Total Mileage: 3463.3 miles
Due to the fact we we out in the middle of nowhere, and we were up before the sun we had a great view of the stars. I had my stuffed packed up pretty quickly and over the next fifteen minutes or so the starts began to disappear as morning twilight hit the mountains. One of the things I am going to miss, among many, is the sunrises and sets we get to see every day.
Within the first few miles of our ride we came to find out that our cue sheet was off. Instead of taking the original route through a Marine base we hopped on the highway and then hopped off at the next exit to pick up the road we needed. For part of the morning we got to ride along historic Route 66 which was pretty awesome.
As we continued our ride we saw signs that the road we were supposed to take had been washed out from some flash flooding. In true SUS style, we ignored the signs and decided to take on the challenge of riding/carrying our bikes on what little bit of the road remained. From the pictures you can tell it was more carrying than riding.
For most of the afternoon we were riding through China Lake which has a pretty interesting history. This section of the Mojave Desert houses the Naval Air Weapons Station. It was crazy that most of the time we could hear the jets long before they came into view.
After second lunch we hit some major rolling hills before a large, steady incline (hello Tioga practice). the only good thing about the incline is that we knew we would be descending for the last portion of our ride.
One of the things on my bucket list is to have a motorcyclist sit on my bike while I sit on theirs. About twenty miles from the host we pulled into a gas station to grab some ice and as I was knocking back some green teas a bunch of motorcycles rode up. One of the guys agreed to take a picture with me which was great and I got to cross another thing off my list.
From there there was a great descent before we hit two large hills. As I have aside before and I say it every time to my group I am slow and will meet you at the top. All the climbing from the day added up as we hit the top of the last hill because from there we descended the rest of the way into the host with speeds in the high 30s. Yay for letting gravity do all the work and not my quads.
This week our crew is on dinner crew and because most of our hosts are not going to be providing dinner we are responsible for whipping something up. Feeding 27 hungry bikers is really like feeding 50 people ... People I am not joking here, our metabolisms have gotten way out of hand. Looking for something quick and easy I threw out the idea of making a baked macaroni and cheese. A few weeks ago one of the other groups had attempted, but they had burned the fake cheese they were using and it was a disaster. This time I was able to convince the leaders to get the real thing and dinner was a huge success. The pressure will be on to recreate three more dinners.
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