Picture Classics and one final ramble

Possibly my favorite photo of us riding, getting after it on a climb in Yellowstone.



19 hours into the Cannonball, 2nd waffle house.




Apperently, "falling into Geysers turns you into a huge dork in yellowstone national park" Justin Johnson




On the eve of the Gutterball; the process of perfecting the pancake suffered a second failed attempt, the first ended up in the fire. By the time the flapjack was perfected we were in North Carolina.



Finally made it to Mammoth Cave National Park, KY, now loitering in the hotel and deciding these caves aren't really worth our time


Most of the time my favorite memories come in moments where taking pictures is the last thing on your mind. These moments could never be captured by a photo or even video, they are just experienced. Whether it was riding the first 30 miles out of Bay View, WA on nervous energy not knowing what to expect, or taking our final turn towards the ocean in Myrtle Beach. Watching Justin develop as a true cyclist from suffering up the cascades to finding his bonk proof legs and hammering up Appalachian climbs. Putting smiles on continental breakfast ladies across the nation as they proudly looked on as we devoured any food in sight. From the feeling of the ground whizzing by your feet at 30 mph behind a tailwind to suffering in a headwind at 2:00 in the afternoon knowing you had to make it another 75 miles that day. From Cannonballing to gutterballing. Making full moon descents of passes in the Appalachians and talking with hundreds of interesting characters throughout the country. These are just a few of the memories that I will take out of our ride from sea to shining sea.

JJ's Cannonball

DP's cannonball

Stats and Jerseys

Total Mileage - 3,385.5
Total Time - 257:39
Total Days - 43

Longest Day - 300.3 (Gutterball - Ericson, NE --> Altoona, IA)
Longest Day Without Support - 223.5 (Cannonball - Spartanberg, SC --> Myrtle Beach, SC)
Shortest Day - 0 (Gardiner, MT; Casper, WY; West Des Moines, IA; Iowa City, IA)

Days stuck within 50 miles of Casper, WY - 5 days for 50 miles of riding

States - 12 (WA, ID, MT, WY, NE, IA, IL, IN, KY, TN, NC, SC)

Days With Support - 13

Hotel Days - 19


Mechanical Problems

Flat Tires (no flats since WY)
DP - 6
JJ- 3

Shifter
JJ - left shifter broke with 750 miles to go, lost half the gears but still had the important easy gears

Trailer
JJ - bike shop gave Justin an old Burley trailer in West Des Moines, IA


Jerseys

Yellow Jersey - (1) Justin Todd Johnson (257:39); (2) David Mario Palazzo (+0.00)

The Yellow Jersey is settled by roshambo (rock, paper, scissors). This epic rosham was best of 7. Johnson's paper suffocated Palazzo's rock during the seventh round at the Myrtle Beach Public Library. The yellow jersey was awarded accordingly.


Green Jersey - (1) David Mario Palazzo - 91; (2) Justin Todd Johnson - 58

Palazzo racked up a lot of spring points early in the tour leaving Johnson too much ground to catch-up. Massive sprints to broder crossings in KY, TN, and SC ended within a bike wheel and utlimately clinched the sprinting category.


Polka Dot - (1) David Mario Palazzo - 66; (2) Justin Todd Johnson - 52

Palazzo quickly took to the lead ascending massive passes in the Cascades and Rocky Mountains before the spry Johnson. Finally in shape, Johnson put up a viscious fight for the Appalachians. However, some missing signs and lack of opportunities proved to be too little too late.


White - (1) David Mario Palazzo

Palazzo was able to fend off all competitors in the under 25 classification.


Lantern Rouge ("The Red Lantern") - (1) David Mario Palazzo; (2) Justin Todd Johnson

Palazzo graciously took the jersey for the last competitor to complete the tour without getting disqualified. A great tour for a man barely able to defeat a humiliating disqualification.

FAQ's and Not So Frequently Asked Questions

People were full of questions on this trip. Our questions revolved around campgrounds, bikeshops, wal-marts, and food. The questions towards us were almost always the same, but ocassionally we would get a gem.

FAQ

1. Where did you guys start?

Today we started in ______. Originally we started north of Seattle, Washington. Yes, the state of Washington.

2. How far do you guys go in one day?

We shoot for 100 miles.

3. Where are you from?

Colorado. Justin originally grew up in Iowa. Dave is from Denver.


Gems

1. Are you guys professionals?

No, but we would be if you gave us a free meal. (We should have said yes.)

2. Is that your trainer? (pointing to Ray Johnson)

No. He did provide much needed support. He is not a trainer, but we consider him a Gutterballer.

3. So do you guys do those racing tours? Like that one in France?

Neither one of us has participated in the Tour de France. Dave does do some racing though back in Colorado.

4. Where can I rent one of those bikes?

Sorry, we own these bikes. I'm not sure if you can rent bikes around here.
(Drag of the cigarette.)

Aren't those trailers cute?

Yes.

(Looking back, I would have paid the two women to ride these two bikes for as long as they wanted to ride them. They reminded me of Marge Simpson's sisters.)

Cannonballing into the Ocean

Cannonball:
1. a missile, usually round and made of iron or steel, designed to be fired from a cannon.
2. anything that moves with great speed, as an express train.

3. Cycling. A double century with fully loaded trailers.

A Cannonball had been a frequent topic of conversation during our trip. We spoke about it as more of a joke than anything, something maybe we could do on Halloween in costumes. We sat in 'the berg' eating breakfast and discussing our final two day mileage strategy. We were two big days away, 230 miles we thought. How should we do it, 130 then 100? 150 then an easy 80? ‘Well I guess we could just cannonball it’ Justin commented almost under his breath as he sipped his OJ. That was all it took, our final push, it had to be done.

A cannonball was soon underway and before we knew it we were lost. Well not so much lost just a wrong turn, 3 to 5 miscellaneous miles and were back on track. 6 O’clock came and the sun started to disappear, flashbacks from the gutterball started to come as we got the lights and highly visible gear (AKA high vis).
The night went well and we seemed to be making incredibly good time, too good we thought, at this rate we’ll arrive at the beach in the dark. That might be the worst thing imaginable, one of our reasons for pushing through the night was to see the beach during the day we arrived. We had a century to go and it was only eight O’clock. We started to stop more frequently to eat and talk to friendly South Carolinians about our grand finale.

At 4:45AM we were at our 2nd waffle house in about a twenty mile stretch. A waffle house is a phenomenal tool for performance enhancing in gutterballing and cannonballing. Massive amounts of carbs were consumed. It was getting tough out on the road though, our pace had slowed significantly and the cold of the night was wearing us down. As usual we discussed our situation with our waiter and Bob, who was an old war vet in the booth next to us. Bob offered us two recliners to nap in, to regain some strength for the final thirty miles. We happily accepted, and around eight in the morning we found ourselves back at the same waffle house ready to complete our journey.

The countdown began and in a couple hours we could see the ocean. The floral department was unleashed. Our ridiculous Halloween costumes which never got used in Knoxville were put into play for the final 10 miles. We ripped through the streets of Myrtle Beach and rode down to the water. What a feeling, we made it, 43 days from our start from Bay View Washington. We rode the bikes down the beach and into the ocean officially destorying our machines and completing the cannonball finale.

Flight from the Foilage

After the epic day of climb through the park, we road towards Asheville, NC and our final state - South Carolina. The day started with another brutal climb. One of the local folks called us "f***ing idiots" on the way up. I partially agreed with his assessment of the situation.

We climbed higher and higer continuing to shed layers as the day started at 35 degrees and peaked in the mid 70's. We finally hit the top of the pass and road a massive downhill through another terrible tourist city. Needing new calories stat, Dave found a great Italian restaurant. He ordered a spaghetti and meatball pizza. Fearing what that would entail, I just ordered the same but without the pizza format. The food came to the table, and Dave's pizza won the day. Definitely one of the best orders of the trip.

And then one of my favorite parts of the trip occurred. We were riding mostly in rolling hills, and we though we were finally out of the the mountains. That's when the best sign you can see on the road appeared. The sign beamed back at us due to the reflecton from our headlamps. The sign was a bright yellow diamond. It included the outline of a truck heading straight down at an angle with "4 miles" neatly printed below. This was an unexptected decent. It came out of nowhere and would proveto be the best downhill of my life. A full moon shined on the horizon and the last gasps of the sun provided just enough light to see the fall foilage. The road was consistently steep and windy. We maintained speeds well over 30 miles per hour and finally fell out of the last mountain range the United States of America had to offer.

We road deep into the night in order to set up for the grand finale. The people in South Carolina were the nicest since Nebraska. People gave us much needed encouragement and were genuinely excited about what our trip. It was late at night and their excitement only helped us get to where we needed to go. We talked to one family in a Subway gas station that even wanted their picture take with us. (If you are that family, please send us your email address. I would like to see that photo if possible and thanks again for helping us with a place to eat.)

The day ended 114.1 miles from our campsite in the park to Spartanberg, SC. A lot of hard miles, but The Berg would quickly become an unplanned launching pad as we prepared to get shot into the ocean.

Appalachian Epic

We slept in later than usual at our Marriott hotel room and quickly checked out and headed across the street to the Hampton Inn, our preferred choice for continental breakfast. The plan was a half day, a short day, maybe fifty miles or so to the Great Smokey Mountains, maybe we can find a spot to camp at the top we thought. Little did we know this national park was like nothing we’ve ever seen before. According to the park ranger over 40,000 people visit this park per day, today was a busy day. Cars swarmed like bees around a bee hive and the gapers driving them had the habit of honking for no apparent reason. We rode into the visitors center around 3:30pm. A 3,700 foot climb awaited us and we headed out into the traffic jam that was the national park.

Along the climb we spotted a black bear about 50 feet off of the road. Chaos ensued when I pulled over to try to take a picture. We soon found ourselves in a similar situation to the one we experienced in Yellowstone. We were surrounded, not by bison this time but cars. They pulled in every direction blocking the road and asking frantically, ‘where is it? What did you see?’

Aside from the outrages number of people in the park the climb was beautiful. We rode hard and fast, wanting to leave the mountains with a bang. Near the top the traffic finally started to die down and we road up into the clouds. By now it was dark, so we bundled up and descended by the light of a full moon 15 miles to camp.

Live update: Wrong way on a one way

The blog has been updated with new photos from previous posts. Once again we leave to head into the mountains going the wrong way on a one way Knoxville street. Big plans are in store from the Gutterballers as we prepare for the final push into the ocean.

Halloween!

We will be taking an off day in Knoxville, TN for Halloween. If we're lucky, we might see a SEC football game. If we're not, we will still be dressed to kill in our sweet costumes. We will then attempt the Great Smoky Mountains tomorrow with fresh legs and a fresh hangover.

Pictures to follow soon.

Jerseys and Attacking Animals

Dave currently holds all jerseys. Doping rumors continue to circulate among the tour participants as neither competitor has been the victim of random drug testing.

Dogs attack at every house, so we have been forced to redefine attacking animals. Epic sprints to state borders have resulted in some missed opportunities for Justin, and a huge mental lapse right before the Kentucky border most likely sealed the green jersey for Dave. The only hope is more llamas, which Dave cannot spot for some reason. Justin also picked up the first dinosaur of the trip with a beautiful 20 foot triceratops for three points.

Liquifacton: A day of Torrential Downpour

Indiana is not the friendliest place in the world. It's a lot less friendly when it rains on you for 8 hours. This was our first rain day, and it ended in ridiculous fashion. We hit some road construction, roads with no shoulders, and puddles in the road that bordered on the label lakes or rivers. We were a mandatory ride to the Kentucky border with no places to stay in sight. Day had turned into night quicker than normal because the storm that rained on us all day blocked the setting sun. This was the new scariest moment of the trip. It was also the wettest I have ever been with clothes on my body since I fell into a creek when I was five years old. On that day, I remember my parents despartely running towards my friends and the creek thinking that I had been swept away. I can only imagine they would do something similar in this situation.

And then we were saved. A man named Steve flagged us down on the side of the road. Steve is a retired geologist. He lookes for liquifaction that is caused by old earthquakes, so people do not build nuclear power plants on top of a fault line. Before we met Steve, we were deep in the world of a different kind of liquifaction.

Our savior had a farn house less than one mile away. Steve cooked us warm vegetable soup with ingredients from his garden, let us use his dryer, and his shower had the best water pressure I have experienced in quite some time. He certainly saved the day. Flapjacks and eggs in the morning provided the needed fuel for the sprint to Kentucky.

The First Bad Day

The day started as a Monday. Normally days of the week, dates, and even time make no difference. We have not had a chance to update the blog in a long time, and we just entered eastern time. Today time does something different and we gain an hour? I really have no idea. Regardless, this day started as a Monday.

I was out of it from the beginning. Our first stop was a new breakfast at a Hampton Inn. This was a business a hotel. We are not business men. We silently ate our eggs, toast, and muffins next to man with a finely pressed shirt tucked into his khaki pants. His eyes occasionally strayed from the Wall Street Journal to the television as Jim Cramer babbled about new corporations, the S & P, and inflation. The man was clueless to the fact that his neighbors just slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot, were living out of trailers connected to bicycles, and were about to ride 100 miles to another home yet to be determined. The only thing we had in common was the free breakfast.

We started the ride heading south into a head wind and deeper into the midwest and eventually the south. I could not help but notice the pounds starting to pile up on the people surrounding us with accents thickening. The friendly waives of Nebraska and Iowa slowly turned into dumb looks and disapproval.

My mind quickly entered the dangerous subjects of relationships, friends, debt, jobs, and the other life that I have been ignoring. These are all of the things a person in their mid-20's tries to figure out and probably never will. I usually ride without an ipod, but no ipod turned into one headphone and then eventually to two headphones as the sounds of Band of Horses, Jimi Hendrix, and My Morning Jacket tried to get me through the day.

My mind continued to jump from topic to topic with no real answers. Suddenly, the wind shifted. I thought the funk had ended and maybe the tide had turned. I was wrong. We had just missed all of the places to eat in our lunch town and we were now in the terrible world of car repair, farm machinery, and the last landmark of a town - the landfill. We just road 6 miles in the wrong direction. We had no choice but to ride the same six miles and go back to our turn for a total distance of misc. (or miss) miles.

The day finally ended at a flooded campground on the edge of the Illinois/Indiana border. Surprisingly, we stil managed close to 100 miles. I hoped the next day would be better and the great state of Indiana would bring a better ride.

Continental Kings and the Next Generation

With population sizes rapidly picking up as we head into the east we have been forced to develop new camping strategies. Wal-mart has been our latest discovery, providing oversized parking areas with well trimed fenced in grass, wal-mart is a good place to camp in towns big enough to have one.

Over the weekend we were lucky enough to meet up with my uncle, Marcello. We quickley adopted the method of motor-pacing, as the winds have picked up in the open farm lands of Illinois. Being a former cyclist himself, Marcello was used to riding behind the car, not driving. The highlight of the weekend came that night after we checked into the hotel room. Being a Chicago native, March knows how to eat, and he brought us itallian beef from Portillos. It was quite the treat and we passed the night drinking beer and reminiscing about our trip thus far and some of March's experiences on the track. Luckely he went over some of his horific crashes from motor-pacing after we were safely in the hotel.

Crossing the Old Man

We left Iowa City and our good friends behind only to experience the thick of the storm and massive down pour. Before we left, we ate at my old dorm Hillcrest (a.k.a H-Block). H-Block delivered big with Hawkeye waffles and a buffet that included breakfast sandwiches, 10 choices of cereals, chocolate pancakes, muffins, and a variety of other foods that would provide the necessary fuel to take us into Illinois.

We crossed the Mississippi River with important sprint points up for grabs. Dave made an unecessary delay on a left turn, and I took complete advantage. My first sucessful attack in a long time put me in the Land of Lincoln well ahead of the slower Dave Palazzo. Unfortunately, Dave picked up some attacking animal points just before the border when a dog made a silent attack but was easily outrun by the cyclists. The attacking animals are getting smarter.

We road into the rain when a nice women stopped us and offered her home as a place to stay. After a short debate, we decided to continue to another 25 miles towards another town in order to take advantage fo a brisk tail wind. We arrived at our overnight town well past dark, wet and tired. Camping spots were nowhere to be found. Hotels were pricy as elementary aged gymnists flock into small-town Illinois for an important tournament.

We continued through town looking for a city park or anywhere for a place to sleep. But then we saw it. It was like a beacon of freedom glistening in the night illuminating the town with capitalism and low prices - always. Yes, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart provided the pefect camp ground. We found a nice spot in the corner of the parking lot well out away from customers. The local high school football team was playing close to our camp site. We quickly set up shop, and I slowly dozed off to the sounds of marching drums, the winner of the 50/50 split ticket, and the occasional screams from high school girls as they cheered on their boyfriends in 40 degree temps and steady rain.

This morning we left our Wal-Mart heaven for a nearby hotel where we poached the free breakfast and managed to update the blog you just read over a warm cup of tea and a steaming hot waffle.

The Kenworthy Factor and the Man-Made Vortex

We left Des Moines and headed towards Iowa City with the help of Adam Kenworthy. You may remember Adam from such blogs as "Special Thanks." Adam motor-paced us all of the way to my alma mater and the home of the undefeated Iowa Hawkeyes.

Motor-pacing is a special form of cheating where you follow within inches of a rapidly moving vehicle. The massive draft allows cyclists to mainatin high speeds. We made it the 107 miles to Iowa City averaging well into the mid 20's, which included speed bursts over 40 mph. We made the journey in a little over four hours.

Iowa City is a great town with great people. The weather was terrible with rain all day. Because we we were with such great people and still feeling some negative post Gutter Ball effets, we settled on yet another off day. The off day ended with a few beers and Dave dancing with the local belly dancer. Unfortunately, photographing Fajita was prohibited.

The Gutterball - The Quest for the perfect game

I could hear the wind howling outside of my tent when I woke up late on Sunday. Anxious to see the direction it was blowing I crawled out of my tent to find strong winds from the south, exactly as we expected. The good news, the wind would bring warm weather from the south, the bad news was severe crosswinds, which would certainly hurt our chances in the days quest.

300 miles in 24 hours. Could it be done? The distance from Grand Junction to Fort Collins. Most thought it was 150 miles too far for us. It was about 170 miles farther than our previous days best.

We were in Ericson, NE, 300 miles outside of Des Moines, IA, and the starting point of the gutterball. Little was said as we packed up and headed out to meet Ray, who would support us and drive behind us during the night. Our first priority was to eat. Lately when we go to a restaurant we order at least two entrees each. What would happen today? We needed something big, real big. We scanned the highway for some sort of diner or buffet, there was nothing, I went into the gas station to ask some questions. I explained our situation briefly to the lady at the counter and she handed me a sheet of paper for a pancake feed at the local gym. It must have been destiny I thought, not just a breakfast but a feeding and exactly the fuel we needed. We annihilated pancake after pancake while making some friends and scoring an interview with the local newspaper.

The sirens rang outside of the fire station, it was noon and our start time. We would ride until noon the next day, hoping to reach the 300 mile goal in that time. Our initial thought was a 15 mph average for 20 hours, leaving us with 4 hours off of the bike to cram in as much calories as possible. The first three hours on the bike was a constant math problem going through our heads. Taking our average speed and comparing it to the watch on Justin's bike. At three O'clock we covered exactly 45 miles.

We soon developed a system on the bike, going off of the mile markers on the side of the road, we each took two mile pulls at the front. It was always disheartening to see mile marker one, once we turned on a new road, a constant reminder of how many miles we had to go.

The miles slowly ticked by two at a time, and before we knew it we were in the dark. At first it was exhilarating, the wind had died and our speed, although the same, seemed so much faster. That feeling however quickly faded and was overcome by exhaustion, fatigue and pain. We struggled to hold a straight line, weaving from side to side in our sleep deprived state.

A mile marker passed indicating Justin’s turn for a pull at the front. Nothing happened, did he not see the marker? I kept going, looking back occasionally to see Justin’s head staring down at his pedals. He was in his own world, the pain cave, an all encircling state in which there is no escaping. He rode up next to me, ‘I don’t think I’ll make it, I’m down to one leg’ he said. His achelis tendon was making pedaling a nightmare. I looked down at my computer which read 210 miles. Our speed was slowly decreasing to a crawl, I stayed in front to try to lift the pace, but it was useless our legs were not responding. This could be it I thought, we’ll never make it at this rate. All of a sudden our speed started to increase, 14, 15, 16, 17 mph. We were being pushed along, I looked to the side of the road and noticed the rows of wheat lining the road swaying, the wind was back, and for once in our favor. Justin came in front with new determination, there was still a chance.

We made it to Panora and the beginning of the bike path that would lead us the last 60 miles into Des Moines. The sun started to rise and we hit some of the first flat ground of the whole day. We were hungry but didn’t have the time to sit down for a proper meal. It was going to be close, with 2 hours 15 minutes we had 30 miles to ride. We weaved in and out of bike paths and back roads at full speed as Justin navigated the route through Des Moines. We were going to have to ride past the city to make 300. We kept heading east, it was 11:30 and we were about to hit the mark, half a mile to go. Sick of the awful road we ended up on, we rode into a safeway parking lot to do laps, hands raised in victory we rode our personal champs-elysees, and ended the gutterball with a perfect score of 300.