Cedar Rapids, Iowa

After such a great day yesterday in Des Moines, it was going to take a lot today to compete. When the alarm went off this morning at 6 it was very hard to get out of the comfortable hotel bed. After getting ready for the days bike ride I walked down stairs and the amazing smell of the hotels breakfast hit me. I could not wait to get my bike outside so I could sit down to some warm food. The team enjoyed eggs, sausage, waffles and yogurt, which was a nice way to start a long day. Once everyone was fed we went outside to start our morning circle up and then got on the road.

Today in my pace line I had Chris Stubel from Georgia Tech and Luke Millen from Purdue University. Both of these guys are very strong riders so I was excited to get on the road and get the 90 miles in the books. The three of us were the second group to leave lodging and it didn’t take long for us to jump in the lead of the pack. We put our all into todays ride and interestingly enough it slowed us down. At no point during any ride is a cyclist allowed to be in front of all the vans. There has to always be a van in front of and behind all riders and this sometimes creates issues when guys are going very slow during a ride. Today because we were going so fast it was hard for the vans to leap frog ahead in time so we got stopped a lot. In 90 miles today we ended up getting red flagged four times because we had to wait for a van to jump in front of us. This frustrated the three of us a little bit but at the end of the day we realized there was nothing we could do about it.

The road conditions were a little poor today but luckily we were able to get the majority of the ride in with cloud coverage, which made things much easier. Although the sun wasn’t shining the humidity was still there. I think today I sweated more than I have all trip even though todays ride wasn’t too physically demanding. After 5 ½ hours on the bike we arrived as the first pace line into Cedar Rapids and pulled into the parking lot of the Arc of Central Eastern Iowa. We not only had our friendship visit here today but we are also staying the night in the building. A YMCA is across the street from the Arc so we were able to go their and get showered up for our friendship visit at 6:00. Everyone hung out in a conference room for a couple hours until the employees in the building left so we could get set up and have our friendship visit. While in there I laid down on the very uncomfortable floor and took a nice 1½ hour nap.

I was woken up around 5:45 and went outside to meet the members of the Arc. Today at our friendship visit we had a dance party and dinner, which was a lot of fun. Although it was hot outside the whole team still had the energy to dance for a few hours and keep the clients entertained. I met a girl named Sarah early on in the evening and had a lot of fun hanging out with her throughout the visit. About half way into the night we stopped dancing to have dinner. We ate some great pork, potatoes, and baked beans along with Kool-Aid and cookies. The remainder of the visit was a lot of fun and all the clients left with big smiles on their faces.

So I will continue with what I did yesterday and talk about what I learned today. Although the cyclist get a lot of praise for what they do, the crew members do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure our daily routine runs smoothly. On some days and in certain situations things don’t run as smoothly as we would like and we have to learn to accept it and move on. Today my pace line was red flagged 4 times and it frustrated Chris, Luke, and I very much because we wanted to keep riding. So from this I learned that I need to be more patient and not let things upset me as easily. Everyone is doing their best and without every member of the team we wouldn’t be the same group I have come to love.