South Dakota and a Rest Day

From Kathy:

Our fifth state!! This is Jerome Mercer, an attorney from Wisconsin, at the border.

What do Big Riders do on rest day? They do their laundry, sightsee (Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, and the Crazy Horse Memorial. They also watch the Tour de France. It's great to be with a group of people who share some of the difficulties of the Tour: sore butts (buy stock in the company that makes Assos Butt Cream - the best, we're told, after Bag Balm, a Vermont product), sore knees, stressed Achilles tendons, headaches, bad lower GI.

The Newcastle overnight was at a senior center where the hospitality was great. The only downside to tenting there was the hourly trains. Why they have to blow their whistle in the middle of the night is beyond me. The ride in from Newcastle started out very scenic and pretty, with a ride through Custer State Park. One stretch of road had no shoulders, lots of curves and significant decline and then climb. We arranged to have vehicles follow the riders with flashers on to keep cars and semis from pressing them. With the low level of traffic, it was relatively safe for the riders.

We had a truly delightful water stop in Custer, WY next to an old bank building housing a Starbucks where you can order small, medium, and large. When the stops are attractive and the ride is going well, the riders take time to socialize with each other and enjoy the local community. This was one of those stops. Makes being crew a treat; a water stop in the middle of nowhere with nothing of interest is the opposite. I had one set up at the side of the road on a bad stretch going into Newcastle. Barely got the car off the road and shoulder, and a state trooper stopped by to say he wasn't thrilled about the location. I said that the lone tree was important. He said, "oh, so they can sit in the shade when they have some water." I had to explain that it wasn't about the shade but about some privacy. We don't have a lot of modesty but a bit of cover is real nice.

After the ride through the park, there as a nasty stretch coming into Rapid City - four lane divided highway in higher temperatures and stronger headwinds with climbs that were more than expected. Scenery totally boring. The directions into the campus for the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology were not a model of clarity, and quite a few riders (and this crew member) wandered around the city a bit. The food in the cafeteria here wasn't stellar but filling. The ice cream was terrific, and with root beer made a great float.

Enough for this posting. Makes me a little crazy that the blog eliminates the spaces between paragraphs. Harder to read. I'll follow this with a posting on riders. Soon.