It was another big day of riding, this time 102 miles through the corn fields of Minnesota. We set out after a breakfast at Perkins, leaving near the end of the pack as most people got out of there before us. It isn't for a lack of trying. We made an effort to get our gear into the truck ahead of most others and get over to breakfast quickly, but random chance stepped in the way and caused us to get our meals last. Dave, Mark, Joe and I headed out for the century ride. The day was beautiful and thankfully, there was no rain. The temperature was perfect for cycling. One by one, we passed by the others on the ride, making excellent time trying to see how long it would take to reach Baltimore Mark, as he left about 10 minutes before us. Dave pulled for the first 10 miles, and then we each started taking 5 mile turns. At about mile 20, we caught up to Mark, who had latched on to the Swiss Express train (Daniel and Bruno) and were making excellent time.

Yesterday, I was given a new cycling shirt from one of my friends here. There is a picture of this shirt in the gallery, and it drew a huge number of comments, both in the court of “I like it”, to things like “Turn down the volume”. I needed a high energy shirt to counter the ghost image on the back of Baltimore Mark's shirt, as that ghost image of his dead father-in-law just freaks me out. It makes it look like Bill Clinton is staring back at you while riding. Well, this shirt certainly fits the bill for generating high energy. It is a shirt from the Sarasota Manatee Bicycle Club, in Florida and has all of the various pastel colors predominantly found in Florida, brightly displayed, along with Michaelangelo's David displayed in full naked form, and a manatee sea cow. What can I say, I like the shirt.

By the time we reached the 2^nd SAG stop, we had 68 miles under our belt and an average speed over 20 MPH. We figured that we could do it; reach that elusive, difficult to ride, goal of a century (100 miles) in under 5 hours. The challenge was there, staring us in the face, tempting us to try to make it. We left the SAG and headed out, keeping up a high speed clip in the pace-line. As we got close to the last SAG at the 89 mile mark, we knew we had it in the bag. We headed out at full clip and ended up with a personal best for all of us riders, Mark, Joe, Dave, Mark, Alex, Katie and I. We all managed to get in under the 5 hour mark. Joe and I had the best time and did it in 4 hours, 50 minutes with an average speed of 20.7 MPH. The others were at least 5 minutes later.

We have arrived in Mankato, Minnesota, which is a very pretty town, at least the parts that we have seen. The main street has a nice walking area with restaurants on it. The hotel is very good, and located near everything. There was a TV news crew meeting us here, although I didn't hang around for an interview, hunger got in the way. I managed to get one of those strange restaurant bicycle flats, which became visible after I had eaten and paid the bill.

Tomorrow, we have another century ride. I doubt it will be as fast or as easy as this one seemed, but we'll see then. Today was a real fun day, which was a far cry from the bad weather and terrible roads from yesterday's mess.

Here's the GPS data from today:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/41190169

Let's see what tomorrow brings.