Long ride, a little headwind but mostly flat and decent roads, always a fun time. Started the morning a little rough, I don't know what it was but 3 guys were feeling sick last night and this morning and couldn't ride for the day. Because we aren't riding tomorrow we had to celebrate a little early on the road today, everyone had American flags on their saddle bags flying in the wind the whole ride, it was really cool, got a lot of honks and waves today which im sure were in part due to all the flags, I had been looking forward to doing that for a while. I rode with Scott and Hayden which was a lot of fun but because it was so windy and we were on a highway for a while it was hard to talk which is always a bummer but we still managed to when we could. Around mile 30 Scott had to pull over and stop because he was feeling nauseous, it looked pretty bad but he was fine and said he wanted to keep riding, we got back on and maybe 5 miles later he said he was going to rack at the next crew van. As we are coming up the van he yells from the back of the pace line "screw it I'm not racking myself, let's go," it was awesome, we all got super pumped up after that. Not to much later he was glad he pushed through it because he felt much better. We moved real quick all day, average was just over 18 mph, ended up getting so far ahead that by about mile 40 I got a flat and was able to fix it and get on the rode just as we saw the pace line behind us coming over the hill about a mile back. Finally we got off the highway around mile 52 but got red flagged at 55 because there was no van ahead of us. Ended up being good timing because as we roll into the crew stop I notice my tire was flat again and I had to change it again but found a tiny metal wire that went through the tire and probably popped both tubes. We still got out of that red flag after 5-10 minutes without another pace line in sight, made it another 20 miles before we got red flagged again for the same reason and finally we ran into the 2nd pace line, Max and Brandon. Just before that I accidentally started a short water fight on the bike, I sprayed Scott behind me then Hayden in front and we were spraying water from our bottles at each other for a bit, we were just so bored on the road, nothing to look at, could barely hear each other, it was a good way to keep entertained at the end of the ride. At that point we were just getting into the city and anxious to get to lodging so we hauled it through the city and pulled into Wichita State University around 12:30 to see our sponsor with coolers of ice cold Gatorade and bananas which were perfect to recovery from the ride.
As guys were pulling in everyone was talking about the Chick-fil-A we passed coming in and how badly we just wanted to pull over on our bikes to grab some. Our sponsor overheard us and spontaneously decided to take us all out to Chick-fil-A for Lunch instead of the planned crew chief lunch. It was so amazing and so delicious. A couple guys had never had it and absolutely loved it. Best part about this was on our way in a lady asked us who we were so we told her and turns out she had recently adopted a boy from Ukraine who has Spina bifida (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spina_bifida). His name is Dennis and he was such a cute kid, he is in a wheelchair but is very happy and loved giving us all high fives and fist bumps. His mom said that they are trying to keep him very active, he is currently learning Wheelchair MX or Wheelchair freestyle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUUVfPy0UgI) and we suggested wheelchair rugby because of how much fun we had playing in Boulder. It was really great to meet him and his amazingly supportive family.
Later on our dinner was with the Independent Living Resource Center who helps assist people with disabilities get out of nursing homes and live on their own. We didn't get to meet any of their clients but we got to meet some amazing staff. They told us a lot about one of their programs they run every year in parnership with the iCan Shine organization. The camp is called iCan Bike and it teaches people 8+ how to ride a bike and defies the average success rate by using special bikes to slowly develop the skills to ride, they have about a 90% success rate over the 5 day camp getting people from the trainer bikes to a regular two wheel bike. The most impactful thing this camp has is it gives these people a sense of pride and accomplishment and another thing that they can do just like everyone else. This success for these kids has transferred to other things to, the same kids building off this success learn to swim without a life jacket, ice skate or just gives them more social confidence, the ripple effect of the simple milestone of learning to ride a bike creates so many more victories for these kids that positively change their lives. One of the staff who had his son go to the camp also mentioned that it gave his son more independence and a chance to get a job he may not have been able to have because being able to ride his bike to work gives him the independence he needs. It was a great visit.
Tomorrow we have a day off to celebrate the 4th of July! We have a sponsored breakfast and lunch and dinner is a BBQ at a block party that we were invited to by the chapter advisor for the Wichita chapter of Pi Kapp. Very excited for the rest and the holiday.
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