Elkhart to Sublette
72 miles
7:00am-2:00pm
10.3mph Average

We made it, one day finished! Had a good ride and it was a lot of fun. However, the interesting stories are the negative ones, so here we go:

I discovered a new type of bird native to the Elkhart Middle School front lawn. I have decided to call it the “Devil Bird” because I discovered their uniquely annoying traits at about 5am. Most birds have a nice soothing song they sing, or at least something that can fade into the background. Not so with the Devil Bird. Sure, their song starts off innocently enough: “chirp, diddle-chirp, chir–,” but at that point they all pull out miniature cattle prods and jab each other with them, “–DEE-DOO-DA-irp.” So you get: “chirp, diddle-chirp, chir-DEE-DOO-DA-irp. chirp, diddle-chirp, chir-DEE-DOO-DA-irp.” And so on, again and again and again. I was not pleased at 5am…

Some drivers are courteous to bikers, some are not. What’ s really bad (and scary) is when semi drivers are not courteous. If they don’t pull into the other lane, it feels like you’re going to get sucked under the second set of wheels. It’s worst on the recumbent bike, because it’s not as stable.

At one point, I heard a train whistle in the distance and thought, “oh good, we might get to stop and watch a train go by.” But, I kept on going and never saw the tracks and stopped hearing the whistle, so I was a little confused. Then, I heard the whistle again, but this time it was blasting louder, continuously, and RIGHT BEHIND ME. And getting closer every second. A train chasing me down the highway?! I felt like Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Then, I figured it out, a semi had been equipped with a train whistle and the driver was none too happy with the bikers. He didn’t move over, he didn’t stop the whistle, and he was pulling half a house! The whistle was incredibly, painfully loud. Probably one of the loudest things I’ve ever heard. So, pretty good list of scary things: semi that’s not being nice, oversize load, I’m on the recumbent, and there’s a horrifying noise that doesn’t match what’s going on at all. Thank God, I made it through okay.

Final scary thing, also involving a semi. I’ll just list the aspects of the situation: Cattle truck (one of the worst kind to be passed by), traffic in the other lane (so he can’t pull over), at the bottom of a hill (so he’s going fast), on a bridge (yipes!), with NO SHOULDER (gah, mere inches away from the truck!), and just to add to the fun, I’m still on the recumbent. I got pretty wobbly and close to falling over (tried to wobble towards the railing instead of towards the truck), but made it through that one too. That was probably the most dangerous it got today.

If you’re ever on the road with a biker, give them as much room as possible!

And with that, I’m going to do devos and get some sleep. It’s only 9pm, but I’m dead tired and we hope to start tomorrow at about 6am. 67 miles to go tomorrow, but the wind is supposed to help a little (didn’t much today). It’ll be warmer, into the 80’s instead of just the 70’s like today.

This really was the worst day of the trip, in both traffic and exhaustion. I was really worried that night that I might not be able to make it through the trip. Doing a full day of cycling was a major shock to my system, but apparently I was able to make a decent recovery overnight.

Day 1 in pictures.