Le Tour de Manure Bike Ride

Saturday the 27th

The weather was looking pretty iffy this morning with rain showers predicted along with high winds, but the sun was out so I decided to participate in a planned ride supporting the local Special Olympics organization.

Called the "Le Tour de Manure", the ride covers a large section of the southern Imperial Valley commemorating the annual fertilization of the fields. Anyone who has ever spent time in the Kent Valley when it was still mostly crop fields will remember the smell. Called "Liquid Gold", manure from all the dairy and cattle herds is collected, mixed with hay and fermented for a year. Water is added and the resulting mess is then strained and spread with mobile spray rig.

I was at the start point around 8:00 AM, registered and spent time talking with other participants. I finally hooked up with a very nice young man of 45 who was celebrating his birthday. Eventually the ride organizers had everyone line up in the street for a mass start led out by a patrol car. Art and I were across the line and onto the route hoping to complete the event before the rain hit.

The roads were fairly good and the organization really good with police at major intersections controlling traffic and keeping the riders moving. The first ten miles were into a stiff wind and we were pushing pretty hard, probably running about fifteen mph. Eventually we mad the first major change in direction and had the wind coming from behind us. We upped the pace to about twenty and traded off pulls. This is like a two person pace line, trading the lead every quarter mile to provide a draft for the second person. It allows the riders to maintain a faster pace for longer periods.

Eventually we hit a five mile stretch of absolutely horrible road. We ended up slowing to about 12 mph because it was too difficult to maintain safe control at faster speeds. The last ten miles we were on the return leg back to town and were running against the wind again so we basically gave up trying to maintain a good pace and spent our time riding side by side and talking.

When we got back to the start line, there was pasta, salads, refreshments, fruit and music. Art and I grabbed a bite to eat and visited some more before we called it a day and after thanking each other and the organizers for a good ride we went our separate ways.

Returning home I put everything in the wash and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing with Tina as we watched more of the Olympics. Every now and then we were serenaded by the "Blue Angels" doing training runs. Their base is about three miles away.

Not too much else to report. It never did rain but the winds came up and rocked the coach every now and then. We took the kids for several walks. Other than the wind it as quite nice out. Tomorrow its supposed to be back in the 70's.

No photos today.