July 12, 1998 - Richardton - Bismark

DISTANCE TRAVELED: 81.21 Miles

TIME: 6 Hours 50 Minutes

AVERAGE SPEED: 22.3 Miles/Hour

TRAVEL CONDITIONS: Warm and sunny the entire day with a 25 mile an hour tailwind.

ROAD CONDITIONS: Most of the back roads were rough and needed to be re-paved. I-94, although smooth, had rumble strips so the shoulder was very difficult to ride on.

TERRAIN/DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Small rolling hills which were all able to be ascended at above 20 miles an hour. A very easy day.

DAILY JOURNAL COMMENTS:
I woke up around 7:00 just in time to throw on some clothes and get some breakfast. We were finally able to have a good breakfast. I had 2 eggs, bowl of Corn Pops, two pieces of sausage, a danish, two glasses of milk, and a glass of Orange Juice. It was all great and was much better than the typical granola. After talking to the monks for a while, I went back to my room and sat in bed for about 10 minutes before going to write down the directions for the day and changing into my biking clothes. I found out that I was on host clean-up which was very easy since we had left almost no mess and the monks insisted that we not clean up any of the rooms. The only problem was that many people decided to sleep after breakfast so I wasn't able to leave until 10:30. After making my sandwiches and getting everything ready, I left with Matt, Tom, and Dan. Dan fell back and we continued on with our tailwind at a speed of about 25 miles an hour. We soon caught up with some people who had left about 10 minutes earlier. We passed by David but he decided to join us so we left some more people. After riding about 25 miles in an hour, we finally came to I-94 where we were to get on. To get on, we had to turn into the wind which made me put my chain into the middle chainring in the front for the first time for the day. As soon as the wind was at our backs again, even though I was going uphill, I put the chain back into the biggest chainring and began to go about 25 miles an hour again. We flew up and down the 2 mile hills until about mile 35 where I decided that I needed to eat. I had previously passed by Matt, Tom, and David so they continued on to our lunch stop for the day. While sitting under an overpass, Jade passed by and Brad and Jen stopped for about a minute until I was ready to continue on. Brad and I raced the next 10 miles to the lunch stop. We were always trading the lead. On the downhills, I would fly past him since my bike is so much faster and on the uphills he would pass by me since he is stronger. It ended up that on one of the mile long uphills, I decided to push harder gears than normal and so I continued to increase my lead even though we were now going uphill. I kept that lead until we reached our destination where I bought some more Gatoraid, a candy bar, and an ice freeze. After we finished eating, the SAG finally caught up with us even though it was supposed to meet us there. I decided to pump up my tires so that I could go faster and found that they only had 60 psi in them when they were supposed to have at least 100 and could go up to 120! I put them up to about 110 which made the ride much better. At this time my average was a little over 24 miles an hour. We then went up to a place that had the World's Largest Cow. Obviously it was fake but it was about 35 feet high and very impressive. To get there we had to take a dirt road and go into the wind so by the time I got back to the road, my speed had dropped to about 22 miles an hour. A large group of people were riding together so Brad and I decided to pass by. About ten miles later, David caught up while going about 30 miles an hour when we thought that we were doing well at about 25. At the next small town, we stopped and bought some pizza for the three of us around 3:00. We got two 12 inch pizzas along with a 2 liter bottle of root beer for 10 dollars. After eating, we got back onto the road just as Matt, Katie, Tami, and Heather caught up. We rode into the church again together and quickly got out our things to take some showers. We went to take them and also went into a wave pool for about a half an hour. When we got out we tried to get back to the church quickly since dinner was ready. We had lots of different types of pasta and some really good tang. After eating, I called my parents and then tried to get onto the internet. I finally figured out why I can't use multiple line phones to access the internet. The phone jack is smaller than the normal one so while it is able to go into my jack on the computer, I can't get a dial tone since the two pieces don't mesh. Because of this I had to use a fax line to access the internet since it was only a single line. After this, I sat around and ate some more food that was in my care package while typing up some e-mails. I was just about to go to bed when some people came back with two short movies. The first was South Park and the second was Spice World. The first was very funny but Spice World was the most pointless and stupid movie I have ever seen. I finally got to bed around 2:00.

TRIP ROUTE:
Take Old highway 10 until you go under the highway. Get on I94 East and follow to Mandan. Get off and follow road into Bismark. Follow Main until S 3rd street. Take a right and the church will be down the road a couple of miles.