was pretty tight. It got worse when I realized my rear tire was slowly loosing air so Scott, Bott and I had to stop so I could put a new tube in, then I realize my rear brake is making an awful noise and making my bike vibrate so we stopped a few times for me to try to make adjustments which none of them helped anything but I noticed my wheel needs to be trued soon. It was still rideable, I just didn't use my back brake as much. After Scott and Bott pulled for the first 20 miles and I got up front I decided that I really wanted to make the end of this trip count on the bike, I want to put my all into every ride and build more strength and skill on the bike. So I challenged myself today to do the whole ride in my big ring, the big ring challenge. It was a blast, I was really going as hard as I could on the bike and shooting up hills, more than a few times leaving the guys far behind on a hill. We had a great ride together too, talking about the team and the trip and random other things as we rode through more beautiful farmland, nice houses, tiny towns and ran from another crazy dog trying to bite our feet. At our crew chief's stop he had a canes and baja blast challenge, we really needed to get rid of the stuff, it was eat canes and shotgun a mountain dew baja blast. I didn't go for the chicken but Scott and I shotguned a baja blast which was surprisingly easy and we felt the sugar rush after we got back on the bike. Because of all my bike problems we were right in front of sweeps for a while until I started pulling and hauling in hopes of making rack time, we eventually caught and passed a couple pace lines and then got red flagged, they were going to rack us but Randy who goes to school at Morehead called the PM and told him that we are finishing the ride, the arrival is for his chapter so being a little late is not an issue. I was glad he did that and we were all able to finish the ride. Before getting into town our average was 17.9mph which is real fast for the terrain we had, I was pulling on flats at 21-24 for a lot of the ride, we also had some really fun, steep and winding downhill sections.
Arrival was with the chapter here and they are really cool guys, they had lots of brothers out and some sorority women and school staff too, it was cool to have a big welcoming. They fed us a big pasta lunch before we headed to unload at lodging in one of the dorms. Very nice to have a bed again so soon. After showers we headed to our friendship visit with Horizon Village which is a group home and assisted living facility that the local chapter is very close with. It was an awesome community, many of the people there live in the apartments almost entirely independent and some live in a dorm style single level building. They were all very nice, I talked with Buddy for a while who liked writing letters, mostly to girls, so we helped him put the words together and put them on paper, it was hard to communicate with him bit we slowly got it. Another peraon I hung out with was Lilian who was an older lady but had a great sense of humor, she is well known as the comedian, we loved it.
The chapter brothers set up dinner for us at Buffalo Wild Wings followed by dessert at a froyo place, both were delicious and really hit the spot. Calling it an early night because we have a 5am wake up, kind of a bummer because the chapter invited us to a bonfire but I really need the aleep. 75 miles tomorrow and more hills, maybe another big ring day.
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