Rapid City to Murdo, SD
Rolling grasslands, and grasslands, and grasslands.
A brief excursion through the weird and bizarre pinnacles of the Badlands. Last time we were there was in 1980 I think.
Hot. Crosswinds for most of the day: scrubbed off the speeds a little and very hard to help each other: echelons and double pacelines help, but take so much concentration that it's hard to enjoy the scenery or to keep it up for very long.
During the middle of the day we turned north for a while and had a fast tailwind respite, then back to the crosswinds.
Highlight of the day: car parked along the road, and as I drove by noted the giant bug-eyed glasses of Nate! Crazy dude drove up from Colorado (actually, all the way from Santa Fe) to take some pictures - so leap-frogged along with us for a while through the badlands. Then, he drove into Murdo, hopped on his bike and rode back to drag my sorry ass the rest of the way to Murdo - amazing how much easier that last 15 miles was with the chatting/catching up on the latest news. We'll eventually have some links to Nate's web site and his pictures from today.
Thanks, Nate for showing up - made it a great day.
The animal of the day was: GRASSHOPPERS!!!! Billions, and billions landing on every part of our bikes and bodies as we trundled along.
Pictures include: the PAC Tour version of a refugee camp, the long morning paceline that lasted for a few hours, the badlands, and the bugeyed photographer by the road.
8.8 hours in the saddle, 237 km(145 miles), 16.4 MPH, heart rate 93, av power 131 watts.
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