2008 Tour de Kale Denton North Carolina cycle + inline skate event

Funny report MikeB! I dunno about '...fresh as spring daisies...', more like wilted ones that have been mangled into a daisy chain. I was out of it at that rest stop, and was in 'hanging in there' mode trying to get back to Denton Farmpark! The heart-rate monitor saw to it that my legs weren't cramping, but my brain was totally fried. Yes! It is a rush to skate past cyclists in the beginning and reel them in one by one, but I haven't yet gotten to the point of not bonking as a result of that :-) Looking forward to skating with you again sometime. Maybe we can all coordinate rotations or something and catch a draft or two!

Yes it was funny early on when rotating. We started out by making a half circle around the Denton Farm Park, essentially. I was still goofing off taking photos, and by the time I took pics of the back entrance of Denton Farm Park it was way past time to rotate. When MikeB's very first time up front came, he was gone in 60 seconds! We never expected to see him again until perhaps lunchtime if we could make it there in time to catch him before rolling out in his car. But we went on with our tortoise technique and figured we'd survive the miles and heat and have a good day, despite feeling a bit unworthy of course. This was so much the case that neither of us even noticed MikeB at the rest stop, where food and drink were of intense focus. Despite his having been there when we arrived, it was several minutes before we noticed him and I remember thinking he probably wouldn't be able to go as slow as us if we restarted together. In fact, there was a hill right after that stop and amazingly enough, I needed to go off the road for a few seconds even on that first climb after a stop (of course, standing around and talking to new people are not exactly rest for me, as animated as I can be around new folk). You can see a notch in our route right after the red spot for the rest stop (use the drop down to pick one of the topo map options and you'll be able to zoom in further than the grey terrain option...btw the NEXRAD drop down shows the rain currently in that area, which might be handy next year). Once we get dropped we sort of get into our tortoise "steady as she goes" (convert from Kirk to Spock) mode and do our own thing, figuring we'd better go our steady way and get there whenever we can. We always expect to be dropped again so we don't try to leave the same time as others who've already shown they'll leave us...once a day is enough methinks. Sometimes the turtle way works out faster, but usually not. It's just more enjoyable overall (over the years especially) and perhaps a bit safer, but not in every way. On this day, I just knew I needed to keep going so my cramps wouldn't appear, and get out of the sun when we could. Later I got a full dose of cramps on one of the rides north of Greensboro, the Red, White & Blue show'n'go, where we did 9 extra miles due to a missing road sign. We really enjoyed the lunchtime with MikeB and Northinsouth (and jr) and lots of cyclists in a great mood, plus some local guys who'd been around for decades in this place and love it well. More than anything this is an event where you know who will be benefitted each year, and can read their stories. And it's true that there's very little traffic because it seems everyone nearby is involved in volunteering for this great cause. Thanks for coming, MikeB, and get yourself over here for some of these free training rides. You don't have to do the Tour to do them...but you may decide you want to.