Two of the riders are going to go skydiving once they finish the ride today so all the groups are kind of messed up. Two others want to leave early as they are nursing minor injuries. I think the real reason everyone wants to leave early is there is 5,000' of elevation gain.
Takes a while to get out of town but we get on to 20AE which we will stay on for almost the whole day. We do take a shortcut by going on to Two Rod Rd for 12 miles. Two miles after we turn on to it we start a steep descent and are doing between 60 and 70 km/h when we get to the bottom but suddenly I hit a bump on a bridge and get hit by a crosswind! It was very scary and to make matters worse the climb up the other side was very steep. At the first SAG of the day there is a small celebration as we have officially reached the 3,000 mile mark. By the end of the day we will have less than 400 to go. After we leave the first SAG of the day at mile 30 we are back on 20AE.
We pass a number of huge dairy farms before getting to the second SAG stop at Avon. Just as we are arriving there are 50 - 75 motorcycles all getting ready to leave. The last hill in to Avon is 8% grade and the tandem arrives just as the Police escort is ready to
Take the motorcycles away. He makes all of the motorcycles wait for the tandem who really struggle up the hill.
Once we leave the SAG there are more hills and more climbing. At mile 82 Barry has a spoke break on his back wheel but thinks he can limp in to the bike shop. The bike shop guys are fabulous and manage to fix it when we get there. They are really interested in helping once they know about where we have come from in the last 42 days.
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