Saturday Evening 30 September
Day 21
Just for grins, riding out of Indianola, I decided to stalk the Nutter gang and maybe discover some of their secrets for having so much fun together on this trip. Riding south on 49E, Seattle Gary came flying by me about five miles out of town. Ten minutes later, along comes the rest of the gang, Waukegan John, motoring them up to Sea Gary’s wheel. He got down on his aero bars and pulled the whole gang for maybe ten miles, while Ma Karen sat on Stigman’s wheel at the back. The winds kicked up a notch and the gang started trading pulls, eventually forming a perfect double echelon when the wind was blasting from the left. I hung back a couple hundred feet, smiling and admiring until they reached the first sag stop and I rolled slowly by.
Leaving the Flood Plain
After riding fifty odd miles, we began climbing a sequence of stair steps, leaving the cotton and rice fields behind us. The landscape changed dramatically to rolling hills, forests, pastures, picturesque houses and occasional dogs. At supper tonight, Charlie admitted to priming the dog pump, being the first to ride by them all. By the time I reached dog alley, they had me dialed in. My Strava power graph spikes for each of my dog intervals. On one particular occasion, two dogs teamed up: first a yellow lab came at me from the right. Just as I had managed to outrace him, his black lab buddy comes charging from the left.
Dogs were my only motivation to ride fast today. Otherwise I enjoyed a slow meander over the rolling hills of eastern Mississippi.
