Weekly Summary

 

Be Sure Not To Miss The Song I Wrote — It Is At The Bottom!

 

My Wife Visits!

My wife Stacie flew up yesterday afternoon to spend the rest day with me. On our way back from the group dinner, where she met the crew, we got a picture with the state capitol Tuesday evening.

I donned my US Soccer team jersey from a few World Cups ago that Stacie brought and we hit town. We learned that you can walk through the capitol and that they had a viewing platform up high. We went back Wednesday and it was really a beautiful building. You can see a range of pictures from it. Worth a visit if you’re in town.

We then walked down a mile or so along the main strip to University of Wisconsin. We got a picture with the mascot at the bookstore, one on one of their huge lawn areas, and one of the lake. The university was nice and in a great location.

Walking through downtown was less exciting. Lots of homeless (and often clearly high) drug users around. Sharps containers in stores’ bathrooms (as a result of prior). Items behind barriers in Walgreens (I’ve heard this happens but hadn’t seen it before). A bit disappointing.

I got some Wisconsin brats for lunch at a local place and watched the end of the England game. We plan to get dinner and then head to a local bar to watch the US game.

Rest Stop Set Up

I included a few pictures of how the van is set up and how rest stops and lunches are laid out. The snack table has fruit, peanut butter, honey, and a variety of energy snacks. The van door area has the water and sports drink mixes. The front door has sun screen, but spray, and the anti-chafing cream. Lunch is similar, but a bigger table with more food.

Bike Reconfiguration Working

The reconfiguration I did to bypass my broken shifter is working fine. I still hit the wrong lever now and then out of habit, but I will have no problem making this work. I included a screen shot of the phone app for the shifters so you can see how simple it actually is to do.

If you open the image, you can see that there are 3 buttons on each side and next to each it says what it does. If you tap on one of the items, it brings up a standard Apple scroller where I can pick from a list of items to assign that button. The two items that say “D-FLY” are internal options. It came standard and whatever it means, it connects to my bike computer and lets me scroll through screens without taking my hand off the bars to touch the computer. 

Leg Is Doing Great!

I haven’t mentioned my calf / achilles lately because it has been mostly a non-factor. I’m still icing and stretching a lot, but it has stayed within the zone where it is bearable and I’m not worried about it totally going out on me like at the start of the tour. I even did the really steep hills this week without issue. I am shocked, but happy, that it seems to be healing even as I work the heck out of it.

Update On The Person Who Wrecked And Another Drop

He is still in the hospital, but not the ICU. They got the sepsis and staph under control, but he now has some ulcers in his gut from the medications he was on. So, improving but still a long way to go.

On another note, a gentleman who lives in Minnesota decided to drop out of the rest of the tour once we reached Minnesota. We’ve lost 33% of our riders now, which is apparently not a common occurrence. We’ll miss him, but we understand that he did what he needed to.

Spontaneous Chick-fil-A Props

Below the photos is a short video another rider shot on our way into Madison. It was an unplanned moment where I spontaneously gave props to our local hometown hero restaurant Chick-fil-A while wearing their jersey. I know my friends at their HQ will appreciate it!

My Song About Wind

I’ve complained about our bad luck with crazy winds in our face causing us a lot of extra effort even though the winds typically go the other way. With hours and hours fighting the wind to think about it, I came up with a little song based on the song Tomorrow from Annie. If you think about the tune for that song, then my version will fit right in the flow.

You will either find this song very entertaining or very annoying, but regardless you’ll probably find that, like me, you can’t get the dang tune out of your head for days. The early word is that I may even be nominated for a Grammy for best adaptation of a song into a parody. Look for me at the live awards show next year!

Sung to the tune of Tomorrow from Annie

Headwinds will be back
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There’ll be wind

Just thinkin’ about
Tomorrow
Makes me anxious,
Because I will be
Fighting wind!

When I’m fighting the wind
I’m slow,
And so tired,
I just keep pedaling
And frown,
And Say,
Oh!

Headwinds will be back 
Tomorrow
So I gotta hang on
Full of sorrow
Those dang winds

Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I dread ya Tomorrow!
Winds once
Again in
My face!