Friday, July 16 The trip has been largely solo until Monroeville. I biked with Dave the biology professor for only about an hour. Now we had five 22-year-olds, and two folks from Houston. Jerry biked from Houston to Seattle, to meet up with Joanne. At 59 years old, after selling his bike shop, he bike 2,500 before starting the northern tier. The four guys from University of Maine collected donations for purchase of helmets for underprivileged youth - totalling more than the local non-profit had ever received. After getting to know these guys, my faith in the future has been restored.
We biked as a group of three to nine bikers, including a tandem, across Ohio, Pennsylvania and western New York. It was great fun, though it left little time for writing the bike log. We rode 80 to 100 miles a day, at speeds about 3 mph higher than I was used to. The guys from Maine knew each other from school, and at times I felt like a cat on the couch watching and marveling at the puppies playing and rolling rambunctiously on the floor. It was fascinating to watch Joanne contribute some Yin balance to the pack. It was a feast of high energy.
I'm riding differently now, just from watching other riders and their techniques. It seems simple - the pedals go round and round. But there are a surprising number of variations. I'm shifting less, powering up hills by standing and sometimes pulling up hard on the upstroke. My balance is changed, and variety in how I decide to approach each hill.
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