L.A. to Boston - May 10 to June 28 - 3415 Miles

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

July 1 - Reflections - The Hardest Part of the Tour

I'm still trying to comprehend riding across the U.S. I don't think it has hit home yet. I'm still thinking in terms of individual days of the tour - one day at a time as we found we had to do during the tour. Thinking of more than one day at a time was and still is overwhelming.

This morning, my bike shop guy, Craig Cooper, at Bikes to You in Grinnell, asked me what was the hardest part of the trip and I couldn't answer him. Thinking about his question since, I think I can now answer it. I think that the hardest part of the tour for me was dealing with the wind. There were days, in the West, when we would have horrendous head and cross winds. Gusty head and cross winds were even much worse. The straight head winds were easier to deal with than the cross winds. With constant head winds, one just selects a lower gear and grinds away - although with great difficulty. However, the gusty cross winds were unpredictable. We never knew when the next gust was coming so we were continually tensed up - ready to counteract it. If we over or under counteracted, the bike would lurch one way or the other. Occasionally, we would have to walk the bike through an extremely gusty area. Near Palm Springs, (where the wind turbines are located along Interstate 10) gusty cross winds actually blew riders off the road. One rider reported getting off his bike and the wind blew the bike out horizontally as the rider hung on to the handlebars and saddle. Another rider was twirled around and deposited, leaning upright against a shrub, headed in the opposite direction. She never did fall over during the ordeal. Another rider and bike were thrown over his wife's bike - injuring them both. They went to the hospital and dropped out of the tour. At one point we had the wind at our backs while riding down the freeway and were doing 40 mph while barely pedaling. We later learned that there were 80 mph gusts in the Palm Springs area that day. While in the West, we seemed to have head and/or cross winds day after day. It was hard to start each morning knowing one was going to have another day of wind to ride against. We were fortunate in the East in that we had day after day of light to moderate tail winds - and they held out until the end of the tour - for which we were very elated.  The "rule of thumb" is generally that prevailing winds blow from west to east but we found that isn't necessarily so.

One can dress for cold temperatures and rain, but he is at the mercy of the wind. Thunderstorms with lighting and hail are another dangerous situation. I rode in downpours but managed to be finished for the day before being caught out in lighting storms. Some riders were not so lucky and chose to be sagged in.

Hope that answers your question, Craig.

Incidentally, my bike made it all of the way across the country without a single repair or adjustment. I had replaced the bottom bracket bearing, cassette (rear sprockets), cassette carrier, chain, all cables, and had repacked all bearings with Phil Wood waterproof grease before leaving for the tour. I then had Craig at Bikes to You go over the bike which included fine-tuning the shifters and truing the wheels. Craig also helped me pack the bike for shipping - actually, he did most of it.

I, also, finished the ride with the tires that I started with - Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700 X 25's. They still have some miles left on them. I had two flats from the shredded tire wire along the Interstates out west - one of the lowest flat-tire counts. The highest reported flat tires was 17. It is very discouraging to have several flats in one day.  The Schwalbe Marathon tires were very heavy and were difficult to take off and put on the rim.  I'm still undecided if I would use them if doing the tour again - maybe a compromise.


Bye for now,
Bob