Mar 30 - Apr 1 - catching up

Yes, catching up on sleep mostly !

Let's see ... on the 30th (Friday), the day flew by. My X5 parts were delivered to the Saxon address ... I hate Paypal ... I realized that Paypal had provided the old address to the seller early in the day; called Jason (tenant) and he said that they'd just arrived; I drove over and picked them up. Everything looks ok.

We had "previously frozen" tuna for dinner which was "ok" but not as good as fresh.

Oh yes, we went boating ! (I was going blank on what we'd done for the day). With some newly acquired beach chairs and umbrella, it was much more comfortable.

After a very short night, 3 hours sleep, I was up and rolling. As I got into Tavares, only an hour away, the M5 did a weird thing -- the DSC and ABS flashed. Oh oh. It did it one more time as I was getting to the hotel. With trepidation, I parked, not knowing if I was going to make it home with the car on Sunday. Of course that preyed on my mind the entire ride.

There were 30+ riders and I headed out with a large group of about 20, sticking with them until we got to the third Control. At that point, tired of the irregular speed with such a large paceline, Paul, Hamid and I opted for a Subway rather than convenience store food, sat down and ate our lunch and then went back the half-block to the convenience store for our Control check-in.

The three of us kept up a good pace, running not too far behind the large group. We came upon them just getting ready to leave a later Control

Paul is very strong -- he's the one who rides a fixed-gear bike -- and incidentally, is taking over the RBA position from Tim after the ride. We were also rooming together, so it made sense to ride together. On the 1000k a couple of years ago we also shared a room, but I was running ahead of them and was either in bed or already asleep by the time they arrived at the room.

Later on, riding the West Orange Trail, we encountered some heavy rain. We sat it out for a short while under a bridge, heading out when it seemed to be abating, but it came down heavily again. After that Control where we caught up to the large group the rain did stop, the sun came out and we dried off. It was soon evening and it was good to be dry.

We were in relatively early for that day, finishing up around 8:30 p.m. With 400k under our belt, we were doing well.

From that point things slowed down ... became leisurely (?) ... I'd have made a short stop and headed out, probably around midnight. I compromised, trying to convince Paul and Hamid to wake at 1am but Paul wanted more sleep so that when he got home to Tampa he'd be able to deal with his two youngsters. I was OK with that, since I was happy to ride as a three-some. I figured that we'd probably make a better pace anyway with more sleep.

Well, we probably did make a better pace but it was slow. We left around 2:37 and finished up at 12:58. We stopped at Denny's and had a good breakfast, about 65km into the day's ride of 200km. John Preston and company, the fast part of that large group, caught up to us at the Control in Polk City at the Van Fleet Trail start. We were riding along at 12-14 mph; John & Co were probably doing 16-18.

The first day with moderate temps and strong SE winds, rain etc. turned into a very hot ride on the second day. With the short ride, however, it didn't bother us. The wind flipped to the NW, but we weren't out there long enough for it to really bother us.

There's more ... I'll add some more thoughts in the next blog ...

Yes, I did make it home with the M5. I'd thought that maybe the flickering problem was the alternator so I stopped at an Advance Auto Parts and had it checked, but the voltage was good at that point. I still think that it's the alternator -- more on that too, but later.

Home around 3pm, I had a short snooze and then went to Mass, coming back to the Tiki to meet up with the gang. They'd ordered my dinner while I was on the way. Emma was entertaining everyone, dancing around the tables to the music. We had a good time.

Right now ... 5:45 a.m. ... Jeffrey is up and organizing. We'll be out of here around 6:30 on the way to the airport.

Onward !