D2R2, August 23, 2014: Part II

Lunch Stop

I made it to the lunch stop, somewhere around the 66 mile mark. I was whupped but my cramping had become more annoying than debilitating; I would not have to limp home wounded and crestfallen after all.

At lunch, the first of two misfortunes befell The Virginian. An elderly guy in a beat up Suburu turned down the dirt road along which we'd all laid our bikes before going to the lunch tent. He clipped Ben's bike, thankfully just brushing the tire but coming close to actually running over the rear wheel. No damage but it was weird.

Nearing the farm with the savage dog

An hour or so later, cresting a ridge into open farmland and passing by a farmer with his dog, the dog rushed The Virginian and bit him on the calf. The cur tried to have a go at me as well but I bellowed at it and brandished my bike at it while the farmer scolded me for overreacting, the old fuck.

Wound inflicted by a wretched cur

Evidently the dog had had its rabies shots (as the old bastard farmer had asserted when we circled back to talk to him) because The Virginian did not come down with the dread malady. I joked with him later on in the ride that if I saw white salt rims around his mouth I wouldn't know if it indicated dehydration or the onset of rabies.

**

Among the little give-aways available at the registration tent was a bumper sticker, D2R2 in black letters in an oval frame. I told The Virginian that if I finished the entire 180K that I would put the sticker on my car. It is now the first sticker I've put on any car I've owned since my hand-me-down Volkswagen Bug from the late 1970s with the Grateful Dead stickers adorning it.

On the team car now

The remaining images offer some additional visual conceptualization of the D2R2. What an ass-kicking, gut-wrenching, soul-searching, eye-popping excellent time. Like nothing I've ever done before.

Catching a pair of riders in blue jerseys along a river

Respite before the Patten Hill Rd climb

In the nick of time - I was out of food and 
sorely in need of more
when we arrived at the rest stop to find this bounty

Patten Hill Road just ahead

Just beginning to climb Patten Hill
and already I'm off the back

Pickles and watermelon atop Patten Hill

The Virginian right at home out front

Heifer Style

Long views for tired eyes

Crossroads

Dubstoevsky in a spot of bother

The long grind of almost back but still 10 miles to go

Back!
Almost 12 hours after setting out

With the Niceness

Ride Summary: 180K (112 miles), 11.2 mph, 9 hours and 47 minutes in the saddle. Ouch.