Starting across Upstate NY

 Today was harder than I expected. Maybe it was because I didn’t sleep very well last night. Or maybe it was the crosswind that got pretty tough toward the end or maybe it was the up-and-down all day. Probably it was… I was expecting today to be easy.  🤷‍♂️

The group started out really fast, like they were late for an appointment. Thankfully, my gang got stuck behind a light and surrendered after about 12 miles.  The most notable part of today was this.  

Where have the miles gone!?!?

After the second SAG, where we took this cool group pic

Jodie, Olaf, ME, Barb, Jens, Alan, Bill, Jim, John,
Mari, Carol, Tanny, John, Judd, Stuart

my gang sped up quite a bit. What I mean to say is John was smelling the barn and he sped up a lot. So I threw some grappling hooks, locked myself to his wheel and let him pull me for 15 miles into the wind. Here’s a live action photo of that.

TBH, I think the issue was there was a long bathroom line at the SAG and we decided to wait to find a field. But no field was presenting itself and John kept getting faster and faster.  🤔. Happily, he missed the turn to Cheese Factory Road (!!) and while he was doubling back, we stopped to use nature under a No Tresspassing sign.  After that John seemed to slow down quite a bit.

One of the fun parts of the ride today was seeing some natural waterfalls. Here are some photos courtesy of the groups that weren’t racing a biological deadline in the last half.

A good ride.  Just 400 miles left…

And now for the 2024 Ride Across America Most Valuable Gear countdown

#7  Skratch Bars and Drink.  

 One of the hardest things about riding 80 to 100 miles every single day is that you have to keep hydrating and you have to keep eating even though you’re sick of both.  So something that makes all that eating and drinking palatable even five or six hours into a ride is most valuable indeed. The key thing about Skratch as opposed to a lot of other crap is that it’s not sweet. I’m so sick of sweet junk in my mouth. And Skratch  is a lifesaver.

—

I was thinking today about my brothers. Mark, who I lost 11 years ago, and Bob, who I lost at the beginning of this trip. And I was thinking about friends I’ve had over the years who I was once close to, but whose friendship has become more distant. or in some cases largely gone away. 

At breakfast, I was talking to Jim about our favorite movies, and I mentioned A River Runs Through it. The narrator, a University of Chicago English professor who wrote the book, loses his own brother (played beautifully by Brad Pitt).  It has strong echoes in my life. The narrator quotes his own father giving this last sermon shortly before he died. 

“ Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.”

Yes we can.