Wheeler to Amarillo 101 miles

Today rocked! So we were on the road by 6:30 and the sun wasn’t even up yet aka it was not hot out. We rode through the hills and farm country as the sun came up which was so pretty. I felt a little like a zombie for the first 10 miles since it was SO early in the morning.

We rode by a couple cattle feed lots which are so gross smelling. They basically pack in as many cows into one small area as they can. We rode by one that must have had well over a 1000 cows in an area the size of 2 football fields. They had no room to graze or even turn around.

And just my luck I got a flat right in the middle of one of them. So we had to change my flat while smelling all of these cows…. Once we were done I booked it so I didn’t have to smell the cows any more. After that it started raining a little but we didn’t even care at all. It was actually kind of refreshing.

We got to first lunch about 40 miles in, right next to this little motel. We all ate pretty quickly and hit the road again to try and beat the heat. Andrea, Brad, Alex, Lesley, Ravi, and I, all rode in a sweet pace line for the rest of the day. We did 1 mile pulls that way we could keep up a faster pace. We flew for the next 30 miles only stopping once to have a snack. The road that we were riding on was SO bumpy. Clearly Texas doesn’t care too much about their shoulders….

We had second lunch in Panhandle TX at a dairy queen. Everyone was in a great mood joking around and everything. After all it was noon and we had already ridden 70 miles.

Hit the road again and were happy to discover that it still wasn’t too hot out. Kept up that same pace line as before lunch. About 10 miles in by back tire went flat again. So we pulled over and I just pumped it up since I figured I could make it.

But then about 5 miles later it went flat again. So we pulled over and luckily I had picked up an extra tire at first lunch incase it was my tire. I ended up having to change my entire tire. This time my flat was right outside the Tyson plant, which smelled almost as bad as the feed farms. Surprisingly though I wasn’t mad about getting 3 flats. I just thought it was kinda funny where I got them!

We hauled the last couple miles into the host through the city. We got in and had only actually ridden 98 miles. But since Jodi had yet to have a century I told her that I would go ride around a little with her so she could officially have a century. So that made it 101 miles.

Build day tomorrow!