Fuller Ride: Day 2, Bowling Green to Glendale

| June 14, 2022 | 0 Comments

So this week hasn’t gone quite as planned. Certainly not with respect to my attempted daily dispatches. The toll that COVID took on the riders and others before I arrived reduced the support team to such a point that the logistics of the day to day existence, separate from the ride itself, became significantly more challenging than usual for these rides. Much more of the time not on the bike was spent either obtaining food, eating food, locating and taking showers and other of life’s necessities. There was simply no time for me to write the daily blog posts I had planned to do. . So as a result, it is one week in and I’m only now reporting on the day two ride, otherwise know as “the ballbuster.

But first, to pick up where i left off, we had arrived in Bowling Green to the news that our trailer had a potentially catastrophic mechanical problem, something to do with the springs that would have caused the trailer to flip if not fixed immediately. So, we had to rent a new trailer while the first one was repaired. Suffice to say, that introduced some complications.

The route on Day 2 was 72 miles from Bowlig Green to Glendale, Kentucky. The heat index would go to over 100 degrees and there would be lots of hills. i made it to 60 miles before I hit the wall. My fancy new bike allowed me to do the hills better than in past rides, but, for some reason, it doesn’t seem to be able to control the heat. I asked for a pick-up at the top of a hill and was told that the van was on the way. So, I waited with the two “sweeps,” the guys who stay to the back of the pack to make sure everyone makes it. After a seemingly inordinate wait, we learned that another rider was suffering from heat stroke and they had called an ambulance. We actually saw the ambulance go by. I thought about flagging it down so I could hop in the back, but didn’t do it. In any event, the necessary triage meant that I had to get back on the bike and keep riding, with frequent stops. There was one more big hill that I managed to clear with the encouragement of the sweeps.. The van did eventually pick me up after about 5 miles more of riding.

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