Oh well, nice to have sort of met you, Owlice! I did offer your friend an innertube - I had a spare tire in my car,which wasn't very helpful. Depending on how badly her tire was torn, you can sometimes slip a dollar bill or piece of paper or something like that on the inside of it to make it rideable.

I'd seen a ton of eagles when I was out paddling, so didn't stop to watch the eagles with you guys.

I will say that we did leave late, so I tried to not to be too irritated with the meager amounts left at the rest stops. The first rest stop was out of water, had 2 of those drink bottles, 1 bagel,and like 10 peanut butter & jelly sandwiches when we got there -they were shutting down. The 2nd rest stop had a good stock of stuff left and the guy running it suggested we stock up - he also said that he was supposed to be closed, but was staying because more cyclists kept showing up. I had my backpack with me, so a spare peanut butter & jelly sandwich went in for both of us and some of the drinks just in case the 3rd stop was closed or depleted when we got there and because there was going to be about a 30 mile gap without rest stops.

And yeah, I'd have been pretty screwed if we hadn't found the crank bolt. I never saw a sag wagon the entire day - last year I did see the sag wagon 'cause it stopped to help Zen for a bit. We had the 43 and the 62 mile cue sheets with us - and neither had a sag wagon number. I could have sent V on to the 2nd to see if she could have gotten sag help. I was inventorying the contents of my backpack and bike bag trying to think of something else I could use while we were looking for the bolt. I guess I'm going to have to start carrying a small bit of duct tape. I always have it in my kayak day hatches, but not my bike bags. I'll loctite that crank bolt in so this isn't a problem again. For some reason, I decided to take my carbon bike that I hadn't ridden since the spring (probably because i hadn't ridden it in that long and decided that I had to get some miles on it )... which meant it hadn't been checked/use as regularly as my litespeed. We were being eaten alive by mosquitos where it happened, so I'm glad I didn't have to sit there and wait for a rescue.

The cue sheets were a big mess, I thought. I had the 42 and the 63 ones that I'd printed out from the weblinks that they were emailing us. V had the ones that they gave out at the event. The ones they emailed us had no emergency numbers on it (i coulda figured out calling 911 on my own) - but multiple steps that were on the event day cue sheets weren't on the ones I printed out. So I just put mine away as unusable and we followed V's.

I'm not sure if I'll be doing this again next year - I don't think I'm cut out for organized rides too much, and I'll just plan on a weekend near blackwater with some friends.