August 5, 1998 |
1998 - Bike-Aid 3,600 Miles Across The U.S.A.
1999 - The Great Divide Mountain Bike Expedition
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August 5, 1998 - Fort Wayne - WapakonetaDISTANCE TRAVELED: 70.75 MilesTIME: 5 Hours 10 Minutes AVERAGE SPEED: 15.8 Miles/Hour TRAVEL CONDITIONS: Hot humid and rainy all day and although it wasn't consistent rain, the scattered downpours were just as bad. ROAD CONDITIONS: Fairly good roads all day. 33 had a fair amount of traffic but was not too bad. TERRAIN/DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Mostly flat all day. Overall a very easy ride. DAILY JOURNAL COMMENTS: I woke up at 8:00 and tried to quickly get ready since I was the second to last to get up. I had no idea that anyone was up and wasn't at all ready to get up. After packing up, I made some sandwiches for lunch and then left around 10:15 with Matt and Tom. We skipped breakfast that was planned for us since we were late and decided to ride until we wanted lunch. After about a mile we were fortunate enough to see a bakery where we could have some breakfast. Everything was about 50 cents and it was all very good. After eating, we continued on and put our rain jackets on about a minute before a huge downpour. It only lasted for a little while and after concluding that it wouldn't rain again for a few miles, we stopped to take off our rain jackets since we were so hot. Even Gore-Tex doesn't breath well enough in the humid weather that we had. We continued on until the Ohio state line(Picture89,Picture90) where the time changed and then ate lunch at a local cafe where I had a cheesburger with fries. After eating, Lana and Julie rode up and also decided to stop for lunch. We rode on until we were about 10 miles from our destination where we had to stop again to put our rain jackets back on. It poured once more and made our feet sopping wet. We rode into the church where we discovered that we were the first to arrive at 4:25. I quickly changed into some dry clothes and then looked through our mail to see if my care package had arrived yet. Bike-Aid had changed the mail stop so that it would have to arrive in Columbus two days earlier than we had planned on so that it would be forewarded to Wapakoneta by Thursday. After checking the mail, I tried to get onto the internet but was unsuccessful so I went out into the dining room where our hosts started to arrive. I talked to them and then had a potluck dinner. After eating, we all introduced ourselves and then got assigned to our hosts where we were to stay for the night. After getting everything together, we went to their house where we got some food and then were able to relax for a while. A little later, I got onto the internet and updated my home page before going upstairs to talk for a while. After watching TV for a few minutes, I went to bed around 12:30. TRIP ROUTE: Get on 27 out of Fort Wayne. Follow until 27 and 33 combine. Follow 33 until first Wapakoneta exit. |