Passing Dan...

I woke up to find Dan M. at the top of my leaderboard. I shook my head when I saw it. The crazy man rode 76 miles yesterday during the heat of the day! It was 109 degrees at its worst! He was out riding!

If I wanted to be back on top this morning, I had to ride at least 28 miles. I thought for a bit before heading out and settled on a plan. I'd ride the Coats loop which I thought would give me about that many miles.

I left the house around 5:30, rode out to the highway and started west. I got to the edge of town and a strange thought hit me. I realized I'd never ridden from Pratt to Haviland in all the months I'd been here. Haviland is the home of Barlcay College, my alma mater, and the home of the Run for Missions races. On a whim, I made my mind up and rode on past the turn off for the Coats loop.

The wind wasn't super strong this morning, but it was strong enough to make my trip to Haviland a little slower. I enjoyed the ride, looking at the scenery and trying to figure out what the numbers painted on the side of the road by the highway crews meant. It was 1.9 miles for every 100. I never figured it out. Anyone know what they're measuring?

I rode into Haviland around 7:00, turned onto Main Street and did a loop through the college campus. No one's there right now, so I just came back south by the Friends Church and back to the highway to go home.

The trip home was a bit faster. Yippee! I didn't get any great speed on the gradual grade up to Cullison, but after leaving the "big" metropolis I was able to knock out seven miles at over 20mph. The fastest mile of the bunch was the last one. Amazingly enough, it was in Pratt riding with traffic. I even had to slow down a bit to make the corner onto Stout.

I rode directly back to the house and there decided to take a little cool down and get my miles up over 45. I was less than a mile and a half from it, so I figured why not. I dropped down to less than 15mph for that mile plus. I didn't care. I'd had a great ride and I was ahead of Dan M. again. (Now, we'll see what he does today to make me suffer!) (garmin data)