After my arrival at checkpoint one it was time to take stock of where I was physically. I'd not managed to eat during the ride in and while I felt good, I knew that it would be a tough ride to make checkpoint two, and the weather forecast was still in the back of my mind.
I went into the little market to grab some items (I scarfed down an entire tube of Pringles) and stood on the entryway, out of the wind, to fumble with my phone to check weather and location. As I was working on that, another rider who had been one of the last two to make the checkpoint came over and asked if I wanted to ride back to Grinnell. I told him I was just trying to decide whether to ride back or call my support person, but since I had a chance to have company for the ride, I was in. Nice to meet you Scott.
We hung around a bit to see if we could get some others in out group, and talked with a couple of the awesome volunteers from the checkpoint who happened to have a map. After a while we had gotten together a group of 4 and determined that we had basically 2 turns to make to get back to our hotels.
We had plenty of time to chat as we pedaled 19 miles straight into a headwind on rolly HWY F 17. It was slow, but it turns out that Scott had raced the Trans Am Bike Race two years before on the same single speed mountain bike that he was riding here in Trans Iowa. Hard core!
I spent quite a bit of the ride back picking his brain for tips and discussing packing lists, stopping a couple times along the side of the road to let everyone get some fuel and a bit of a break from the constant slog.
The rain started coming down, and the wind picked up even more. We were lucky to break 10mph under these conditions. Finally about 4 miles out, I decided I really needed a break from the headwinds, so consulted the GPS and suggested we travel South for a bit and come into Grinnell from the West side, instead of continuing East straight into the wind, and turning and coming in from the North. Everyone seemed to think that was a fine idea. WooHoo! We got to coast for the first time in 19 miles. We soon arrive at a bike path, and we follow that into town. It's then just a high speed, wet run down West St to the hotels. Total of 82 miles for the day. I'm pretty happy with that.
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