We are taking a day off from riding today and have spent some time in the Lincoln City, Oregon public library.  I have not been intimidated by the ride, for the most part, some of the hills have been very large, but I have shied away from the blog.  It is complicated on the road.  Other than the apprehension of dealing with new technologies, getting on the computer in campgrounds and after a day of riding, is not a priority for me.  But having the day off, I had Luke show me how to create a post.

This is Jerry if you haven't guessed already.

What to focus on: the ride has been challenging, head winds for the first 5-6 days.  For a biker, headwind is worse than hills.  There have been a lot of hills, but you work hard for half an hour or a couple hours and it is over until the next one, with headwind, it is there all day, very discouraging.  Yesterday we had a day-long tailwind, the bikers joy.  Instead of going 11-12 miles an hour, you find yourself doing 14-16 mph -smiling the whole way.

It has been wonderful for me to have the time with Luke and Ronnie and spending some time getting to know Amy, Luke's girlfriend.  She is tougher than a bag of hammers.  She outdoes me on all the hills.  My mass helps  on the downhills and I usually catch up.

Luke's years of hiking and rock climbing has given him quite a skill in the culinary side.  He cooks for us all, occasionally turning the spoon and spatula over to one of us.  As you can imagine, eating is no problem.  It seems like we eat all day long.  Keeping the food and water intake at a good level is somewhat of a struggle.  Without sufficient calories you bonk and feel miserable, without enough water I feel tired with every pedal stroke.  If you have followed the blog you have seen that Amy posts the number of calories she burns each day.  Her bike odometer gives her a number of calories burned at the end of the day, as it does average speed, maximum speed, total miles for the day and total miles for the trip.

Next time I will try to talk about the route and the topography.