We dedicated today’s ride to Bev, an incredibly inspiring woman we had the honor of meeting yesterday. Bev has the most positive outlook on life of anyone we have ever met! She once swam across all of the Finger Lakes here in New York to raise awareness for skin cancer. We know that Bev had to have a lot of determination and resilience to accomplish such a feat, and we decided to channel her energy into our ride today.
It definitely worked, and we had a lovely 70.9 mile ride through the countryside of upstate New York. There were several flats today on the route, but we are getting much better changing them quickly! Even with the flats, we had time for (very fast – I’m talking 2 minutes or less) showers, a Portrait, and a team trip to Niagara Falls! For a couple of us, this was our first time in New York at all, and most of us had never seen the falls before. It was so awesome to spend time together doing some sightseeing before heading out in the morning.
Stayover Shout Out: we want to extend a HUGE thank you to Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Buffalo NY for hosting us tonight. We received a home cooked meal complete with the best rice Krispy treats in the world, and ample place to sleep. We are even spread out over several rooms tonight which is very exciting – and we will have breakfast provided in the morning!
Rider Spotlight: Jonathan does an excellent job taking the lane and holding back cars while biking. Taking the lane is a term that we use when we go from being in a single file line on the shoulder to biking in a ‘car formation’ in the lane. This is useful when we are coming to stops or making turns. Jonathan is confident in his actions and signaling and helps keep our whole team safe. He is also quite the character and never fails to make us all laugh each day.
