Day 4: Cheyenne to Thomas

Distance: 66.86 miles
Time: 5:08:45 hours
Average: 12.9 MPH
Max: 38.6 MPH

This is the entry as recorded directly in my long on June 10, 2009.

Our stay in Cheyenne was really good. The people of the town did a great job of hosting the OKFree crowd. Dan, Lori and I ate dinner at the Methodist Church. The spaghetti, salad and desserts were just like you would find at home. Asking around camp, it was clear that all the food offerings were just as good.

While we did not take advantage of the service, they also provided shuttle service into town and the local national park, Washita Battlefield. Cheyenne went all out, thank you.

The ride today was my best so far. I felt great from the moment I mounted the bike. Our route took us back through the same difficult hills from the day before. However, what took me 50 minutes to complete yesterday required only 16 minutes today. It's amazing the benefits of downhill stretches, a tailwind and fresh legs.

Most of the course was rolling hills, delivering some high speed descents and gruelling climbs. One fact is clear, Oklahoma is NOT flat in the west. The weather cooperated for most of the day. It was a full 10 degrees cooler at the highest temperature. While coming into Thomas a storm was building to the west. I was first to arrive in camp just it started raining. I quickly located high, flat ground and erected my tent. Dan and Lori rolled in just as I was retrieving Dad's luggage. We quickly set Dan's camp up, in the rain. Then Dad arrived. He had a tough day with a blown tire and having to ride in the rain. We sat his camp up and then all piled into my tent along with all our things to ride out the storm. I would estimate that it rained hard for about 1 1/2 hours and then the sun came out. We set everything out to dry. Now, it's cool with and east breeze. Hopefully, that's the last of the rain.