Bicycle from Sea to Shining Sea
3 Cross Country Bike Tours-USA
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dimensions of stress between riders. There were times within the group, when living and traveling together became a strain because of the multiple, incessant challenges.
When I signed up for my third crossing along the central route, I only remembered my exuberance, pride, best physical fitness, and elation upon finishing the previous two rides. I think that I had purposely forgotten the difficulties. There were so many more fun and thrilling things that I preferred to remember. Because I wrote some of this chapter while being on the road for my third crossing, I was better able to recall the challenges and adversities of crossing this vast United States on a bicycle.
Headwinds
I do not know where the term prevailing westerly winds came from. They do not exist! On all three of my eastbound, coast-to-coast tours, we crossed the plains states biting into strong headwinds. As I write this, we are on our eighteenth day of pushing into headwinds. We did have one day with tailwinds pushing us. It was a short day – only fifty-six miles. We were able to relax at our destination and had time to do laundry. The laundry was one block from the motel. We had been on the road enough days that we all had plenty of dirty clothes. With the tailwind on this short day, we were thrilled not only to have the ease of pedaling fifty-six miles, but also to be doing laundry!
On my northern crossing, we had a challenging, continuous, fifty mph headwind for thirty-five straight miles of our route across South Dakota. Even the fast, strong cyclists could average only six to eight miles per hour into the nonstop gale. For me, it required an extreme effort to maintain five miles per hour into that unrelenting infinite
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