It started raining when we left the hotel and promptly started to hail! Did I mention it was a cold rain? After more than one-hour the rain stopped and it started to warm up a little. The road between Tucumcari and Dalhart is very flat but the rumble strip is in the middle of the shoulder and there's a lot of truck traffic. After the first SAG stop, the wind really picked up. We were headed NE and the wind was directly out of the N @ 20+ mph and gusting to 30+. I hung in as long as I could before hailing one of CrossRoads' vans and throwing in the towel. With fifty miles to go, I was barely making 10 mph against the wind...it was going to take me five hours more hours to reach the night's lodging. I wasn't the only rider to come to the sane conclusion, but a bunch of the gang put their heads down and fought their way in to complete every inch.
3:23; 44 miles; 1,012' climb; 1,924 Calories
This is what the road looks like, straight and very flat. This was after the rain had stopped but the wind never did.
My bike on the back of the van.
SAG stop
My view for the last part of the ride.
XIT feedlot outside of Dalhart. Thousands and thousands of cows being fattened up for hamburgers. Imagine the smell.
Outside of La Quinta Inn in Dalhart.
The new rogues.
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| Lori |
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| Paul |
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| Joanne |
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| Tom and Laurel |
Haiku to Headwinds:
ReplyDeleteHeadwinds, my headwinds,
Why must you torment me so?
Please go away now
the driver in your van should pay attention to the road and not the route sheet
ReplyDeleteexcept for the hail it sounds like the wind we had on the 09 ride. I remember it as the toughest ride of the entire trip
ReplyDeleteWhat took 7 hours of riding in '09, took 10 hours this year. As bad as the ride to Dalhart was in 2009, this one was worse.
DeleteHail, hail, the gangs all here. At least at the end of the day, the gang was at the hotel having second or third(?) dinners.
ReplyDelete