Today was an up and down day. We climbed for 30 miles, some of it the steepest of anything we have biked yet, and then we had 30 miles of the best downhill riding we have had to date. A good downhill is one that lasts for awhile, that means it can’t be to steep or you lose to much altitude to quickly, but steep enough so you go at least over 20 mph without peddling. This down hill lasted a long time and we were usually going around 25 mph with occasional bursts over 30 mph. A big plus was we had a strong tailwind today so even a gradual downhill resulted in good speed. We road 60 miles today and ended the ride in a Super Walmart store parking lot in Reno, Nevada. After doing some shopping we loaded the bikes on the RV and drove through Reno to the camp sight we are at tonight in Fallon, Nevada on Highway 50.

So far we have had 8 ride days and 3 rest days. We have bicycled a total of 560 miles so far with an average of 70 miles each ride day. We are going to take two rest days in a row here, both Saturday and Sunday and start all fresh and revived on Monday and attempt to ride 120 miles with some super steep climbing up to a pass at 6800 feet. There are no camp sights in between those points is the reason for the long trip. What we will probably do when the 4 of us think about it is pick a spot to finish at around 80 miles and load the bikes on the RV and drive the last 40. We could go back with the bikes on the RV to that spot the next morning except that leg is already 80 miles long. Once we get past this section of Nevada the problem of few camping spots is over.

I bought a neck brace at Walgreens today, and I am going to give that a try on Monday and see if that won’t help a bit on the neck pain that I have while riding.

We had our longest day of the trip today, 94 miles. We started at 6 am this morning and pulled into Honey Lake Campground, near Susanville, California, at 3 pm. Everyone was very tired when we got here, my gas tank was totally on empty. I went over to the shower room soon after we got here and took a very long hot shower. After I got dressed I sat down on a bench in the shower room to put my sandals on, and leaned my head back against the wall and promptly fell dead asleep, Cliff wondered what was taking me so long because he was waiting his turn. One of our riders, Gene Anderson, is heading home tomorrow, he could only do 10 days with us, and has to go back to work. His wife Tammie drove down to pick him up and the last couple of nights she has been with us we have had barbecued steak and chicken, I am sorry to see them go. We took a group picture tonight before Gene leaves tomorrow morning. My invention to help keep my neck from hurting didn’t work very well, but I did have a little bit less problem with my neck today, I don’t know if I am getting tougher or if it was the million ibuprofen that I took. Tomorrow we have a 60 mile day, with a long uphill climb of 3000 feet elevation gain, and we will end up at the parking lot of a super Walmart store in Reno. After some shopping for needed stuff we will load our bikes on the back of Tom’s RV and ride through Reno on I-80 for a little bit and end up at Fallon, Nevada at the campsite there. We will be taking a 2 day rest from biking there and recover from an assortment of aches and pains, over Saturday and Sunday and go to church on Sunday.

I was just calculating miles from this trip and the others that I have gone on and as I was thinking about all the variables I realized that I have 6,000 miles on my present bicycle tires with not a single flat tire. They are made by Continental and are called Gatorskins. I don’t know much about them, but I do know that is a long time to last especially with no flats. I have a new pair in my duffle bag in case these wear out on this trip. Tomorrow will be our toughest day on the trip so far. We are going 91 miles and the very first thing is a long, uphill climb at 6% grade most of the way. But it only lasts 10 miles then it flattens out for the next 60 miles and then downhill for the last 20 miles. Plus the weather forecast is for cooler temperatures and a 7 mph tailwind.

My desire is to be like my gatorskin tires, last a long time and have no flats, just keep on rolling along.

As I mentioned in this blog a couple days ago the pain in my neck as I ride is extreme. It isn’t bad when we start riding but the longer we go the worse it gets until we ride into camp I am nauseous from the pain. I have tried every position on the bike, but nothing seems to work, and ibuprofen, Advil, or , Aleive haven’t touched it. I keep repeating to myself as I ride, “pain is good for you, makes you grow, tough it out, give me Your strength Lord, please” but I guess I need to repeat it more. Today Cliff, Kathy and I have come up with a little invention, and tomorrow we see if is going to work.I hooked a bungy cord to my helmet and then to a back brace that Cliff has been wearing. I will adjust the tension on the bungy cord as the day goes along until I find the place where it is supporting my neck and not pulling it back. If it works it will make the bicycle trip so much more enjoyable. I have had very little butt pain this year and minimal hand pain. If this works whoooooeeee will that be nice.

Pain is a problem in life, we have physical pain, relational pain, emotional pain, and self-worth pain, non of them are fun, but all are designed by God to change us and cause us to grow in character to be like Him. My five fold motto regarding personal pain is, “when you hurt fix it if you can, pain stirs up creative thinking, second make adjustments or changes in life, pain helps guide us into God’s will for our life, but be careful you aren’t being irresponsible and wimpy running from pain, third, always ask God for strength to endure it, and fifth, never complain or grumble about it as if you are being mistreated by life, others, or God.”

A major time issue on a trip like this is the time it takes to set up camp, putting up my tent, blowing up my air mattress by mouth, as well as my inflatable pillow, pulling my sleeping bag out of it’s stuff bag and checking inside for spiders and other bugs and critters that find their way in, getting cloths ready that I am riding in the next day, cook dinner on my handy dandy little propane stove, usually a “Mountain House” freeze dried dinner, get stuff ready for the next day, including going over the route to make sure we know where we are going. We need to charge our gps bike computer, as well as our super duper bright red blinking lights that go on the back of the bicycles, and of course our phones and iPads. In the morning we reverse the whole process. This morning I got up at 4:30 am and we were on the road at 7:00 am. Here is a picture of my stove and the oatmeal I have each morning. Patty put the oatmeal as well as dates and protein powder in zip lock bags for me before we left, one for each day. The oatmeal looks funny because Patty used strawberry protein powder, but it tastes good. Then I do my reading, studying, and writing, including this blog on my iPad. It is uncomfortable to try and read in my tent because it is so small so I sit outside until I go to bed usually around 10 pm. Tonight the bugs were so bad I came up to the men’s bathroom, and I am sitting in here on a bench reading and writing on my iPad. It is nice and warm as well.

Today was the first day that it has been hot, and I forgot to put sunscreen on so I got a bit red after today’s ride. The heat and sun seem to take a lot of energy out of me so I was really tired today when we rode into camp, but I am feeling better now after eating a barbecued hamburger that Tom cooked up. We are camped on the California border on the shore of Goose Lake. I had big plans to do some fishing tonight, but right now all I want to do is sit and read. We road 67 miles today with some hills, but not killers. My brother Cliff who is riding on the trip with his wife Kathy is a Vietnam Vet so the lady overseeing the campsite said we all got to stay free in the campground, nice blessing. Cliff fell over on his bike today and has some “road rash” on one leg. Kathy was doctoring it, and I told him to rub some dirt on it! When I wrote about the 7 things I hate while on a bicycle trip I forgot one, “chip seal”. Often when they repair roads they spay the road with oil and then spread crushed gravel on it resulting in a rough surfaced road depending on the size of gravel used. We rode much of today on chip seal that seemed like it was 1 inch minus gravel, and the result is my neck is killing me as the vibration goes up the front tire to my arms and then my shoulders and neck. I let the hot water from the shower beat on it for a long time, then rubbed it good with liniment and I am going to take a billion ibuprofen when I go to bed. We head into California tomorrow and then in 2 days we will swing over into Nevada. So far the trip is going great.

We get a lot of people on the trip talking to us about the trip, in restaurants, and camp sights it is fairly constant. The first question is usually “where are you headed?” And then when I say the Grand Canyon and then Yellowstone and then back home, they almost always say “Oh my” or something equivalent to that, and the discussion begins about our sanity and the details of the trip. The rate for the campground we are in today charges $20 per night per person, but the owner said he wanted to help out on the trip so he charged us $15 instead and let us hang out in a trailer out of the sun today that he rents and the renters left this morning, nice. Here are some pictures of Summer Lake where we are camped with some alkali blowing.

I wrote yesterday’s blog as day 5 but it should be #4, so we will have 2 day 5’s. We road 65 miles today and it was a very nice day with none of the “hated seven” being a factor. We are at “Summer Lake Hot Springs” camping tonight about 4 miles north of Paisley. It is kind of a barren campsite with not a single tree, just sage brush, so we have our tents set up in this field. There aren’t any picnic tables either so we are cooking on the ground. We sat in the hot springs for about an hour and that felt so good.

Riding all day on a bicycle, looking at the country side I have lots of thinking time. Today for some reason I had a strong case of the “should haves”. I was thinking about the past in marriage, raising kids, and pastoring and I started remembering all the things that I should have done differently. The things I was thinking about weren’t necessarily sin, just unwise decisions and choices that probably would have resulted in such better results if I had done things differently. I wish I could go back and have a “mulligan”, a “do over” but that isn’t going to happen. I made the poor choices mostly because of ignorance and inexperience. I can’t do anything about most of the past now, but learn from it, and pass on the wisdom gained to others who want to learn. I wish I had been way more aggressive in seeking wisdom from others. At the time I thought I was, but now I can see that I could have learned so much more if I had sought more. It is such a shame that our pride and “know it all” attitude brings results that can’t be undone.

we are camped tonight near Fort Rock in a nice little campground. I rank campgrounds on several things, but the main one is the showers. A shower with lots of pressure and lots of hot water is like a nice massage after a long day of riding. So many campgrounds in order not to spend to much money on heating water have as much water spraying out as I can spit. We had a very nice day riding today. We rode 63 miles and there wasn’t very many hills. The 7 things that I hate most on a bicycle trip we have been totally free from so far on this trip. No mosquitos, not even one. Mosquitos like to fly along with a bicycle rider and bite him in a place that isn’t easy to swat, and cause him to swerve all over the road trying to get him. No rumble strips. People who plan for rumble strips on roads hate bicycle riders. They make them a foot wide and leave a foot between the rumble strip and the edge of the road which is really difficult and dangerous to ride in, so you are left to ride in the road with everyone who goes by honking, yelling and making various hand gestures because we are not off the main road. No rain, I hate riding in the rain. No head winds. Riding into a head wind is worse than going up a hill because a hill ends and then you get to go down. Head winds are relentless, and if I change direction so does the wind, so far none. No dogs, we haven’t had a single dog chase us with the obvious intent of eating us. No hot weather, the temperature has been in the low 70’s with lots of cloud cover, it has been super comfortable riding so far. Not to many rude and stupid drivers who like to get as close to a bicycle rider as they can without hitting him. I usually pray for them when they pass, that God would curse them with 6 months of really bad diarrhea, but so far no prayers like that. I don’t expect that what we have been having for riding conditions to continue, but I say “Thank You Jesus” for every day like today.

It has been a very nice rest day, catching a 22 lb Mackinaw and then taking several naps and reading and writing a bunch. Tomorrow is going to be a relatively easy day of 62 miles and only 1,495 feet of elevation gain with a maximum grade of 3.3%, a tail wind of about 6 mph with gusts to 20 mph. We will be in a campground near Fort Rock, I think. One of the major challenges on this trip is calling and making arrangements and reservations for the campgrounds ahead. I often don’t have cell service, and it seems regularly that the price they are suggesting is very high for 3 tents and 4 bicycles so I usually do a little discussion on price, usually to no avail. Oh well, still a lot cheaper than what Tom is paying for an RV spot. Part of the problem is that we need to charge cell phones, gps’s, IPad, blinking red tail lights that are very bright and need charging each night, and my camera, so we need a spot with electricity. Tomorrow night is $15 a person and the next night it is $20 per person, but they do have hot springs to sit in. I was hoping to do the entire 60 day trip for $1,000, but it looks like it will be closer to $1,500 if I don’t eat lunch in a restaurant to much. It is a good thing I sold my pickup before we left. It is only 7:00 pm, but I think I am going to go to bed.