The Importance of breakfast

The importance of breakfast cannot be understated on this trip. Apparently we could not eat breakfast at the chosen place so we were left to the motel morning food as well as some food that CrossRoads provided. As soon as I saw what purported to be orange juice (water which looked more yellow than orange) I guessed I was in trouble. The only breakfast item that tasted or looked good was the waffles. I am becoming an expert on the use of this machine. 2:30 and you have perfectly cooked waffles.

After breakfast Alec and I installed a new tire as well as a new tube on the bike. During my inspection of the lining I saw that one of the spoke eyelits was not fully covered. I took some tape and covered it and hoped for the best. Jim also gave invaluable advice on how to blow up the tire and then let the air out.

Our foursome took off from the hotel and proceeded to Route 54. A special thanks to Mack as we would have went straight at Main Street instead of making a right and would have gotten lost. On this day that would not have been good.

The trip took us from New Mexico and we were either against the wind or there were strong cross winds blowing. This is where the importance of breakfast took on added meeting. It was much more difficult to pedal as I did not eat that much. The SAG at 29 miles did not have Payday. Hey CrossRoads, us riders love Payday. After the SAG we pedaled into our fourth state, Texas at the 54 miles mark. We are riding in the panhandle section of Texas.


The road into Texas was nice for about the first 11 miles which is when we stopped at the final SAG of the day at about 66 miles. Peanut, Butter and Jelly (PBJ) sandwiches, bananas and oreo cookies fueled me. However, after the SAG the road we bicycled was much worse.

The one thing that I have learned from this trip is that the amount of time we bike in a day and the different roads cannot really be trained for and it is difficult to anticipate and plan for this in your training. I have had 6 flats. I know that everyone with the exception of George has had a flat. Hank had his first 3 flats today. Everyday you pass someone who is fixing a flat, but what is nice is that everyone helps everyone else in fixing the flats.

At about the 77 mile mark there was an unscheduled SAG. I got a refill of water and drank 1/2 of my 6 hour Extreme Super Shot and ate another PBJ sandwich. Also, Al decided to join us for the final 20 or so miles. I do not know what they put into that super shot (I guess I should read the label), but it really works. The miles were much easier to pedal and it got me through the wind.

I would guess that we bicycled around 80-90% of the time either against the wind or in cross winds. It was by far the most challenging day of bicycling. From what I understand the next 7 days will be similar so it will be a grind, but our group does well and we should be fine.

We arrived in our destination city.

Tucumcari, NM - Dalhart, TX

Miles 100.22
Ave MPH 12.6
Total bicycle time 7:56:21
Left hotel :7:25
Arrive hotel: 4:25 (5:25 local time as the clocks changed again).