Miles:  78.17

Riding Time:  5:42:25

Average Speed:  13.6

Cum. Miles:  3179.77

This morning we had the option of taking the same bike trail for another 30 miles or take a route on the road that was 4 miles shorter, but included lots and lots and lots of climbing.  6 of us, Liz, Andy, David Lambert, Kari, Steve and I choose to take the road.  We had enough of the flat path through the trees and felt we would get to see alot more countryside and scenic views if we took the roads.  Liz, Kari and I started out last from camp because Liz's chain broke again.  Once we got on the road we realized that they were not joking when they said it involved alot of climbing.  In fact we climbed Mt. Davis, which was the highest point in Pennsylvania.  That was really neat to be able to do that and the three of us got a picture at the top of the hill with us holding our bikes above our heads.  Then my sunglasses broke so I had to duct tape them back together for the rest of the day.  One of the climbs to get up there was a half mile long and 14% grade.  For this one we were basically standing up on our bikes in our granny gears pedaling at about 3 MPH.  In the end though, it was completely worth doing the climbs to get off of the trail.  I personally at this point don't mind and kind of enjoy climbing, so I was definitely glad I choose to take the road, as was the other 5 who choose to climb all morning.

Even though the 3 of us were last to leave camp, we still beat all the riders who too the bike path to the first checkpoint.  Liz spotted a coffeeshop on the hill up to the checkpoint so we obviously had to stop and get some coffee.  Once we were finishing up, alot of other riders started pouring in for coffee and breakfast, and the two of us hit the road infront of the pack.  Once again it was a little foggy this morning which I have thoroughly enjoyed riding through because it makes the mountains look that much better.  The rest of the trip was still fairly hilly so the climbing was not over.  We were flying down this hill until we realized the next turn was right at the bottom of the hill, and sure enough it turned and went right back up another.  Once we got to the top of this hill, we saw the United Flight 93 memorial right on the other side.  This was also a waterstop so we spent a little time looking at the memorial and all the stuff people have written and hung on the fence in remembrance of someone they lost.

Towards the end of the ride we got to the point where they had these huge hill signs where  trucks had a 20 MPH speed limit and they would say the grade and how steep and curvy the roads were.  It was a fun and fast finish to a great day.  Once I got into camp I was finally able to wash and dry all of my clothes!  It felt so nice to be able to walk back to my tent with clean dry and fresh clothes.  We had Papa John's for dinner and we never actually got around to making lunch until it was dark and around 9 or so.  This was because we got an awesome tour of the Cannondale factory.  We got a walk through of the entire factory including seeing there oven and testing room which we weren't allowed to take pictures of because it was their little secret.  Even though we didn't get to see production, it was pretty cool to see the whole logistics of how the bike starts as pieces of pipe and components in cardboard boxes, and 2 or 3 days later were fully functional bikes.  After seeing it tonight I was tempted to go back again in the morning to see production, but we have a long day tomorrow and no one planned on going back.

We got back from the tour, made lunch and went to bed soon after, falling asleep to lots of heat lightening.

PICTURES FOR THE DAY!

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