Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Victory in Yorktown
We rode to Victory in Yorktown on Thursday 9 August, 2007.
Monday's ride to Elkins was full of drama. We started in the pouring rain from Athens, OH and soon punctured. This set the scene for the rest of the day with Rob achieving the daily record of 7 flats and 1 destroyed tyre. Steve was lucky with only 2 flats and 1 ruined tyre.
After such a torrid day, the final three days were fantastic! Despite the dire warnings of the waitress in Elkins - "...do you have an ambulance to support you?" - we all made it over the 10,000+ feet of climbing to have a beautiful cruise into Virginia. The next morning began with a climb over the Blue Ridge Mountains and then into the impressive Shenandoah Valley! Tall timbers lined the side of the road as we raced toward Ashland. Another highlight of the day was seeing a live skunk beside the road.
Everyone was in high spirits for the last day's ride into Williamsburg and onto the finish post. Rob's knee was playing up but like a good trooper he fought bravely to claim victory in Yorktown!
The wether report is as follows: after an extreme high pressure abated, calm was restored. Disbelief has set in as we deal with a couple of niggling fronts which are getting us back to earth.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Sunday - Not a Day of Rest!
Hi Folks,
It is a week since we last accessed the Blog and much more than about a thousand miles has passed since then.
Steve has worked his way back into full fitness by progressively increasing his daily mileage and judiciously selecting the stages to ride over Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday, Friday and Saturday the routes were flat and he successfully completed all three. Today finished with 35 miles of wicked rollers and he showed the full benefits of his recovery program by ripping the legs off everyone around.
While off the bike he got an insight into the workings of the PAC tour crew. One day while travelling in the scout car he was party to the quick decision-making that occurs when the route is disrupted by heavy machinery ripping up the road. He had fun painting the detour signs on the road to divert the riders around the obstruction. The riders had "fun" negotiating 3 extra miles of tortuous climbs in the hot sun.
Today was an interesting day lots of rain - yes, we broke the drought - a big rip in Rob's tyre and three punctures between the two of us. Luckily our remaining Ohio boy was carrying a spare fold up tyre. We also managed to miss the turn off to lunch so had to stop at a servo for turkey rolls and iced coffee. The afternoon turned out to be good - through a forest for about the last 30 miles into Athens, OH. (Rob says that if Confucius was a cyclist he would have said "whatever goes down must come up").
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