Day 19, Mile 1528: Guymon, Oklahoma

Today: 107 miles (of 107 mile course), climbing elevation only 761 feet!

Cumulative: 17 biking days, 1303 miles, 67000 feet.

Oklahoma!

I'm writing this three days after the fact, a combination of poor internet and exhaustion. Already Oklahoma is a blur--and five more days to go to Missouri.

Let's see... I remember entering Oklahoma, and riding with the peletón for a good distance for the first time, but geez, that's about it. I can't remember the hotel, and hardly remember Guymon or the dinner or anything. Wow. Let's look at the photos, hold on...

Ha ha ha, not much help there, either. I'm sure it was an enjoyable day! I'll tell you about the peletón in any case, that was exciting for me. I rode the first 37 miles with them, almost as far as lunch. Dave 'The Wave' (head guide) had mentioned yesterday that, hey, we were getting into flat land and that was what I was good at and had trained on and, well, Oklahoma sucked because of the constant wind and I would find it a really really good idea to ride with the peletón and you know, you can't count on a tailwind everyday, etc. So I said I would give it another try.

Turned out we did have yet another day of tailwinds, though only very slight and it was all quite flat and gently, imperceptibly descending, with flat smooth roads, all making for very easy going. But, nonetheless, I was very pleased to see that I could keep up and even take my turns pulling. The routine is that at every mile marker, the head of the paceline peels off, goes to the back of the line and the next rider in line takes the lead (and the work) for the next mile. In this way, every rider pulls for a mile every seven miles, say, when there are seven people in the paceline. In reality, it's never quite so organized as this for too long and there are disadvantages, too, like seeing only the wheel in front of you for mile after mile instead of the scenery, not being able to set your own pace, and other hazards, as you will see.

When you are not in the lead, you try to ride directly behind the guy in front of you, your front wheel a few inches behind his back wheel. You don't generally want to overlap wheels, as this is dangerous, since the guy in front of you first of all can't really see you and second might have to veer one way or the other to avoid some debris or rough spot or to follow the guy in front of him, etc. If he veers and hits your wheel, he'll typically crash: not good. We have already had one of these crashes where Chris on the first day out of Santa Barbara caught an overlapped wheel behind him in this way and went flying headfirst over his handlebars into the (luckily) deep sand off the side of the shoulder. There are other items of etiquette for the paceline, like pointing out road hazards, such as gravel, holes, roadkill, cars coming from behind ("car back") or in front ("car up") on non-busy roads, yelling out when your going to stop or turn, etc.

Certain behavior is considered in poor form, such as speeding up/slowing down tremendously when you start pulling, overlapping wheels, as I mentioned, spitting or doing the one-handed nose blow when you're not in the rear, that sort of thing. Sneakily riding up to a roadkill without pointing it out, then bunny-hopping it, and hoping that your buddy behind you runs over it and crashes might be really funny, but it's not particularly safe. Similarly, echelon riding may be really tempting (and we've done it) but it's not particularly safe. The Trek Travel guides are keen on rider safety and have drilled these tips into our brains during various group dinner discussions.

So it turns out that, at speed, you are spending most of your energy fighting the wind, either what Mother Nature is sending towards you gratis, or the wind you are generating yourself by biking so darn fast. With these pacelines you can cut the amount of wind the trailing riders are pushing tremendously and even the guy riding behind you (if you are not the end of the line) helps streamline your path through the air. In this way the pack run as a paceline can move much more efficiently and thus faster than if everyone is riding solo. This is why I've been so disappointed to be riding alone almost all the time up until now. But there hasn't been much choice since I wasn't able to keep up on the climbs.

So today, I managed to keep up--for 37 miles, almost until lunch! The Oklahoma border was at mile 11 out of Clayton, and being a sucker for a race, even participated in the traditional sprint for the state line. I actually initiated it. This is only because I'm a real inexperienced rider and broke out way to early, i.e., there was no way I could keep up the attack pace all the way to the far off state line marker. But I did manage to pull out a bunch of contenders with me, who likewise couldn't maintain the pace and thus gave Larry the opportunity to come in and wipe us all out and take the win. (And then he didn't even pose in the photo!)

This was all great fun and the paceline kept up a steady pace of 20 to 22 mph. Once I was dropped, I could only go around 18 or 19 mph, so you can see the difference (and how easy the riding was today). Well, and I biked the whole distance today, too. Yippee.