Day 6: Ardmore to Norman
June 15, 2005
Once again we got up at 5 AM. We hit the road out of town with another police escort after a great breakfast at the cafeteria. Also did some TV interviews with the local news station before leaving. Some people told us they had seen us in the paper. The unsettling feelings of last night continued as we were honked and waved at all through town. I started out again, right behind the police car. Not too much after the police peeled off, Nick Weaver jumped out ahead. Nobody saw him the rest of the day as he zoomed to the finish line.
The first part of the ride consisted of mini-mountains. Beautiful countryside, absolutely gorgeous. Beast of a climb, though, a real pedal masher. I had taken off from the main group because they were going a little slow for my taste, plus I needed to find a tree to water. But in the big hills I was getting passed by some of our stronger riders. When I finally made it to the top I pumped my arms in the air and let out a good yell. Another great view at the top was my reward.
I started down the road and was quickly picking up some serious speed when I saw Brian at the first rest stop. Screeched to a stop and pulled in while other riders zipped by, choosing to skip the first stop. Turns out we were at Turner Falls, a beautiful waterfall cascading down the cliffs. Took some pictures with Sam and headed out. I reflected that sometimes we go so fast that we miss the truly great moments.
Heading into Davis, I passed a youth camp. Some of the teenaged boys yelled out at me that I had great legs and asked if I shaved them, laughing hysterically to themselves at their brilliant joke. Considering the experiences I had had over the last 24 hours all I did was smile inside as I zipped by them in excess of 30 mph. I imagine that someday they will have their own life experiences that would change their perspective as well.
The road into Davis had some cracking that stretched across the road. It was at such even intervals that it must have been planned. At any rate it was supremely annoying. Every three seconds I went ka-whump and my organs would jostle around. And it saps your speed too, so an all around bad thing. If it had been one or two it wouldn't have been so bad, but it stretched on for a few miles. 1,2,3 ka-whump, 1, 2, 3, ka-whump, 1, 2, 3, ka-whump, etc. Finally got annoyed enough that I stood up in my pedals and cycled, even though it's terribly inefficient and hard on the legs.
Went off by myself for a good long time, passing lots of wildlife including a tarantula. Met up with the lunch van, ate one of every fruit available and a sandwich. Took off again by myself and again felt sluggish after stopping for lunch.
Somewhere between lunch and the next rest stop, BJ and Mallory caught up to me and started passing me. Instead of letting them go I accelerated and followed them along. In my sluggish state it took some furious pedaling on a low gear to keep up, but not too much into it I was feeling much better. We pushed each other and our speed increased noticeably, hitting a regular pace of 20 to 25 mph, which is pretty fast.
Time just flew by and not too much later we started catching up to and passing team mates. We invited them to join us, but we flew by people so qujckly that they couldn't catch up to us. At the rest stop, we high fived each other and I was feeling pretty good. Brian had found some wild blackberry bushes, providing the freshest fruit possible. Quite tasty. The three of us headed out and I was very thankful for hanging with the "dream team" the rest of the day as their presence made all the motivational difference. I would have made it one way or the other, but working together as a team made sure I did my best.
As we approached the city limit sign for Norman, BJ and I hit a stop light. Mallory was a little bit behind, but just as she approached the light turned green and she was able to zip ahead to the race line. BJ thought he had second and pumped his fist to celebrate, but I accelerated and laughed as I passed him with five feet to go.
We biked by our University's arch nemesis Oklahoma University and I belted out UT's fight songs while flashing the Hook 'em horns sign to the people on the street. Got booed at some, which is the effect I was going for anyways,
Stayed at a Christian family life center and once again they went out of their way to help us. The place was absolutely stocked with things to do with multiple ping-pong and pool tables, a hot tub and whirl pool, basketball courts and even a bowling alley. They gave us free reign of the place, but I just plopped down in front of the big screen TV and watched Jimmy Neutron cartoons.
Nick had showed up about 30 minutes before we did, quite impressive on his part. We showed up about an hour and a half before the last person arrived. That hour and a half makes a big difference in morale as the day only gets hotter. A little later on I took a nap and upon waking found that the church had provided brownies and ice cream sundaes for the team. Very nice. BJ also brought me a large sandwich, which I promptly ate after the sundae. (Itâ??s not eating desert first if you consider the ice cream as carb loading)
Bummed around a little bit, exploring the options then headed down to a catered lasagna dinner. Our table started belting out Disney songs for some reason. People knew a lot more of the words then they would usually admit to their friends. We played some ping-pong, pool, and of course we bowled.
After 9 the 21 and over crowd headed over to a local sports bar to watch the Spurs game. The waitress came by and started talking about OU and such, then made a negative comment about UT (we didnâ??t tell her who we were). We laughed at her and I told her that her tips just plummeted. She recovered by saying that her best friend went there, but she was clearly embarrassed. She mentioned that her friend was training for a bike ride next year that went from Austin to Anchorage and we all started laughing. It was a huge coincidence and she was excited and said how cool we were, at which point her tips went back up. Also turned out that her friend is an aerospace major, so itâ??s possible that I would know her by face (but not by name). Headed back to the center and crashed at about 11:30.