It's been a nice and relaxing break day after a long stretch of hard riding. The past few days have been some of the hardest days of the trip with a pass, crazy 25 mph head winds, and an extremely difficult century (riding 100+ miles) yesterday. It felt so good to sleep in and to wake up without shivering in a cold sleeping bag. As everyone slowly woke up, Evan and I headed to a local cafe for breakfast. I ate a gigantic cinnamon roll that was the size of my face and tasted amazing!
We made it back to our hotel room and rested while we watched Ghost Adventures (Our go to show for break days). It was Daniel Gulisano's Birthday! So we surprised him with an amazing cake with a Disney princess picture frame as well as some flarp goo! After several hours we got the determination to get some lunch in the restaurant below our hotel. It must be a theme in this town to make huge meals because my grilled cheese for lunch was at least three inches tall and packed with four different cheeses! At this point I was completely stuffed, but I knew I had to clean up my bike since I had the time and the hotel gave us a hose to use. I thoroughly went through my gears clearing it of any dirt and it was very satisfying to see such a clean drive-train (The gears in the back). My dad and I found a bike shop that had a new tire for me to use since mine tore. We also picked up a lot of other important bike maintenance items like handlebar tape, tubes, and tire levers. We spent the afternoon maintaining all of our bikes and I was able to put a new cool handlebar tape on Lewis (my bike’s name).
Some of us headed out to dinner and went to a pizza restaurant to celebrate Daniel Gulisano's birthday! Afterwards we picked up some ice cream and headed back to the hotel. Right now, we're packing up so we'll be ready to leave tomorrow morning by 7:00 AM. We were able to get a much needed break day with a lot of rest. Even though last week had some very difficult days, I'm worried about what's to come as we head towards the mountains but I'm also excited to get some of the best views of the trip. That pretty much sums up this trip for me, a lot of worries, but so much excitement for what's to come.
Signing off for now, Cole Malinchock