Day Twenty-six

Morning load and the peloton is very happy to welcome back Shawn who's been sick for the past week.

I really miss my favorite teacher. I love you baby!

Carry On Wayward Son

Another quick start with Sooner Rick and Robb pulling me along with Lester and Wild Thing Rob. About 11 miles in I’m wondering how the day is going to shake out and thinking maybe this is the day to spank Phil since we’ve managed to recruit a couple of his normal hardcores. We zipped towards the first SAG at 27 miles and Robb broke the paceline by taking an extra pull. According to Rossiter Rules of Peleton Etiquette when that happens all bets are off so I broke with about 400 yards to go. Wild Thing followed and easily beat me to the line while Robb and Sooner Rick stayed in their loyal soldier roles and Lester coasted in. Okay that will be the strategy for beating Phil!

Phil left the SAG a couple minutes ahead of us with the strong Tony & Wade train supplemented by Fran. This was a perfect scenario for our team with 40 miles to the finish. I played with Phil’s mind by yelling that we were coming for him. I wanted him looking over his shoulder. Phil tried to spook us back with the old rubber boot on the side of the road trick. It’s a sort of in-your-face thing but we all just ignored it and for the next 5 miles I totally sacrificed my body to position the team. Lester was having an unusual off day and dropped back but we still had all our strong riders in the mix.

With my lungs crying for oxygen and my legs throbbing in pain I signaled the boys ahead with one simple order…GET PHIL! A few miles down the road I passed the Tony & Wade train taking a nature break. Phil was on his own and there’s no way a single rider could hold these guys off over 30 miles…he was toast!

You have to understand the personalities at play here. Phil is a creature of habit so if you can upset the habit you get an advantage. He likes having someone to pace him and we had him isolated. Robb and Sooner Rick are totally focused hardcore loyal soldiers who can lead when necessary but understand when they have to work for the team. They totally understand that we win or lose together and will spin to the death before they quit. So the real “wildcard” here was Wild Thing Rob. He is totally an Oakley No Fear kind of guy. These guys cut both ways and you never know which one’s gonna show up. He would either be the final chaser/slayer OR he could actually jump ship and join the enemy at the last minute helping him ride to victory.

I was feeling confident as I approached the Best Western and I even took the time to have a celebratory ice cream at Braum’s across the street before I went in search of the boys. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Phil had lived to spin another day. Despite our nearly perfect plan apparently Robb and Sooner Rick couldn’t hold back Wild Thing and he broke too soon (like me at the SAG earlier in the day but remember mine was just a test). A meteorite across the sky, Wild Thing Rob, flamed out and crashed long before he could reel in the prey.

Okay I can be a graceful loser (sometimes) but we’ve got miles to go and we’ll regroup with new ideas and probably new bodies. No doubt we have to shake-up Phil a bit more. A couple ideas are sneaking into his room reversing the toilet paper roll and replacing some of his “special pills” with placebos but I don’t want to reveal everything because I know he reads this blog. I’ve also heard on good authority that a couple of the riders joining us in St. Joe for the next part of the tour are very strong and we’ll send out some preliminary feelers to them.

Don’t relax Phil, the quiet streets of downstate Illinois have been known to see their share of horrors. Could that be your Waterloo??

Somehow we’ll get through Kansas and this is the only way I know how. A relatively easy day in the saddle with fine dining at Perkins.

Today’s ratings: (the higher the better or easier)

Scenery: 4

Road conditions: 7 (narrow shoulder)

Grunt factor: 4