Day 31: St. Joseph to Chillicothe -- Mostly Rollers

Pictures are here.
Miles: 91
Total Miles: 2295
Time: 5:09
Average: 17.3
Max 35.5
Flats Today: 0; Total flats:8
Climbing: 3600 feet of mostly rollers
Weather: Mostly sunny with high of 90 and very little wind -- gorgeous day!
Body: Legs had some pep back, especially in the morning.


We had another wonderful day of riding following yesterday's rest day in St. Joseph which was relaxing, productive and unusual.

Relaxing involved hanging out with fellow riders including a Cracker Barrel Dinner with Bob and Carole. It also included watching the Tour's third stage and catching up on some phone calls with special folks like my sweeties (Marcia and Sarah) and good friends John, Mitchell and Cathy. The productive stuff was finishing up my backlog of blogging, getting the bike cleaned up, chain checked and serviced and having Gerard take the creak out of the bike.
The unusual was taking in the Psychiatric/African American/American Indian museum which was most unusual. This triune museum was located over a number of old rooms across several floors of some institutional-like building. It was a hodge podge of artifacts perhaps loosely connected if you used some imagination. Some of the old psychiatric stuff they had was very much in use in medical offices I distinctly remembered from the 50's and 60's -- did not seem so very old to me but I guess that all is relative.
Also unusual, for those who know me, was wandering through a large mall. After observing very usual mall stuff like teen aged girls screeching and guys in low slung shorts shuffling along and clothing stores with rows and rows of racks of stuff that makes you wonder "who will ever pay that for this?" I happened to stumble on most of the AbB team keeping Gerard company while a hairdresser hacked away at the hair on top and at the bottom of his head. I contributed to the kibitzing, of course.

But back to today's ride. Lots of rollers that added up to 3600' of climbing. Some of the rollers could be powered over without shifting. Others required a drop in gears and a standing climb, while a few qualified as full fledged hills and had to be approached that way. Nothing real serious since I never got into my small sprocket up front. Scenery continued to be eastern rural as we are used to in OH. The rollers and lots of photo ops made it difficult to stay together as a group so things got pretty fragmented and I rode with, passed and got passed by lots of folks.

Along the way we passed good stuff for pictures including a variety of large farm implements, amish buggies, horses, blond bison and other rural relics. A delightful day to launch us into the eastern half of the US, on through Missouri and closer to OH.

Tomorrow is another medium long day with even more climbing than today. If I enjoy it half as much as I did the ride today it will be great!