Finally, a slightly shorter day. The day began with trying to fit Jamie's bike to Jocelyn, who volunteered to ride it. So I've been the one who has been fitting Jamie's bike to everyone and while at this point I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing, I was really afraid that Jocelyn wouldn't be able to ride it. She's really short and has an extra extra small woman's frame, compared to Jamie's medium frame. The extra extra small is almost too big for her already, so I couldn't possibly see how Jocelyn would ever be able to ride it. We even took off Jamie's saddle and replaced it with Jocelyn's stock saddle, just because the stock saddles are thinner and would give Jocelyn a better shot at reaching the pedals with her feet. I saw that she was able to clip in (but only), but that her toes were terribly pointed down as she pedaled. I knew it would cause problems in the back of her knee and possibly the hamstrings, but I'm proud to say that Jocelyn rode that bike the entire day. I kept on asking her at every water break if she wanted to switch bikes, but she always shook her head said she wanted to continue. Jocelyn I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I'm so proud of you for riding Jamie's bike, which I described at tonight's meeting as "medically inadvisable" for her to do. While I really tried my best to fit her to the bike, it wasn't anything I did but Jocelyn's own sheer will and determination that carried the day.
Because we were in Idaho, of course we happened to run into the Idaho Potato Museum, and what could we do but stop there. I've heard that Idaho is known for potatoes, but I kind of assumed that they wouldn't be so obsessed about it themselves, or promote the state image so much through potatoes. Apparently I was completely wrong, because even that museum gift shop had just about every potato related thing you could think of, and we didn't even get a chance to go into the exhibits at all (granted the place was tiny, but I still like to think of it as a the Met of potato museums...).
How you know you made it
Today we also had the luck of passing more dogs than all the dogs that we've passed on the other days combined (or so I think). For some reason they were all unleashed and of course barked at us and ran after us. It's a good things we've gotten pretty good at aiming with other water bottles, because a dog running into your wheel when you're moving at 15 mph can be really dangerous, but for the dog and you. On a bright note, we found a stray dog that was incredibly sweet and friendly and followed us for miles. It reminded me of Ohio, when Portland (as we called him) ran with the first team for 5-6 miles I think. Some of the other dogs that we passed attacked Portland #2 (not very creative with dog names, I know), and we tried to protect him by squirting the other dogs with water. Unfortunately we lost Portland #2 at some point and I hope he successfully finds his way back home without too much trouble...
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Incredibly friendly dog #2, aka Portland #2
Thanks to our hosts tonight in American Falls, the St. John's Lutheran Church. Special thanks to them, because the food van (who did a great job getting lunch donations by the way), accidentally backed up into a church member's car and did a good bit of damage, but they were incredibly understanding about it. Somehow we've managed to accumulate a number of incidents with the vans (big surprise I suppose, when you give a bunch of 21-26 year olds two fifteen passenger vans..), but we've come out relatively unscathed. Anywhooo, aside from the accident, thanks to the church for a great great dinner and surprise showers (meaning we thought we would have to go somewhere else to shower, but they were actually right at the church). It might not usually be a big deal to have to shuttle 5 minutes to shower, but after a long, long day of biking, it can make all the difference in the world. Although I can't remember any names (too tired already), a number of church members took a lot of interest in talking to us and getting to know us a little bit, which was very nice.
Although today was overall a great day, I have to end on a negative note. I know it's not good to do so, but I can't help do it because something happened today that truly upset me. As I said before, Jocelyn had a lot of difficulty riding Jamie's bike because it simply was far too big for her. I found out that for whatever reason, she had been left behind by her team and forced to ride by herself for over thirty minutes. Aside from the fact that 4K riders are never permitted to ride alone (for safety reasons), I found it incredibly discouraging that someone riding Jamie's bike, especially someone who was making an incredibly effort to ride a bike far too larger for her and just fighting through the pain anyway, would be left behind. I think I'll stop writing right now, because I'm so upset about it that I feel like I can't write anything positive anymore. At least, I know we as a team will talk about it and resolve it.
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