Watertown to Montevideo

OK, so South Dakota gave us it's last before we left.  I shouldn't have taunted. We left early to avoid the storm.  We didn't.  Departing in the morning was beautiful though.  As any early morning ride, peaceful and still with some amazing colours on the horizon.  But there was a malevolent force brewing behind.

• The rain came in
• We continued to ride (Mike & I that is)
• It got rainier
• Lightning
• Still not capturing lightning on film.
• Capturing rain on film
• camera doesn't like rain
• Camera stopped shortly after this:

Weird huh?



It was certainly a rush, I loved the excitement of the lightning and rain.  And for that first bit was a sweet tailwind pushing us along at 20 m.p.h. After a short stop I felt bad about not stopping back more to offer help, but then we're close, with a support vehicle on a straight road (OK, 2 bends... all day) and if it's any conciliation  which i imagine it's not after a day riding in the rain, I was really enjoying myself!  At one point befoire that first bend there was a lightning strike to the ground ahead right in line with the yellow lines, pretty incredible.



But shortly after we made it into Minnesota.  Though without the greeting sign or band I was hoping for  My first instincts are I prefer it to SD.  And I must impress that I'm fully aware of not putting down a whole state because I'm tired.  It's just a joke. But it's strange being a traveller through a place, knowing that you're probably never going to come back, you made a snap judgement on the way in because it was raining... and decided not to change that decision because of fatigue.  Just to add a little perspective I probably had my best day of the trip so far riding into the badlands out of Keystone.  But still happy to be out of SD and moving forwards.

The conditions didn't get much better into Minnesota.  The storms eased off, but then the headwind came.  A nice coffee stop with longjohns and a bacon sarnie after about 50 miles was welcome before the last push into Montevideo.

There is certainly strain in the journey at the moment.  But I like to keep in mind that there are a few key characteristics.

• We chose to come...
• on a bike ride...
• across America (and Ireland, Wales and England)
• with a collection of people.

• There will be weather
• which includes wind (and rain and sun and storms)
• If it rains you get wet
• Once you're wet enough you can't get any wetter
• There will be differences of opinion
• There will be lots of red meat
• Long way between championship winning baristas
• but it's a trip we are only going to make once in this way
• As tough as some aspects are I for one feel blessed to be able to be a part of it.

A new phase of the trip starts in Minneapolis.  For me the whole cycling research side of things was one of the biggest draws (of many) and am very excited to see what we see as a group, and how that can be synthesised and disseminated to be put to good use for London and other cities.  It's not going to stop the daily strains... in fact it will likely add to them, but it brings a new focus, as well as a more rapidly changing land and city scape.  Bring it on.

Oh and finally, I realised that I never mention distances or stats in these blogs. I'd normally be slightly obsessed by that and consider it the defining point of the ride.  But even though these are all long rides, stats seem to melt into the background against the geography, geology, political and sociological factors.  Maybe one say I'll just look at the stats!