Ken’s Transcontinental Cycling Tour

   First, thanks to my wife Kathy for posting yesterday’s brief description while we were out of internet range at the casino in Lula, MS.  Yesterday we crossed from Arkansas into Mississippi over the Mississippi river and immediately exited from the bridge to the large casino and hotel.  Usually our PAC Tour group takes over the small hotels we stay at nightly but last night we were definitely ’small fish’ at this casino hotel.  It was an interesting contrast to see our trailers, vans, and bicycles sitting in the middle of the casino parking lot!  Many of us ate at the HUGE buffet at the casino and we definitely re-fueled with all types of foods.  I didn’t hear of any big casino winners on today’s ride- I think most people ate and went to sleep.

   Cotton field on left and ‘block’ of cotton ready to be trucked away.

   Mississippi River and bridge from Arkansas into Mississippi.

   Mike and Nancy Myers on their tandem- they are REAL veterans of PAC Tour with multiple trans-continental trips and other long distance events.  On the right is Brett from Rhode Island and Anne from NY.

   Today’s ride from Arkadelphia to Pine Bluff, Arkansas was SMOOOTH!  We traveled the flat to rolling 91 mile, back road course with an initial large group that split up before the first sag stop at 20 miles.  Anne (NY), Don (Canada), Ned (NY), and myself found ourselves doing a very pleasant and smooth paceline for the remainder of the day, starting before the first sag.  Randy (NJ) joined us about halfway through and we continued to work smoothly through the second sag, lunch break, and into the Pine Bluff hotel for a short day of only 5 total hours with stops.  Little traffic, light winds, and abundant sunshine were the main factors today and as I say, it was just a most pleasant ride.  Overall average riding speed was 20 MPH, running 19-23 MPH on most flats. Tomorrow we head into Misssissippi for a long, 131 mile day.  But for now, we rest….

 From RIGHT to left- our smoothly oiled paceline machine: Anne (NYC), Ned (NY state), Don (Ontario), and myself (taking photo).  Also pictured are Jon (crew from San Antonio who rode ahead to arrow the finishing miles), and Randy (NJ) who joined us for about half of today’s paceline group.

   Today the sunshine held ONCE again and we had a pleasant recovery ride along an 87 mile, 3700 ft climbing route into Arkadelphia, Arkansas.  We spent most of the day easy pacelining in a group of about 6-15 riders.  The morning started in the typical 48 degree cool weather, enough to wear arm warmers and vest which were shed by lunch time.  Our first sag stop took us into the huge town of Big Fork, Arkansas with its 250 families, 4 churches, and 1 mall.  We stopped at the country mall and you can see from the photos that this is the place to be for the residents of this town.  We learned that the Ouachita mountains are the only range that runs east-west in the continental US and we rode through them!

   Big Fork Mall, Arkansas with owner and customer.

From left to right: 1. Paul, a veterinarian from Wisconsin and Greg, an architect from Pennsylvania 2. Gary from Wisconsin 3. Butch from Wisconsin 4. Larry, famous finance textbook author from California 5. Anne from New York and 6. Walt- Team RAAM veteran (also, Larry is a team RAAM veteran).

 Butch and I having what has become our traditional post-ride milk shakes!

   Today was a climbing day!  We covered the 113 miles with 8,300 ft of climbing over the Talimena parkway.  This parkway runs from Oklahoma to Mena, Arkansas with 10-13% climbs and descents every 1/2 to 1 mile.  Ned and I hit it hard all day, trying to get a good workout after many days of chit-chat flat, tailwind days.  We covered the course in just about 7 hrs, including stops at 30, 50, 75 (lunch), and 98 mile marks.  The parkway was really hard, feeling much like a roller-coaster ride from mile 59 to 108!!!  It was beautiful scenery all along the parkway as you can see from the photos below.  Tonight we are in Mena in heaven with a Super Wal-Mart, Sonic, McDonalds, Baskin-Robbins, etc.  Tomorrow will certainly be a recovery day since it’s only 89 miles and about 3,500 ft of climbing to Arkadelphia.  Once AGAIN, the weather was absolutely perfect with sunny, light winds all along the route.

        Talimena Parkway from Oklahoma to Arkansas. 50 miles of constant 10-13% grades up and down- about .5 to 1 mile long segments.  Absolutely beautiful.

   Today’s 15th day of riding brought us to our last stop in Oklahoma, McAlester.  This town is the location of the state prison, although we’re staying at a hotel on the other side of town.  It was another fairly flat day of 100 miles and 3,252 ft of climbing through more rolling hills of Oklahoma and great weather.  Tomorrow we hit some big hills as we enter into Arkansas and go for 10,000 ft of climbing over 114 miles to Mena, AR.  Many riders took it really easy today, in anticipation of tomorrow’s hard day of climbing.

     Andrew cutting his home-grown, Okie, birthday watermelon!

 Bison seen along the road outside of McAlester, Oklahoma

   Another FANTASTIC day in Oklahoma riding from Hinton to Paul’s Valley, 111 miles and 3251 ft of climbing on a perfectly sunny, warm-but-not-too-hot, day and SMOOTH roads!  In fact, some of today’s roads felt very similar to my riding back home in Rhode Island with quiet, narrow, twisty, roller, back roads.  I rode with Ned again today, as we are very compatible in our riding style- giving it some efforts between rest stops, pacelining and chasing at times, and chatting about ‘life in the medical field’ at many other times (although his patients have 2 legs and mine have 4 legs).  Remember, Ned received his special recognition last night as a 10,000 mile PAC tour rider and he rode with his “10K jersey” today.  The winds were mostly favorable with either crosswinds and then finished with quarter tailwind. The scenery here in middle Oklahoma is very pretty with rolling hills and green pastures and trees.  Cattle and horses sprinkle the countryside and I venture to say that many riders think that Oklahoma has provided some of the most scenic riding of the tour, along with our climbs in the Prescott National Forest in Arizona.  It felt great to be back in Oklahoma, as I lived in Stillwater from 1980-1985 and visit only every 5 years or so for reunions.  

We lucked out again with the weather as yesterday and this morning there were T-storms and tornadoes in this general area and they moved out before we got here.  We’re off to McAlester, Oklahoma tomorrow for our last relatively flat stage, then onto the Ozarks in Arkansas with LOTS of climbing including 10,000 ft on the route from McAlester to Mena, Arkansas.

    Our mornings are run on perfect ‘PAC Tour time’ and as we get into the tour, it seems that we may be better organized in the mornings.  Here you see riders waiting to have gear bags loaded into the trailer before departing on bikes to the next destination.

 Ned received his 10K mile jersey last night.  Here he is showing off his new jersey at the lunch break.  It’s been great being able to ride with Ned every other day as he has to work as crew on his every other, non-riding day.  He’s a pediatrician (I guess that’s sort of like being a veterinarian treating 2 legged patients!) from upstate, NY.

    Two ways that I knew I was back in Oklahoma- oil wells and Braum’s ice cream shop!  Many of us have gotten into a post-ride milk shake habit and Braum’s is the best!