6:1

Today was a biking day made in heaven!  It wasn’t too hot or cold, nor too sunny or cloudy and we had heavy winds (gusting up to 35 mph) at our backs!  Hills that normally would have beem the source of trepidation or despair were easy with a friendly windy push and we rode for miles at a time on flats or slight negative grades without pedaling.  We averaged 16.67 miles per hour on the bikes.  Normally we’re happy to average 10.  Hurray!  The wind also made what could have been a slightly monotonous landscape into an emerald sea.  At times it looked as though there were schools of silvery fish swimming just under the surface.  I kept expecting some to break the surface.  It was gorgeous!  And the tawny and rust colored grasses on the side of the road often looked like a lion shaking his mane.  Thanks Mother Nature.

The only downside of our windy day was that our bikes fell over at one point when I was taking photos and one of our pannier clips broke making it impossible to attach the pannier to the bike.

One of the photo culprits at the root of the pannier fiasco.

Luckily, our man Charles was ready with a zip tie and was able to save the day.  Semper paratus.

Charles fixing the pannier

At the next town we arrived in (Chester) I called REI and arranged for a new set of front panniers to be sent General Delivery to a post office in North Dakota where we plan to be on Friday.  So we’ll be good as new.

It was a fantastic day and I’m sure the fastest we will ever bike 104 miles in our lives.