Biker Bob: POST BRAN: Day 5, Part 1

Today we rode 60+ miles from Ord to Fullerton.

I started the day with Kim, Mark, and Phil after a delicious breakfast in Ord. I was planning to ride hard on this day, so after a few miles of warming up, I picked up the pace and was quickly alone. The sunrise was promising to be amazing and then, poof, I was in the fog. I spent the rest of the day in a dense fog that made riding a bit scary.

After riding about 20 miles solo, Paul and Kent caught up to me at one of the SAGs. I rode with them the rest of the day and we rode hard. We took turns pulling and when we pulled into Fullerton we had an average of 20.8mph for the trip. We were also the first people into town.

We had a second breakfast at the bar and grill with Kent and Paul. When we came out, some of the other faster riders that got a later start were starting to show up. I had biscuits and gravy for my second breakfast... yum.

After that, we headed back to camp and found Tony and the kids already starting to set things up. I quickly dug out my bug spray because we were all losing a lot of blood to the misquitto swarms that were covering the park we were going to camp in. Then it was over to the semi to help unload all the gear for the other 500+ cyclists. Since I didn't have my gear on the truck, I could have skipped this, but it's part of the experience and kind of fun too.

I showered at the local swimming pool (in the shower, not the pool itself). After Mark, Phil, and Kim showed up and got showered and settled in, we went for dinner (see below). I spent some time, after dinner, hanging out with the Bike Masters team and enjoying a LOT of ice cream in the park. We even ran into the mother of a friend of ours from church, who was helping with the host activities in the park.

So, other than the fog, it was a good day for riding and it stayed pretty dry that night, allowing people to dry out a bit after the previous two days of rain.

I rode with the two guys on the right