Today was a tough 75-mile day in the saddle. Here’s a top ten list of reasons why:

10. I started out tired. Yesterday’s ride, with its short, but steep climbs wore me out.
9. I had a flat. It was about eight miles after starting the ride this morning. This is my seventh flat. All of them have been rear tire flats.
8. The rain. The weather forecast for Jamestown today said “100% chance of heavy rain”. It rained off and on all day, but I never saw the “heavy rain” part of the forecast until I was passing through Meadville, Pennsylvania about a mile from where we were staying tonight. All of a sudden, I was in a downpour. It didn’t last long though. Just long enough to get me good and wet…again.
7. The wind. The weather forecast for today also said southwest winds at 10-15 miles per hour with gusts to 20 miles per hour. Yeah, I think they were right.
6. The hills. The roads are quite hilly around here. It was up and down all day. Don’t they know how to build level roads around here?
5. There was a road closure along my planned route. Actually, it was a bridge closure. They demolished it and were building a new one. Fortunately, there was a sign telling me about the closed bridge early enough that I still had some other options. But, this unexpected re-routing added about 10 miles to today’s ride.
4. The big, bearded “comedian” driving an old pickup who pulled up next to me in Union City and asked what kind of gas mileage I got. Boy, I’ve never heard that one before!
3. The batteries died on my GPS unit. I actually had to find my way to Meadville the old-fashioned way — with a road map!
2. No cellphone service. Each ride, I call Pat to give her an update as to where I am, how I’m doing, and when I expect to call her next and be at the destination. Today, I found the cellphone service to be fairly spotty. It came and went and really couldn’t rely on it to make any calls.

Finally, the number 1 reason why today was a tough day in the saddle:

1. They moved Meadville. Or, at least that’s what it seemed like. I could swear that I had measured today’s ride at about 50 miles. In reality, it was just shy of 76 miles.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 12th, 2006 at 5:59 pm and is filed under The Dream Tour, Bicycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.