erie, PA.
We also found out that another one of the “staff” has been asked to leave the tour. Not sure what is going on, but that is #4 to go. We as riders are a little concerned about the support that they will be able to provide the last couple of weeks with such a skeleton crew. We shall see.
We also rode for 8+ miles along a bike trail into Niles, OH. Bike trails are great, and keep us off of the busy roads into a town. Below are a few pictures of the bike trail.
We are staying at the Holiday Inn Express in Niles, and they won’t allow are bikes into our rooms tonight, so they have set up a “Bike Room” for our bikes. They also had bottled water and beer on ice for us in the room, so that was really nice. The people that didn’t like the idea of the “Bike Room” quickly got over it.
Below is the map of today’s route. We are very close to Youngstown, OH which is where my friend Cindy H. Ruff was from.
Thank you for following along with me on this journey, and if you can please make a donation to the Children's Hospital below. 100% of your funds go to the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital.
https://vanderbilt.ejoinme.org/bikeacrosstheusa
As a non-profit institution, the Children's Hospital provides care to the children who come through its' doors regardless of the family's ability to pay. Caring support from the community allows this level of service to continue.
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