Pactour Day 19 "Physionomy of the Pactour caravan"

The motel van.  On top are extra wheels, cargo box, bikes for riders who are tired or crew members who aren't riding (crew rides every other day and "works" every other day.)  All the stands which the bikes are resting on are carried in the back of the motel trailer.

The front of the motel trailer holds computer bags and "stash boxes."  Stash boxes are shoe boxes or equivalent with tubes, CO2s, chains, pedals, whatever extra you want but don't want to load your bag down.

The back of the Motel trailer has water, gatorade, chests with soda, tools.  You can see up front the cardboard bike boxes broken down which we transported our bikes to WA with and will transport them home from VA.  Below the gatorade is storage for the metal pipes which serve as bike racks, the upper right of the trailer holds the wooden "ends" for the bike racks.  The orange cooler is the hand washing soap.  Rule No. 1 on pactour is when you come to a rest stop you take off your gloves and wash your hands.

Other side of the Motel van and trailer.  Notice Lon and Susan's tandem on the side carrier.

Jon Jahan loads the bags into the back of the motel trailer each morning.  JW is handing his to Jon.  The bags are carried in the motel trailer to the next motel.

Breakfast is served by Pactour each am.  Oatmeal in big white warmer, cereals with fruits and pastries.  All setup in about 20 minutes, eaten in 20 minutes and taken down in 20 minutes.

The crew serving breakfast, next to the lunch van and trailer.

Food "containers" are used as supports for breakfast/lunch benches.  Lon setting the benches on the containers.  The containers are all carried in the back of the Lunch trailer.  The benches are carried on the side.  NOtice the 2 holes in each of the green benches.  These are dual purposes.   You can put your drink cups in these to keep them from blowing away while eating.  They also serve to secure the benches to the side of the lunch trailer.

The back of the lunch trailer and riders eating breakfast.  Notice the upper right where bike stand supports are kept.  Gatorade/Water/Handwash similar to the motel trailer and underneath the gatorade the bike stand pipes are kept.  Just behind the gatorade the white food containers/bench supports are stored.  All the food is in the trailer on shelves.  I bet there are 200 bungies in use in both trailers.

Terri and the boys enjoying breakfast.  Jim generally doesn't eat breakfast since he is trying to lose weight and the riding is low intensity, particularly in the am.  So, Jim's jobs is to bring all the bags out and get the bikes ready to ride (remember 20 minutes for breakfast!!)

After the riders leave from breakfast, the crew working that day cleans up, packs up and heads down the road getting ready to setup for lunch.

Lunch is generally in a city park.  Here Buster is cooking up Bratwurst (after all we are in Illinois!!!)

The Turk teaches the boys to shuck corn (they had never done this before!!)  We bought this on the side of the road on the way to lunch today.  3rd day in a row for corn and this was the best yet.  The corn stands are often unmanned, you simply take your corn and leave your money.  Personal responsibility and integrity remain in the midwest farming community.

Looks like Will and JW got the hang of it.

"The House that Pactour Built"  Lon and Susans homestead in Sharon, WI.  Last night we overnighted in Beloit WI, 30 minutes from their house.  Susan dropped by their house to pick up a few things and off we went towards lunch.

Today was a recovery day.  Everybody was still tired, but at least not vomiting.  Will's ankle seems to have recovered.  The family rode in the lunch van from the hotel and planned to ride the last 50 in from there.  Jim and JW were still too beat from the previous day, so they went in the Motel van with Lon, Jon and David.  Terri and Will did the 50 miles on their own and had a good time.

We have 3-4 flat days across Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, so our plan is to take it easy, ride as much as we can, but make sure we're not getting burned out.  When we leave Athens Ohio and head into West Virginia in 3-4 days the climbing begins in earnest and we want to make sure we are fresh for that.

Tomorrow will be a challenge as it is a long day (170 miles) and we head into Indiana which doesn't respect daylight savings time so we hit our last "spring forward" and lose another hour.  Early wakeup as breakfast is at 5:30 and we start riding at 6:00.

"Physionomy" is a phrased coined on the fly by Paul Sherwin during the recent Tour de France.  Paul and Phil create interesting words during their commentary.  When a break was caught and different teams went to the front to work and the pace of the peloton changed Paul said that "catching the break completely changed the physionomy of the race."  I guess that is a combination of Physiology and Anatomy which is actually pretty descriptive!!

Thanx for reading.  The Slausons