Runnin' From The Police

Yesterday's ride was quite an adventure with lots of obstacles that will likely make it a day my teammates and I will remember for a long time.  

We started off the day knowing that the riding conditions would be a little more precarious.  The rain was ominous and we were forewarned that we would be receiving police escorts at miles 5 and 40.  

Unpredictably, a train crossing our only possible route out of Baton Rouge stopped us for nearly two hours at mile 2. Fortunately, the team made the best of the situation.  We befriended the gentleman sitting in the car next to us and he generously played music from his car speakers as we got our groove on.  

Finally, around 10am our group made it to the church at mile 5.5 where we were meeting our police escort.  Keeping our personal health in mind, the team had devised an ingenious plan to stay warm while they waited for the rest of us to get to the church.  

The police escort helped us across the...MISSISSIPPI!!! We are officially in the west!  

Unfortunately, while I was able to make the more work intensive trip up the bridge, just as I was beginning the rewarding decent, five of my teammates and I got flat tires.  

Post tire change a fellow rider and I pushed onward, looking for the lunch stop at mile 40.  We entered what looked like a short bridge, not an uncommon occurrence on Bike & Build, but the bridge was actually a spillway (oops). There was no median, no shoulder, and lots of fast moving cars.  After crossing the 4-mile long nail biter my riding companion and I found three of our teammates on the other side who quickly explained that the spillway was our second police escort.  Turns out the mile marker 40 estimate was a little off.  Luckily, all five of us had made it safely to the other side and after communicating with our leaders, decided to continue on to the host.  For perspective, here is a picture my teammate took while enjoying the second police escort. 

The flat tire I acquired on the bridge over the Mississippi was my first of the trip and my second came around mile 50.  Once flat #2 was repaired, we departed for the final 17 miles but ran into trouble 16 miles in when one of my riding buddies got a blowout.  As a group we were collectively out of tubes so we decided to walk the final 3/4 of a mile to the school where we stayed last night.  

Needless to say, we all fell to sleep early and fell to sleep deeply.