When I woke up at 6am and made my way upstairs to go to the bathroom, I saw Lesli heading out of the door which means the families were just rolling out and we'd probably be running into each other all day long.
They were telling me the night before how when they started they had all 6 tandems sticking together, so when one had to stop, they all did, which made for some long days, so they broke apart into 3x 2 tandem teams and just planned to meet up at a 2-3 planned stops along the way, which struck me as a really good way to handle a big group like that.
I was packed up and ready to roll at 6:45am, and made my way to the first town of the day Eads. In town I spotted 2 of the tandems and said hello then pressed on. About this time in the morning a north-west headwind picked up making for slow goings ahead. About half way to Haswell, the 50 mile point of the day, I spotted a rare tree by the road and stopped under it to cool off a bit and eat an orange. The prairie around me seemed to get sparser and more sandy but still mostly flat / slightly uphill, with barbed wire fences running along off both sides of the road.
After a little rest, I saw bikes in the distance, closing on my shady tree. Tandems! I closed my panniers and walked to the edge of the road as they got near. Dan yelled to me "Lets do this!" so I hopped on my bike and joined the group. I quickly found out that my solo bike with panniers had an advantage on uphills versus a tandem & trailer, and was able to pass the group, even with the headwind, and ride ahead to Haswell.
When I got to Haswell I found the one store there and stopped for a cold drink and bite to eat. 50 miles in and it was still 35 miles to the next town with city park camping or 40 miles to Ordway and cyclist only lodging at "Gillian's."
Soon enough the tandem train showed up and since this was the only place open in town, we all hung out for a late lunch. After eating most of the kids were zonked out and I chatted with the parents. It had been a long day with the headwind and it was only a little more than half over.
After a little while everyone woke from their siesta outside the shop and the push was made to Ordway now that the headwind had let up. Some healthy competition broke up the day when one of the girl's tandems pushed ahead to pass one of the boy's tandems and the race was on. I pushed ahead when the group hit some uphill, and apparently the rest of the ride the tandems were pushing hard trying to catch me, but I was able to sprint ahead on my little bike and reached Sugar City before the pack.
When everyone showed up, the group pressed on an easy 5 miles to Ordway. The families went to the park to find a place to camp and I headed over to Gillian's, as the ACA map said "ask for Gillian when you get in town" and her warm showers profile said she had a trailer for cyclists to stay at and didn't need any notice before showing up.
I found her house at the end of a long dirt road in town and immediately spied some horses and 2 goats. I got to the her house and Gillian, a woman originally from New Zealand, came out and greeted me. She showed me to the trailer which had beds and told me to feel free to come inside the house and get a shower when I was ready. She asked if I was by chance a "computer geek" and I told her I was, and she asked if I could help her figure out how to get a VOIP program to run on her computer.
I got my shower in and was helping Gillian de-clutter her XP machine when the the Schroeders and Halvorsons rolled in! The city park didn't have restrooms so they decided to try Gillian's. She was more than happy to put the crew up for the night, the boys got the trailer while the girls got a room indoors and I got Gillian's study all to myself. It was a good thing they weren't camping because a windy thunderstorm rolled in not long after they arrived and soaked the place.
Everyone seemed tired after the long day of riding in the heat so after some food people started falling asleep rather quickly. I finished up messing around with Gillian's computer, after removing the 2nd active anti-virus it ran a lot faster, and went to sleep.
Start: Sheridan Lake, CO
End: Ordway, CO
Distance: 92.05 miles
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