May 2 -- Tucumcari NM to Dalhart TX

What a great day it promised to be -- winds in our favor; mostly flat riding with rolling short hills, low mileage -- 96 -- what a great day !! A walk in the park !! -- an English park that is because it poured rain most of the day.

Actually the riding was easier than the day before. I got to try out all my rain gear -- gore tex pants; gore windstopper high vis yellow jacket -- and they all worked out well. The only time that I actually got chilled was at the lunch SAG stop. My shorts and shirt were almost dry at the end of the ride -- my shoes, naturally were soaked, even though I had covers on them too.

Did you think that the shower caps in hotel rooms were for your head ? - NO - they fit perfectly on bike helmets !! blocking the wind to help keep you warm and keeping most of the rain off your head too. I looked too cute to describe and no, I don't have a picture.

We crossed the state line and entered Texas about 55 miles into the ride and properly noted that Texas is proud of George W. Bush. We also noted that the road was wonderful -- road and shoulder newly paved. Thanks George ! That lasted many miles, until after the lunch SAG -- I'll come back to that later.

The first part of the ride, up until the first SAG stop at 24 miles, was easy going and light rain. Bill Reenstra and I rode together and with a wide shoulder, rode side by side chatting -- neither of us in a hurry. Needless to say, we were the last into the first SAG stop, partly due to me being slow getting dressed in all my new gear. We left around 7:15.

After that we picked up the pace, helped by the good roads and wind, spured on by the heavier rain, and our desire to not be that far behind the crowd. When we got to the lunch SAG, at about 65 miles, there was still a crowd there -- but since we were the last to arrive, we were the last to get on the road to the "finish line".

Shortly after the SAG, the travel deteriorated -- a triple whammy -- the road got rough, which really slows you down; the wind turned into our face and the rain drove at us with big drops. There was no hail and no lightning, thank goodness.

Needless to say we were not paying much attention to the scenery, which was simply rolling pastureland anyway.

Close to Dalhart we knew that we were getting close to the feed lots -- huge areas full of cattle. By then we were grinding along at about 13-15 mph so we were able to enjoy !? the aroma for a longer time. The traffic was also heavy going our way so we were constantly in a flurry of wind, rain and spray. To top it all off, as I entered Dalhart a semi went by and rode through a large muddy puddle ... you guessed it -- covered, I was.

Bill got a flat in the midst of this too and when we ran into Shane driving the mechanics van he mentioned that there were about 6 flats along that stretch.

Stats -- we left at 7:15 Mountain, got in at 3:45 Central -- 7:30 elapsed time; 96 miles; 6 hours rolling time -- which is not too bad, considering.

We had an early briefing for tomorrow. Since we are now on Central time, it will be dark at breakfast so we are supposed to load our gear at 6am and then walk to the restaurant with our bikes, carrying our biking shoes ... no riding in the dark is the rule with ABB. I guess that they will then throw our walking shoes into the luggage trailer for unloading at the end. Since most people have running shoes, that should be fun. I have deck shoes which should be easier to find at the end of the ride.

It's hard to believe that we are already on our third time zone ... one more to go.

Tomorrow, by the looks of things, should be even easier than today. There is slightly more mileage but the weather looks more promising. Remember there are no easy days -- something else will undoubtedly crop up.

Off to dinner shortly -- Hobies ?? -- we'll see.

I talked to Sandy after arriving at the motel -- she was on the 407 at that point on her way north.

Good night !