Mar 24-26 - the 72 hour ride

On the 24th ... Thursday ... Wayne and Melanie showed up here in the a.m., dropped off their tandem and a small bag, and then headed to Paul's place in St. Pete's.  I left soon afterwards, not bothering to stop along the way.  I decided to bring along some almonds and cheese, which kept me going.

I got to Paul's before them; they were there 15 minutes later; we headed over to the Avis place in St. Pete's Beach.  They dropped me off and I said that I'd meet them back at Paul's, but luckily they waited.  In the agency I pulled out my credit card and driver's license ... no wait ... no driver's license !  Checking again, there was no better result.  Dang !

So ... Wayne rented the vehicle.  We drove back to Paul's, me-without-a-driver's-license, and along the way I called Sandy thinking that the last time that I'd seen it was when the Coast Guard did their routine safety check.  I hoped against hope that it was in the boat bag and not in the boat or the IntraCoastal Waterway ! 

By the time I got to Paul's, she'd texted back that it was in the boat bag ... whew again ! ... and Paul was home and ready to load his bike.  Leaving the X5 behind and with Paul's bike in the trunk of the Sonata, we headed to New Smyrna Beach. 

When renting the vehicle, the agent completed the damage slip indicating that they already knew about the front bumper damage.  When I checked it, I realized that part of the bumper was being held in place with a cable tie !  Great !

Anyway, long story short about the rental car, it all worked out.  Sandy returned it the next day, retrieving the Sunpass from the windshield (I texted her about that) and the Garmin, which I'd left there on purpose, filled it with gas etc.

Sandy had picked up cheese and we snacked; she then picked up the pizza while I made salad.  David was on time flying down from Buffalo so he joined us for dinner.  It's a pretty quiet group ... Jim doesn't drink beer much and not his time; Wayne and Melanie don't drink; Paul cannot drink beer (celiac disease), and I'm low carb.  The others ate pizza and salad; Paul and I had bacon, poached eggs and salad.  He and I also had wine and then a small scotch ...

We were finished, done, for the pre-fleche day.

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Up at 5am, as usual, I decided to add fenders.  As it turned out, we didn't get much rain, narrowly missing some major events, but did ride on wet roads quite a bit.  The fenders helped keep me and the drivetrain clean. 

The fleche went according to plan with stops at the Merritt Island Visitors Center, the Subway on Merritt Island south of NASA, the Cocoa Waffle House, The St. Cloud Catfish Place, the Lakeland Waffle House, the Chevron on Ronald Reagan Parkway (actually that was between St. Cloud and Lakeland), the Marathon half way from Lakeland to Tampa, the Tampa Denny's (America's Diner, so they say), and Paul's.

Noteables -- we saw a bald eagle at the side of the road on Merritt Island ... big bird indeed !!  Next, just over the Haulover Canal, there was a bobcat.  The final attraction was a six-foot alligator walking across the road at the Visitor's Center.  There were no Armadillos to run into, like I did last year.

After The Waffle House, on the way to The Catfish Place, there was a huge storm up ahead on 192 with cars stopping on the road.  It looked like we were going to be creamed.  A fellow going the opposite way stopped his car and yelled across "if you don't have to go that way, don't".  It moved out faster than we moved in, however, and other than about 20 minutes of a HUGE wind that we could hardly make progress against, we escaped with our schedule mostly intact.  We got to the restaurant about 15-30 minutes later than last year and, as a result, had to wait almost 1/2 hour to be seated.  The place prints money.  It's amazing. 

After our 22 hour stop at Denny's, we came out to find John's front tire mostly deflated.  We crossed our fingers; I pumped it up, and we rolled out.  He had replaced a tube long before and we hoped that it was a slow leak.  Sure enough, ten miles later into our 25 mile run to Paul's place, he was flat again.  I pumped again but this time he only made it a couple of miles.  Rats ... we're now running tight.  The rules say that we have to cover 25 kms (not miles) after our 22 hour stop so we are at risk of not making it to Paul's place, declaring somewhere else as our finish -- not a disaster, as long as we could cover the aforementioned 25 kms.  We already had 10 miles (16 kms) under our belts.

We replaced his tire; found the radial wire in the meantime in the used tire, which I removed with my pliers, and rolled off.  We were going to be tight.  Paul pulled the rest of the distance, now 12-13 miles, and we made it to his place at 6:55.  Another fleche completion was on the books.

Of course it's now Saturday morning; the Friday 7:00 a.m. ride start flowing into Saturday.  I packed my bike and Jim's in the back of the SUV, having broken mine in half with the S&S couplers; John's went on the bike rack.  We all had showers.  We sat around at Paul's for a bit having coffee -- no one was hungry, having ate our way across the state -- Susan took a picture of us -- and we rolled off.  Wayne and Melanie left at the same time in their car.

We stopped not long after at a Starbucks and I had a triple shot cappuccino ... dropped John off at Maitland Blvd in Orlando meeting up with his wife ... Jim and I were back at my house around noon.  He packed up his bike and headed off.  I had some lunch -- a salad -- and crashed for a couple of hours.  Up later, we had shrimp for dinner (a nice light dinner for me) and I was in bed at 8:30, basically back on schedule.

As usual, I4 was a disaster, a 6 mile backup north of 528 but I couldn't take 528 because we were dropping John in Orlando, and then another equally long backup north/east of that due to an accident.

So ... that's how a 24 hour ride takes 72 hours ...

Onward !