Saturday, April 17, 2010

April 17 Florida Bike Safari Day 3

The alarm clock was un-naturally loud at 6:30 this morning. Even though we had gone to bed early last night it seemed just too early to be getting up. Maybe it is the jet lag. However nice it might have been to lay in bed there were miles to ride and besides they weren’t serving breakfast forever. It was right around 55F and the sun was not yet up and everything was soaked in dew.

There was a mass start this morning so there was major congestion headed out on the ride. With 450+ riders all vying for the front it was pandemonium. With in 5 miles it had sorted it self out and we were in the lead where we belonged.

The Florida countryside here is low rolling hills with a lot of acreages and small farms. There doesn’t seem to be the organized mechanized farming of the mid west. It looks like a lot of small operations. They seem to grow a lot of pine trees. I think that they are used for pine lumber. They plant them about 6 feet apart then they thin them out. Then thin them a second time. Each thinning results it larger and large trees.

As we were cruising along at about 17 mph the first rest stop at 15 miles came up pretty fast. Don Jim and I filled up on peanut butter sandwiches and this creation I had never seen before. It was an Oreo cookie, a smear of peanut butter, a slice of banana and topped with a raisin.

The second stop at 35 didn’t come up quite as fast and I thought that it took a long time to get to the last rest stop at the 50 mile mark. However once we did get there it was only 15 more into camp. So there you have it the first official ride done at 66.8 mile and we were in camp by 12:45, which was early enough to get a hot shower. The final temperature here was 83 F so it is warm here.

Tomorrow is the century ride and Jim is hot to do it. I don’t know century rides were never my thing.

So now all I have to is go check into the hospital next door where I can post this.

Terry

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