Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Good morning to all my supporters and friends from Provo Utah.

The night riders (Team Will team 3) has had two very successful nights of riding on our way to Washington DC and Annaplis. 

Our first night started in East Truckee after a wonderful dinner at the Village Pizzeria of individual pizzas and over size bowls of pasta.  The Team spent and hour in preparation at the home of Mike and Sandy Horn in Truckee before heading down to our start point. We were at mile 40 in our nights ride in two hours and where we joined up with East bound I-80 and headed towards Lovelock.  John Holmes and Greg Taylor made some major time gains and Allan Loucks and I finished off the last 30 miles of our 120 at breakneck speed to put us at our desitination (5 miles west of Lovelock) 15 minutes before scheduled.

We were joined at the Griddle in Downtown Winnemucca NV by my good friends Jim and Debbie Hansen before heading to Battle Mountain and a welcome 6 hours of sleep.

Tuesday evening we met Team 2 at mile marker 343 in Eastern Nevada before heading towards Wells Nevead and on to the Pequop Summit on I-80. Once again John and Greg took the lead climbing the pass in what must be record time  before taking on 30 miles of down-hill into Wendover. They were joined at this point by Allan and myself before that final last climb and a great downhill – hampered by wind down to the Great Salt Lake desert and 32 miles of “FLAT” riding. I took out the first 7 miles at an 18.5 MPH average before the Team Car caught up with me to inform me that in the windy downhill section Greg had his bike blown right out from under him and took end-o fall.  I am happy to report that Greg is a little stiff but apparently none the worse for wear.  All I can say is that it is good to have a low center of gravity – a low side profile and a little weight to hold me to the ground.

After the first 10 miles our tail wind dissapeared and we were faced with 22 miles of headwinds – 10 to 30 mph headwinds.  We faught our way through them and ended up at our hand off point 2 hours early. Rather than wait we called Team 1 told them we had accomplished our leg of the ride gave them the mile marker on the hiway and headed for Provo.

Have more for you tomorrow from Denver.

God bless you all and keep those contributions coming at www.team-will.org

VAN