Five of us piled into an aircraft carrier known as a Nissan Armada and a truck with five bikes and a tandem for Doug, a blind triathlete who's coming out to bike part of the course and sign up for next year.
I've volunteered to 'captain' him so I'll get the chance to see the course too. Apparently the course is really rolling, so the uphills will be a bear hauling 350lbs of flesh and steel, but the downhills will be a blast. Doug assures me that the front brakes are brand new. Phew.
We made it to the western side of Ohio on the first day - about 8 hours of driving and 500+ miles. The drive was pretty easy and I loved cruising along in the aircraft carrier. The only issue was all the harassment from my fellow travellers. I appear to have broken the driver's side window too. So now Ed has to climb out of the aircraft carrier (complete with rope ladder and gangplank) to pay the tolls.
Oh - there was one drama. This puppy gets about 13 mpg and we made the poor decision to not stop at the convenient gas station on the turnpike because we wanted to eat too. "Oh," said Ed, "the computer will tell us when we have 30 miles to go, plus we have 20 miles after it reads empty." So we figured we were good. Unfortunately, Ed's a big fat liar and we watched the 'miles to empty' indicator count down to 20 then mysteriously flatline. "Oh," said Ed, "we don't need to worry until the fuel guage needle is on E." Hmmm. We then watched the needle hit E and head further south. By then we had the display showing fuel usage and I was trying to keep the guage up above 20mph and we tucked in behind a big truck to pick up a draft. When we pulled into the gas station, a 25 gallon tank took 26 gallons.
This morning's visual, which unfortunately I didn't get on camera, was Sue's bike secured to her truckbed by a pair of handcuffs. Maybe tomorrow.
We are now in Indiana (tried to get a pic of the welcome sign to show Indy, but faile abismally). I think Wisconsin is only two states to go.
Sent from my iBlanche
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