Day 44: T-Storm Warnings

It was a wild day for myself and all the guys as we headed to Union, MO. Our ride today was 80 miles however I only rode the first 10 of them. I had to rack after my clip broke; see last night I tried to replace them so I could have new ones for today but found that I had bought the wrong ones. So this morning I tried to ride on them and within the first 10 miles the plastic broke, forcing me to rack because I kept coming out of the clips every time I took a pedal stroke. It was defiantly frustrating having to rack, it is always more fun being on the bike. That was my crazy part of the day, the team however would encounter some of our harshest weather yet. There was a thunder storm warning this morning that was heading straight for our path. It wasn’t until mile 50 that the storm came in. The guys had to get off their bikes and get in the vans as the thunder and lightning rolled in quick. Some of the pace lines were far to far from the vans so they had to take ditch their bikes and take cover; one pace line was invited into a very generous man’s house. They stayed very warm, and got coffee! The storm passed right over us as we heard thunder going off immediately after lightning strikes, it was really exciting. The storm lasted about 30 minutes and the guys got back on their bikes after we hadn’t seen lighting for about 20 minutes.

It sounded like the rest of the day was really fun, we passed many brick houses that made up the area outside Union. I tried to encourage the guys all day at the crew stops since I couldn’t be on the bike. Lodging today was at Union High School and pizza for lunch was sponsored there by the Pi Kapp Chapter from Truman State University. I went to the bike shop again to get those new clips I needed but they didn’t have the style my pedals fit into. Thankfully Matthew Sartin had an extra pair and let me have them, Matt is a great guy and has some incredible life accomplishments and stories he has shared on the trip with us like how he lost 60 pounds a few years ago. Hopefully in the next town I can get him some new ones if the bike shop there carries them.

Dinner tonight was sponsored by some very nice men that were a part of the Union Rotary Club. They brought in some catered food that we ate at this restaurant in oldtown. We didn’t have a friendship visit tonight so we headed back to lodging where a bunch of guys got on the computers and did their laundry. Tomorrow we leave for St. Louis!