Today started as an idyll and ended as something of an ordeal but as always I recovered quickly thanks to a shower, DQ, dinner and a beer. We left Lusk just before 6:30 am, headed north on Routes 18 and 85. Within a couple of miles all sign of civilization was behind us but instead of miles of sagebrush and desert, we were riding in huge open grasslands. Soon it got even better with landscape as you see in the picture. Things continued swimmingly until the routes diverged at mile 46 and we headed east on Route 18. What followed was 22 miles of nothing but grass-- the road undulating out ahead of me (I was in the riding alone phase by that time) getting hotter, and starting to feel a little less jaunty. One welcome break did come at mile 56 where we entered South Dakota, our fourth state. The mechanic van was waiting there to take pictures of us stragglers-- the peleton gets places together but the last 8-10 of us are mostly riding alone, so have no picture takers.
The second SAG was at mile 68 and it was a couple of miles after that that my troubles began. We started a four mile climb at that point-- a climb that wasn't actually too bad for me and I put a good deal of distance between myself and the last three riders. At the descent, however, I encountered a terrific head wind-- a wind that I had to fight for the remaining 15 miles of the ride, including another climb of about a mile. Nothing to do, however, except to keep plowing on and eventually I rolled in-- nearly 94 miles with 7 hours and 50 minutes on the bike.
One learns a lot about wind riding this way-- when it is behind you, you barely feel it but it pushes you faster and you are duped into thinking that your riding is getting stronger. The downside is that a tailwind is not at all cooling. A headwind saps your energy in direct correlation to how strong it is, but it is always cooling-- so there is a silver lining of sorts. I would have traded for a little less wind and a little more heat.
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