Chapman to Onaga
100 miles
7:00am-7:15pm
8.2mph Average

Wow, what a day! This day had just about everything in it. In the morning, it started raining and didn’t stop until about 3pm, stupid clouds followed us most of the way to Onaga. So, the conditions were cloudy, cold, windy, light to driving rain, lightning, and, in case that wasn’t enough, it even hailed for a while! Of course, BAK participants never let sanity get in the way of completing a day’s ride, so on we went. The rain and wind did have have the nice effect that it never got terribly hot at all today. The most annoying thing about the rain: my shoes were sopping wet all day long. I hate soggy shoes with a passion.

The lunch stop was a little tricky because we had to go off the route for about half a mile, eat, then back on the route. So, when we came to the turn, I pulled into a gas station with the bunch of bikers I was with to figure out which way to go. Just as we got it all straightened out, I saw my dad turning the wrong way. ::sigh:: So, rather than have us miss out on lunch, I got on my bike and chased him down, which wasn’t easy. He had already made it up the hill leading to the Tuttle Creek Dam and was halfway across the dam itself before I caught up with him and got us pointed in the right direction.

After lunch, my dad noticed that his rear tire was about to go out. There were no replacement tires to be found at the lunch place, but luckily there was a really nice guy that drove us into Manhattan where we got a new tire. By the time we got that all figured out, we were near the tail end of the group, but we still continued on.

Finally, the rain stopped. But it was soon replaced by a really nasty headwind. Must have been 20mph (gusting to who knows how much) and it was coming straight at us. And hills. Crazy hills like you wouldn’t believe. They had us routed through some back roads where instead of smoothing the road like they normally do, they just slapped some asphalt down and called it good. Going up, I had to shift down to my lowest gear and give it absolutely everything I had. Then, on the way down, coast, right? Nope, the wind took care of that. Even though the hills were steep, I had to peddle just to go down!

And this went on and on. Today was supposed to be the longest distance of the trip and we had just about every bad condition you could think of to make it worse. By the time we got in, we had done a little over 93 miles. Well, tired as I was, I wasn’t about to let a chance like that to get a century slip away. In biker jargon, a “century” is when you ride 100 miles in one day. It’s considered a significant accomplishment. So, off I went, again. Finally, at 7:15pm, I was done. 100 miles, 12 hours and 15 minutes on the road, and very, very tired.

I’m going to bed. Now.

Today I also saw my second cool bike jersey. There was a guy that had one with an AC/DC logo on it and the words “For Those About To Rock” across the bottom. Those of you that have sat next to me during a difficult test at LETU know those lyrics have special meaning to me. :-) Starting to think my plain old white t-shirt is a little too boring…

Day 6 in pictures.