ChicagoTreeMD: Brutal Day 2 of the Tour des Trees

We had breakfast at 6am and all saw the rain outside. It was a light rain, but rain. This meant that the roads would be wet and very dangerous on the descents. Today was our biggest day in altitude gained for the day. We end up with 6300' over 76 miles. Now that might not seem to be a big deal if you ride, but believe me, it was a big deal today. Most of the climbs were "short" but many, many of them were extremely steep. We encountered several that were well over 12% grade and touching 15% grade. This required coming out of the saddle to pump the pedals just to keep the bike from falling over! Many people walked their bikes up some of these hills. That is what made today so tough, one of the toughest in my cycling life. Who would have thought there would be that much elevation in Ohio, but there is. It was the steepness that caught most of us off guard. Our peloton finished without incident but were tired and sore by the end. At some point you just get sick of climbing your bike up a hill that most people would not even walk up. But this is what cycling is all about. The challenge of the day.

We went through Amish country and saw many homes without electricity, beautiful homes, no power. We asked permission to take a photo of some young children with their ponies. In the front yard, playing, all day. Think of all things on TV they are missing, all the video games, etc. How refreshing. Just playing outside all day.

We did get chased briefly by a dog for the first time. It was a 3-legged dog. If he had 4 legs he might of gotten to us, but he didn't.

Favorite part of the day was angel food cake at the church, our stop for lunch. I knew that great church people would eventually have angel food cake for us, of course! That sugar laden concoction really revved my engine after lunch and carried me for some miles. The rest of the lunch was good, but, man...homemade angel food cake.

Our group finished fairly early but we still ended up riding for nearly 6 hours. Brutally slow pace up all those hills--we were just glad to get up them.