Gar's ~9

Sweetwater - Leander (via downtown Austin), TX- day 9

The forecast of strong winds and possible snow were nowhere to be seen, so as a weary and tired group congregated at the lobby for the off, a small problem arose. The pounding the bike has taken over the last week means my spokes are as loose as...

After a minor re-furb, we were off. 15miles the call, or 5miles once the camper passes you. With decent winds and rolling terrain, the Belch and I hit 26 before the camper came into view, 31miles in a little over an hour, not bad to get the legs going.

Having emptied the breakfast from our system in that leg, the custard creams came into play. The next leg was harder, and 15miles into a wind, made us realise today wasn't all plain sailing.

The legs kept coming, busting a gut to reach the 10mile marker before. Camper came into view. We were even joined by Mr. Tash Porth for the final two legs, and he did bloody well in maintaining an average speed well into the high 20s.

Unfortunately for me I'm now in the car heading to Lance Armstrongs’ cycle shop in downtown Austin. Stoney's best efforts to re-spoke the bike hasn't worked, and in order to get the wheels sorted of tomorrow, they need it tonight.

Still, day 9... And if you'd had told me Rich and myself would have covered 117miles in a little over 4 & half hours, I'd have laughed. Rich now has the final 15mile stint with Stoney in support...will the pirate be able to keep up like porth?

So it's off to 'Mellow Johnny's', Armstrongs’ shop, no doubt I'll be $100 bucks lighter once they fix this.

It's never dull in this trip, on the way to the bike shop, the support car starts screeching... Henry the kitten saves the day, again. Having ok'd things with tv rental company, we are now in a US version of kwikfit, as the cars brakes are all shot. Luckily or us it happened here, and not up some mountain or on a plain, otherwise we'd be proper buggerd.