Day 25 - Washington DC

Today was a HARD day of riding.  We totaled nearly 90 miles and I average about 11 mph, so you can do the math on how many pedalling hours it took to get here.  Most of the day was quite pleasant riding and seemed to go quickly.  The last 25 miles was mainly a bike trail coming into DC and I was quite looking forward to that because trails are usually pretty nice to get off the road and just enjoy the ride a bit more, but this trail was very rough.  It followed a creek pretty much the whole way and was many times in very wooded areas.  The tree roots had caused bumps in the asphalt and that made the trail so bumpy I thought it was going to shake the bike to pieces.  It did hold together.  I did get another flat tire today.  That is 3.

I figure on a day like today that I burn 6,000 calories.  You would think that I would be losing weight, but I am eating a tremendous amount as well.  We started riding today at 7:00 and finished at 6:00 this evening and I ate cereal for breakfast, stopped and got a chocolate milk and pop tarts, ate my sandwich and cookies that I packed this morning and then went to an Asian restaurant this evening and ate a ton more.  It will actually be interesting if I have lost anything.

Well, I am beat this evening.  We are here and we all made it.  There were two in our group that had to be rescued.  There is this guy here in DC that works with adventure cycling and he used his car to go round up a couple that didn't make it to the motel before dark set in. I'm going to turn in. We do have a day off from riding tomorrow.