Saturday I was up at 4:30am, I picked up Patches and Craig and we left Lincoln for the Wabash Trace trailhead in Council Bluffs (same trail the Taco Ride is held on) for the GPBC's "Blanchard And Back" ride. We met up with a few others from Lincoln who rode and a special thanks to Jon for sagging us all day! Great job!
Pat races past the signs at the start of the ride. He was our leader and this ride wouldn't have been possable without him.
The 63 mile long trail is almost completely covered in a canopy of trees. It helped keep it cool and block the strong south wind. But it still was a very hot and humid day. Also the trail was a little mushy robbing us of some energy.
Silver City had booths set up in the park. We took a quick break and I picked up a homemade cookie from the 'friends of the library'.
Jon met us at each stop to make sure we were hanging in there, we'd have been toast without him.
Yeah, you've got to be a pretty serious cyclist to get in here. Funny though, they didn't unlock the door for me. Someone must have made a mistake.
We came across a couple of spots like this where recent storms had dropped trees across the trail. We ("they" really, I took pics, lol) did what we could to clear them off.
We crossed about a zillion bridges on the ride. The trail runs through the loess hills making for some beautiful views and scenic valleys.
We ate at The Depot in Shenandoah. Talk about atmosphere! I loved it! This is where Pat had to turn back, and where we should have.
Cool views! I wanted to jump... in more ways than one. lol!
The next stop was Coin Ia. We met up in the park and I laid down, this is the last thing I saw before falling asleep on the grass under the trees. My core body temp was way more than it should have been, and several others were spent too. Patches and Scott continued to the very end another 7 miles farther in Blanchard Mo.
It was then that we realized it'd be late into the night before we were done riding back to Council Bluffs (like 11pm!) so I hitched a ride with Jon while Patches and Craig rode back to Imogene. I got my pick-up from the trailhead and met them there. We were all really disapointed. It was supposed to be a 126 mile day, no one even broke a century. We had a lot of fun, and it was beautiful. But boy, I just couldn't get the lead out. And everyone else seemed to be in the same boat. Sometimes everything just clicks, and sometimes it's a day like today. But hey, any day on a bike is a good day! :)
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