T1 Day 27 (Kayla)

 C2C - day 27 - July 3rd 

Today started off in high spirits! It was the day we had all been waiting for - We would be getting to Bismarck today! To warm showers and a soaking tub and separate rooms with beds! And best of all we wouldn’t be biking tomorrow. Nothing was going to get our spirits down, or at least so we thought… 

We woke up in the Abbey and were escorted to breakfast by a very cheerful Father Odo who greeted us with a song. The breakfast of hot and cold cereal, fruit and homemade bread and was held in silence. It was very peaceful looking out over the rolling hills as we quietly ate our meals. Once there were only 5 monks left Father Odo began chatting with us quietly, stating that an old benediction scripture wrote that once there are only 6 monks left at the table you can talk plus, he added, most of them were hard of hearing anyways! 

Soon after breakfast we were on the road again. A light drizzle had started but after an hour of cycling it past and we were able to stop and enjoy our lunch in the sun. 

After lunch the old highway we had been on turned into a gravel trail, forcing us to decide whether to continue on the gravel or turn and get on the interstate. Since we are a democratic group it went to a vote. We continued along the gravel. Thankfully it was hard-packed and therefore wasn't too difficult, with the exception of some rolling hills. That is at least until it started to downpour. Within a few minutes we were thoroughly soaked and after about an hour we were all feeling a bit crushed emotionally. We had just stopped under the shelter of a gas station to collect ourselves when a state trooper pulled up next to us and rolled down the window. I thought he might tell us not to be biking in the rain, but he just wanted to know if we had been harassed by a drunk man on the interstate, since he had received reports of 3 cyclists, and we of course met that description. Since we knew nothing of this he moved along, but suggested that we might be able to shelter in a gas station up the road that had indoor seating. That sounded like a good plan to us. We made ourselves right at home in that mobil convenience store, taking off our wet shoes and socks and rain pants and draping them over the chairs. We then quickly devoured hot chocolate, Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, French fries, chicken tenders and a rice crispy treat. It turns out biking in the freezing rain buns a lot of calories, although it wouldn’t be my first suggestion for a weight loss plan. Eventually we decided we needed to keep biking, even though it was still raining and I was not emotionally ready. However, If we were going to make it to Bismarck tonight we would just have to keep biking in the rain, and we were determined to get to Bismarck. We futilely stuck our socks, shoes, and bib shorts under the bathroom hand dryer until the dryer stopped working to try to dry them before putting them back on, only for them to get soaked again 5 minutes after we started biking. 

This was a situation that called for a big bootie playlist (I think I went with vol. 13). If you’re not familiar you can find them on Spotify for an immersion into the mental state I was in while biking. For the full experience I suggest finding a rain storm and engaging in endurance exercise while listening. While the music was quite distracting it was hard not to be acutely aware of the fact that what we were doing was not at all enjoyable. In case you haven’t caught on yet, cycling across the country is what one would call type II fun. What is type II fun? Type II fun is miserable while it’s happening, but rewarding in retrospect. It usually begins with the best intentions, and then things get carried away. Over these past 4 weeks we’ve become all too familiar with this concept. For better or worse I think we’ve gotten better at handling it. For example, I was able to spend some time thinking about all the good thinks about biking in the rain: 

1. It’s not hot

2. It keeps the bugs away

3. It looks kinda pretty, especially the lightning (when it’s in the distance) ??? 

4. ???

Okay maybe I haven’t gotten very good at it. But I was continuing to bike which counts for something. And then I felt my back tire wobbling…. SHIT! My tire was soft. No big deal I thought, I’ll just pump it up and it will be fine, I have tubeless tires, it’ll fix itself! I pumped it up and it held air, perfect! For 14 more miles it was perfect, until it wasn’t. This time I noticed air bubbles coming out of the rim, then the tire was completely flat. I called up ahead to Liz and keelin who got me on speaker with our on-call bike mechanic Graham. Before he could walk me through a solution a man in a pickup truck pulled up and asked if he could help give me a ride. He was headed to Mandan which was just a couple miles up the road. I graciously agreed and let Liz and keelin know I would meet them at the gas station at the edge of town. While I sat on the curb of the gas station trying to problem solve a beautiful full double rainbow appeared across the road and I couldn’t help but laugh at the circumstance I’d found myself in (at this point it was already 8:30pm - a long day). It didn’t take long for Liz and keelin to catch up. once they were there I tried to reinflate the tire with CO2, hoping I could limp my way the next 5 miles to Bismarck, but I couldn’t get the tire to reseat. It was time to resort to putting in a tube. Having just fixed Liz’s a few days ago it went much faster this time and we were back on the road in no time. 

The rest of the route took us along nice bike paths. We even passed by a rodeo in progress, which the announcer over the loud speaker claimed had 3 of the best cowboys in America participating! 

At 9:15p we finally arrived at DJ Missy O’Malley’s parents house! And we were starving! We tried to order Uber eats about 10 different times, only to find that all the restaurants were closed, before resorting to Pizza Hut. Delivery time was 30 minutes, we weren’t going to make it. We pulled out all the miscellaneous snacks remaining on our bikes and devoured them then proceeded to nearly finish the pizza hut order: an entire cheese pizza, pasta with veggies, breadsticks, cheesy breadsticks, and cinnamon sticks (if you’re thinking wow that’s a lot of carbs, we know, and yet we all just had to size down in our bike shorts!). We then found a couch and an animated movie (Madagascar was the only choice) to satisfy our cravings. 2 hours later we woke up to the credits rolling, at which point I was still only in a towel, since I had decided it would be a good idea to wash every item of clothing I have… 15 hours later I was still without clothing, but it didn’t matter because it was a rest day!!