Day 7: LEU Ride - Richmond to Stafford County

Day 7: 74.5 Miles
Total: 642 Miles
Weight Watchers Points earned: 80

We started the day in Henrico County, home to Richmond.  At the arrival into Richmond, VA (yesterday) we were greeted by a bagpiper, not my favorite of instruments but an honor to be played for.  This same bagpiper started us out and was at our final stop in Henrico County to "play us in" and then "play us out" after the service.  It was a short service  where they shared the stories of the fallen officers of Henrico County and while another name is just too many and another family is added to the C.O.P.S. family, inspiration that helps get you to the next stop, and eventually through the day.

There was a lot of chatter about this being a "hill day" and was intimidating enough for some that they decided to SAG for stretches of the ride.  It is a bit easier to get through the flat first day without training but these hills will weed people out.  I was pleasantly surprised with how the ride progressed, it seemed as though people (mostly) took their time to grind hills out and everyone made it safely.  I think my training paid off and I left my complaining about hill climbing in Georgia… I had this!

LEU is such a well oiled machine!  In a previous post I mentioned how great our support team was, when we stopped, we wanted for nothing.  If you were thirsty, there was water and Gatorade, if you were hungry, there were bars and fruit.  Also available was a bike support team who was outfitted with a mobile bike shop and these guys constantly worked on our bikes to keep us on the road.  I had two of the techs working in unison to change out my cleats and it was like a NASCAR team changing a tire.  I spoke with them about having bike looked at as after about 500 miles (on a new bike) routine maintenance is necessary.  I did have my first mechanical issue in my three years of the ride… climbing a hill my chain popped off.  Typically you'd just pull over but when you have a couple hundred riders with you, its not that easy.  Luckily, everyone was paying attention to my arm raised and me screaming "mechanical" so they raced around me.  After observing some of the riders yesterday I was a bit concerned that my "mechanical" was going to turn into a "rider down."  I was half way up a pretty good hill (not a desirable place to start) but the bike techs pulled over, I got the chain on, and he gave me a push start to get up the hill and eventually catch the group.  While this may not sound like a big deal… my goal was to stay on the bicycle for the whole trip, I was afraid that they'd put me in a SAG wagon and catch me up to the group to let me out.  The sprint to the pack was awesome, people in the stopped traffic rolled down their windows and cheered me on.  It was nice to speed it up and actually change up the ride pattern a little, the sprint gave me new life and a bit of an adrenaline rush too.

The people on the route were truly awesome, both civilians and law enforcement.  We had impressive displays from law enforcement and their color guards (see picture left). While some civilians are familiar with us, others aren't… they just see a bunch of people riding in red, white, and blue bike uniforms with a police escort stopping in traffic.  Children from elementary schools come out with signs, hold flags… people that have no idea who or what our ride is are stopped traffic (and I am sure there are some bitching about us), get out out of their cars, clap, cheer, fist pump, etc.  they get into it and its really cool to be able to wave and exchange a smile and use that as fuel to continue the journey.

The last pit stop of the day was Stafford County, which in native American means "The Hilly One" (seriously… not real, but whatever).  We had our last small ceremony of the day, where again, the names and stories of fallen officers were read.  I had the opportunity to finally meet Jimmy Kingman's wife.  Jimmy never told her "I love her too" when he closed his phone conversations so I got to do that in person, oh, and I got to meet the dog as well.  Wheels rolling from the Sheriff's office to the hotel was just a few miles… of hills.

As the ride progressed, not only did I get a chance to really get to know the FLETC team more and more each day, I had the opportunity to get to know more about their families (on Facebook too) and I even had the privilege to meet many of them as well (I'd enjoyed dinner with Juan's son in Chesapeake already).  Through the day, I met Eagan and Toisha, Mike Gary's family and what a pleasure to meet that young man.  Eagan even showed me how to "fist bump, explode, oh and pull it back."  Before checking in I also had the opportunity to meet Jarad Phelps wife and his boys were happy to see him.  These riders had been away from their families for around 10 days at this point… a sacrifice they make to pay tribute to our fallen heroes.


Thomas and I got checked in, bikes to the room, cleaned up, chair massages, dinner, and last batch of laundry.  Thomas was a great roommate and it was sweet to listen to him parenting his boys over the phone… all of the bribery that goes along with being a parent.  Thomas had been coaching to boys to keep secret the iPad for Mother's Day.  The night finished as all the others had… we'd be in the middle of conversation and Thomas would eventually pass out.