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Today’s ride was much like yesterday’s ride, but… more wind. We struggled with the crosswind from the south, but also an increase in the headwind as we fought against winds from the south-southeast. Looking at the route map above, you can see that the back 1/2 of the ride was mostly spent fighting that south-southeastern wind.
While our group left first today, we were told that the faster group also wanted to leave early but were going to ‘take it easy’, to which we all responded ‘bullshit’. At some point before lunch, they caught up with us confirming the accuracy of our ‘bullshit’ sentiment. What was unexpected, however, was that instead of riding past us, they stayed with us, and we battled the winds together. There were times when they pulled a little faster than I’d have liked, but for the most part we were all grouped together until and after lunch. It was an unusual mix having some of the fastest and not fastest riders ride together. We were keeping up at a pretty decent pace and working together.
We arrived at Sioux Falls at roughly 2 in the afternoon and were grateful to have rooms ready for us. After a quick walk to Starbucks, I came back to my room for quick nap before dinner. Dinner is almost always early because we find ourselves in bed by 8-9 pm. Tonight was no exception.
A group of four of us went to a fantastic restaurant nearby. It was delicious Italian food and was a little higher end than we’d been eating of late. We were grateful to have arrived at 5:30 for dinner because we were less than optimally dressed for the decor. We didn’t care, and neither did they.
I had a delicious salad as an appetizer, and we ordered their bread platter for the table. I had the most delicious pancetta ravioli – it was fantastic. We all decided we needed dessert as well and shared lemon ricotta cheesecake, espresso ice cream and hazelnut cannoli. We are going to struggle when we finish this ride and can’t eat to what would normally seem to be excessive. I enjoyed a glass of still rose because I was confident that it would be a good glass of wine. In the end, we were all thrilled with the dinner. We enjoyed each other’s company and spent much time laughing throughout.
We did, at times, discuss tomorrow’s ride which will be one of our longest – if not the longest – at 126 miles. While the elevation looks favorable, we always have the elements to consider. Particularly, the wind.
We strolled back to our hotel ready to settle in for an early evening tonight knowing that we have an early start tomorrow for what will be a long day of at least 8 hours of riding. We all can do it. It will be just another day, but longer.