Day 23 - Sunday September 6th

137.61 miles
8:41.21 hrs
32.0 max
15.8 Avg

As expected, I got to a late start this morning. I didn't start biking till 11:30 and this made me pretty uneasy about the whole day. I knew that I had about 130 miles to ride before I reached the sanctuary that I call home. Lucky for me, the ride was flat and fast for the majority of the trip. The route was also engulfed by gorgeous scenery that took my mind off the distance ahead and allowed me to lose myself in the ride.

As I was approaching the 50 mile marker (into the trip) and was coming down a decent sized hill, two bikers on a training ride pulled out about 300 yards in front of me. With a little bit of adrenaline pumping through my body in hopes that I could meet up with these bikers and ride with some company once again (like I did in VT), I found myself biking at a steady 22 mph on average for the next 2 miles or so. At first I was gaining quite a bit of ground on these two gentlemen but as they slowly increased their pace I was no longer jumping that gap as quickly as I hoped. Soon enough, the adrenaline was starting to wear off and found myself about 50 yards behind my target. I quickly jumped out of the saddle and started to sprint. As I got closer and closer I started to feel the slip stream and I knew at that point that I had them in my grasp.

After I caught these two gents, I sat patiently in the back of their turbulence and took a joy ride for the next 12 miles or so. The gentlemen held a pace of about 22 miles an hour on average throughout their ride and I was very impressed that I could keep up with them with my loaded bike. Towards the end of the conjoined ride, I found myself loosing ground on the climbs but I easily caught back up on the descents. Unfortunately, I was not able to converse with them before they turned off into a gas station but I can't even imagine what was going through their heads when they saw a guy with a loaded bike keeping up with them on a training ride! I was proud of myself!

A couple dozen photos and about 9 hours of actual biking time later, I ended up pulling into my house around 9:30 pm. My mom was worried frantic and wanted to come pick me up when I was near Prescott but I would not let her, I needed to complete this day unassisted. In doing so I set a new record for myself for longest ride in a day! I can't wait for the week of relaxation to begin!