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.

Nebraska and the Dog, Cat, Rat

We exited the rocky mountains and entered the great midwest. You could feel a culture swing as soon as we hit Harrison, Nebraska. The first thing we noticed was the waiving. Everybody waives to you in the midwest. The local farmers switched from ranchers to crop farmers, and the locals were excited to start the harvest. Not that the people in Wyoming were unfriendly, but there is a certain warmness that comes with this part of the country. Maybe it has something to do with growing up here.

The scenery was surprisingly beautiful. We road on the Sand Hills Journey. Apparently northern Nebraska used to be the bottom of an ocean. The result was rolling sand hills and a weaving road.

And now for the best part. The foot of snow on the ground ruled out camping, so we booked a room at the local motel. That's when we discovered the machine. The machine was a tricycle with a built in motor. This home-made contraption achieves speeds between 15 and 30 mph. The owner of the machine travels the country showing off his animals as some type of street performer. His animals include a dog, cat, and rat. Normally not that cool. However, the rat (Mousey) rides on top of the cat (Catty) and the cat rides on top of the dog (Bugger). Pretty cool. Dave and I did not give the man money, but the DCR provided us with a new headlight. A headlight that would make it half-way through the Gutter Ball - The Quest for the Perfect Game.

Bridging the Gap

The weather finally calmed down this afternoon with WDOT labeling the roads as "wet." We decided to ride our missing miles between the home of the Herders and our new home of Douglas, Wyoming. After a ridiculous number of failed attempts at hitchhiking west, we decided to to have the trip's first ITT to the random parking area where we had left off. Unfortunately, we didn't figure out that I was the only person with a watch until well into the race. Dave said we averaged in the mid 20s, and I interpreted that as he averaged in the mid 20s. Regardless, we road the 12+ miles to bridge the gap in the route.

We then crossed good-old I-25 to head east and back to the hotel. Ten minutes with the thumbs out failed. Although we are two damn attractive individuals (especially by Wyoming standards), ourlooks could not get us a ride.

We then road another mile and decided to try our luck again. The new strategy of flagging down the first truck worked perfectly. We bummed a ride with an Okie antelope hunter who kindly moved his rifle clearing just enough space for us to squeeze into the front seat.

This particular hunter was not going all the way to our destination. He hinted at dropping us off at his exit, but some well-timed stuttering and mummbling on our parts left the hunter with only one option of going to the next exit. This exit just happened to be our exit six miles further down the road. The hunter immediately shed the extra weight and we hit the liquor store for some well-deserved beers.

Tomorrow's forecast predicts ice pellets early in the moring. After said pellets are cleared, we should have no problem hitting the road. With a little luck, we could enter Nebraska. The blog will not likely be updated for a few days, but be sure to tune-in later in the week because the big plans are creeping closer to reality.

Gutterballs Out

More Pics

Cabin Fever!!!

You know you are screwed when you check the weather and see the following words: freezing rain, snow storms, black ice, super slick, rollovers, winter storm advisory, cars in the ditch, winds from the east and liquor store closes at 8:00. My new personal favories include frozen fog and tomorrow's forecast of ice pellets. Seriously? This storm is so bad they are inventing weather conditions.

Both of us are starting to lose it, but the breakfast lady just told us this joke. Why is it so windy in Wyoming? (Answer at the bottom of the post.)

We are strictly adhereing to the rules of no sagging on the trip, so we are trying to hitchhike back towards Casper 12 miles only to return to our current position in Douglas, Wyoming. We took full advantage of Dom's support by traveling 30 miles in the past three days. Unfortunately, Dom skipped a Broncos game to join our adventure. The Broncos won in overtime. The best part of the 30 miles has to be when we entered Glenrock, Wyoming - the home of the Herders. Go Herd!



Answer: Because Nebraska sucks and Montana blows.

Pictures