Ranger, tx

Rollin to Ranger one hill after another. The actual ride wasn't too eventful. Support did take some excellent photos on the road.

We had planned to take showers at a truck stop for a bargain price, but as we were getting close to town Katie and I noticed Ranger College and both thought it would be an excellent idea to ride over and ask if we could have some free showers there. We met a very friendly guy - Mr. Lopez - who was very helpful and called the Dean of students and told him he was gonna bring a couple interesting girls to "hollar at him" in his office. After a couple minutes of chatting about our group and what we were doing, we had ourselves some free showers!

Things definitely picked up in the evening at the church where we found the Karaoke room upstairs, black lights including. Very entertaining for much longer than it probably should have been.

Abilene, TX - April 21st

Finally a short day! It was just 40 miles between us and Abilene. We all leisurely headed out of town. The first part of the ride was quite scenic. All was well until about mile 18 when we came up on the entire group standing around under a very graffiti'd bridge.

Travis had wrecked on a big gap in the road and was sitting on the ground. Turns out crashing with a bunch of med students isn't all that useful, but lucky for Travis we also had Jen, who knows how to make a sling out of anything. Eventually Andy came speeding up with the support van to the rescue and whisked Travis off to the local hospital.

The rest of us continued on our way wishing Travis all the best. I rode with my typical crew of Jody and Jen. We were expecting to come up on a water stop around mile 20. Sadly it wasn't well marked and some evil bandit had stolen our water jug and snacks, so we thought there wasn't one at all. Jody complained relentlessly for the next 15 miles about being hungry. Lucky for Jen and I we came up on a 7/11 and decided to stop the complaining and have Jody get a snack. We also tricked her into getting a slurpee (which she didn't like and ended up giving to us). From there it was just a quick 5 miles to the church in Abilene.

We arrived very early in the afternoon and decided to walk around and explore the town. We went on a VERY long trek and managed to find some delicious ice cream at a Mexican ice cream shop. Megan and Lauren enjoyed some of the more exotic treats while I stuck with ice cream and sprinkles.

Things got very exciting that night when we had free rein of the baptist church family center, which included a bowling alley and roller skating rink! We all got a little bowling practice in preparation for the upcoming bowling and sunglasses birthday party in CBUS and went back to our roots and did some serious roller skating and blading.

Tim getting really serious at the bowling alley

Pete and Chris

Pete and Tim rockin the lanes

Chris making sure my helmet keeps me safe

Sweetwater, TX - April 20th

The day started like the previous few...grey and cold with lots of fog. With 100 miles ahead of us this wasn't a good way to start the day, but it made for a good picture of riders in the mist:

We continued through the cold and finally reached the lunch stop around mile 55 and all loaded into the van to get out of the cold. We didn't stay long because we knew we still had a long way to go and wanted to keep moving.

I was riding behind Jen and since she has been out to get my bike she didn't warn me about a very sharp object in the road that took out both my tires simultaneously.

As luck would have it the support van pulled up just as we started to fix my flats and Roshan and Jeff took over and did it for me in style, Roshan sporting a scarf and arm warmers.

Before we finished we (Jen, Lauren, Megan, and me) were joined by some fellow riders...Katie, Heidi, Brian. We all took off together to help pull each other through the wind fields of Texas. If you look off in the distance you can see the hundreds of windmills along the road.

With about 10 miles to go the sun decided to make and appearance and we hit some rolling hills as we rode through sweetwater. We were tired when we reached the high school, but that was nothing a slurpee wouldn't fix!

Lamesa, TX - April 19

The day started off great with hot breakfast served in the Hobbs high school cafeteria. We headed out of town in the cold and grey (much like Ohio from October to March). Jen and I had missed a pic with the sign on the way into town, but luckily we passed the awesome sign again and got our pic. Jody thought she was posing for a senior picture as you can see in the first B.

The day didn't get much more exciting from that point on. It was 70 cold dreary miles. Most of the riders were sad because, because a key and charismatic rider, Tim was not on the road. We plodded on, alone, wondering when he would rejoin us. Fortunately, we were joined by his roommate, Heidi, who pulled us through some key parts of the day. Although it must be noted that she was completely unrecognizable, as she was dressed in rain gear which resembled a burka. There were several surprises on the way, beginning with Jen's sudden surprise Bathroom stop at a gas station. We found new strength in our legs when several dogs, closer to our destination, gave chase in the road. Our pace may have suffered at 14 for 3 hours, but suddenly we were pushing 24 when the mutts were in hot pursuit. Upon arrival in La Mesa, we checked out the town, including a DQ, dollar general, and McDonald's because we couldn't go to school until after 3. Welcome to the real USA. We arrived in Lamesa to spectate an intense game of middle school football, which several riders decided to join. The competition was fierce and Pete almost killed one of the children. As the sun set the game came to a close and we retired to the gym to catch some z's before our century to sweetwater the following day.

Hobbs, NM - April 19th

The great bicycle crash day...

Team Tango (my team) was on support into Hobbs. I was excited because I had such a welcoming response from the superintendent when I asked about staying at the school and when we arrived everyone lived up to my expectations.

Jen and I were in the lead van and arrived in Hobbs to do a presentation at a church in town. We presented to the group and managed to convince many people that the cause was very worthy and received a lot of donations following our talk.

After the presentation I checked in with Justin and was informed of a big crash that had occurred. Most of the group was riding together in a line and when one goes down, many go down and that's just what happened. There were no major injuries, but a few bikes had some pretty bad damage. Fortunately the people of Hobbs were awesome and although there wasn't a bike shop in town the superintendent was able to track down a man in town who was excellent with bikes and he was able to repair two of them.

The school cafeteria treated us to dinner and afterwards we went in search of internet. We found a little restaurant with free wifi and chips and salsa and we spent some time updating blogs and returning emails before heading back to the school to sleep in the pride of Hobbs - the high school gymnasium!

Carlsbad, NM - April 18

"Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a United States National Park in the Guadalupe Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. The primary attraction of the park for most visitors is the show cave, Carlsbad Caverns. Visitors to the cave can hike in on their own via the natural entrance, or take the elevator (the exit for everyone) directly to the Underground Lunchroom some 750 feet (230 m) below.

Carlsbad Caverns includes a large cave chamber 3rd largest in the Americas and 7th largest in the world, the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber which is almost 4,000 feet (about 1,219 m) long, 625 feet (190.5 m) wide, and 350 feet (about 107 m) high at the highest point." - wikipedia

We had been excited about going to Carlsbad for quite some time. It would be our 3rd national park in 3 days and it just so happened we would be there during national park week = free admission!

We decided it would be easiest to just ride right to the cavern and then rack our bikes to our host site for the night. After all we did ride 100+ miles into the wind over mountains the day before. We had definitely earned a break. However the ride turned out to be one of the most painful so far. We were anticipating and nice decent from the campsite right to the park and instead were greeted by the same winds and rolling hills as the previous day with the added bonus of some rain and gray skies.

Needless to say we were happy to reach the vans and get all packed up and head to the caverns.

It was pretty incredible and the pictures won't do it justice, but going to the cave certainly made up for the misery of the ride that morning.

Pete very excited about entering the cave:

Stalagmites:

whale's mouth:

cute group pic in the cave:

typical shot:

Guadalupe Mountains National Park - Friday, April 15th

Our destination - According to wikipedia - "Guadalupe Mountains National Park is located in the Guadalupe Mountains of West Texas and contains Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas at 8,749 feet (2,667 m) in elevation. It also contains El Capitan, long used as a landmark by people traveling along the old route later followed by the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach line."

Numbers for the day:

• 106 mile day
• 105 miles of head winds
• 2 big climbs
• 1 relatively gentle grade for about 6 miles at the beginning of the day
• 1 climb that started off gentle for about 7 miles and became painfully steep for the remaining 6 into the park
• 1 completely exhausted but very proud Maggie

We got out on the road early knowing we had an epic day ahead of us, a century ride (100 miles in a day) in and of itself is a huge physical and mental challenge. Before even getting a few miles out of town we were struck with head winds. I’m not sure there is anything more frustrating while cycling than strong headwinds.

When the climbing began the group started to break up a bit. I reached what seemed like the top, but it turned out the hills just kept on rolling all day long. For a large part of the morning I rode side by side with Roshan. We couldn’t really have much of a conversation because the wind was blowing so hard it was too difficult to hear each other talk. After what seemed like forever we reached the lunch stop. Katie had located a nice little store where it cost $1 or the purchase of a cookie to use the bathroom. I decided that price was too steep, ate fast and got back on the road.

The road seemed to go on forever, but finally after passing the final rest stop at mile 80 the climb was in sight. We were warned it was about 13 miles up and would get worse as we moved further up the mountain.

The climb seemed to last forever, but finally the park enterance appeared and I knew I would be able to get off my bike very soon. I mustered up as much energy as I could to ride toward the campground and was welcomed by cheers of the support team for the day and the other riders who had already reached the top.