Day 40: Something is Wrong

Course: Davenport, IA to “Dubuque,” IA

Distance: “85” miles

Terrain: Steep rolling hills

Conditions: Heat and headwind

Max Speed: 46 mph

Today I rode with Michael Walton and David Iles. Right before we left the parking lot to begin the ride, Michael Walton turned to me and said, “Something is just wrong about today. It feels…off…”
We had no idea just how much this foreshadowed our day. First off, it got hot – quickly. We already knew that the heat index was in the triple digits for the day. Not to mention we had an extremely tight rack point.

In order to reach the first rack point we had to average 20 mph. We attempted that for a while until we realized it was virtually impossible with all of the rolling hills. No one made it. However, no one got racked either. They just let us keep riding. Apparently a police officer stopped one of our crew members and told him that the highway we had been planning on riding on was too dangerous, so we were rerouted to go a different way. We kept riding and riding and it got hotter and hotter.

Eventually we hit 70 miles and were excited to only have 15 left. We knew that we were going to ride to lodging and then head out to the Field of Dreams Movie Site. About 5 miles later we were told that there is another reroute and that we would now be riding straight to the field of dreams. Shortly afterwards we were stopped for lunch since apparently it wasn’t to be at lodging anymore due to everyone being so late on the rack points. The sun decided to get a little hotter and then the crew broke it to us that we were rerouted again and that we now had 20 miles left to go and were going to be riding to lodging again. At this point, bad attitudes were flaring and people were getting short. Crew hated sitting in the sun all day and cyclists hated riding in it. Towards the end of the ride the hills only got steeper too. They were easily a 8-9% grade and some were up to a quarter mile long. Delirium doesn’t suffice for what we were feeling during that part.

We kept pushing and eventually made it to lodging having traveled 100 miles. It was a very unwanted century day. Great since we have one tomorrow, too. We showered up and headed out to the Field of Dreams. Over half of our team hadn’t even seen the movie so we had no idea why it was a big deal. We played a small baseball game and then took a few pictures and were on our way.

We got back to lodging and had a dance with the camp that we’re staying at. We got to perform our dance and they loved it as always. It’s always a great time at places like these.  

1) The pickup game

3) TCU Crew bought new hats