still on the Mississippi

[marni]

Sounds like fun riding with those women.

Is this part of a company-organized ride or just an informal ride amongst yourselves?

The tour company is womantorus.com a marvelous group of women who organize, guide and support these woman only tours. They do one "epic" orcross country ride per year, plus some foreign tours with local guides (Bhutan, Tuscany and others) as well as numerous week long inn to inn or B&B rides throughout the US.

Basically our day is breakfast 6-6:30 am ( depending on the distance) Snack table goes out shortly after, we load our luggage into the trailer which also has a cooler full of good stuff for the end of the ride, and a kitchen where opur dinners and supplemental breaksfasts are cooked.

once the snack table is out 7:00 more or less, we build our snacks or fill a baggy with self made trail mix,dried fruits, nuts, chocolate and other stuff and ride out.

Little Bo Peep sees that everyone is out on the road, picks up shich ever of the women needing a "jump" and drives by all the riders, checking to see that everyone who should be riding is riding, on route and giving a thumbs up. If there is a hand frantically patting the helmet, she stops to asses the problem and then either picks up the rider or calls back to the van and trailer ( driven by one of the two guides. The other usually rides the first 20 miles or so and then either switches places with the van driver or rides into the next town with the van.

Bo Pee scoots up to the 20 miles more or less spot, hopefully with facilities, parks and starts getting cut up fruit, pay days and protein bars ready for the riders. Bo Peep and the dirver repeat this performance every 20 miles or so throughout the day. We all check in with the SAG at each stop as she can't leave until she knows where everyone is.

In the meantime, the two guides and the van have settled up the hotel bills, loaded the bikes of the people who can't or aren't riding, sometimes taking some of the jump riders, if there are more than the three that Bo Peep, can handle and heads on down the road to the next destination. If it is a long day, the van may be at the SAG stops to pick up riders, but the basic principle is that the van leaves last, sweeps the riders checking on each, heads into the next town dumps the trailer with the chef/ guide and heads back down the road to pick up any flagging riders. If it is a shorter day, or if the chef/guide needs to grocery shop, the van will hang around town until the ride is nearly done before setting out back down the road.

Meanwhile back on the road, we are all riding along, stopping at the SAG stops to check in with BO Peep, and riding. If we go through a town about lunch time we may stop somewhere for lunch but so far we have been leaving early to beat the heat, getting into the next town in the early afternoon and getting lunch somewhere near the motel.

Once we reach our destination, we check our names off at the van, grab a cold something (beer, wine, chocolate milk, fruit juice, vitamin water, sparkling water, v8 ) get checked in and grab a shower and relax.

We gather about 6:00 pm to sit outside on chairs (yes the vtrailer carries that as well) and tell our stories of the day. Dinner is served at 6:30 and has an amzing variety of stuff to meet everyone's needs (vegan, gluten intolerant, nut intolerant, soy intolerant, pepper intolerant vegetarian and lactose intolerant in this group ) always a salad, a protein, a carbohydrate, fresh fruit and something for "afters" from choclate chips to pie or cheesecake with more fresh fruit. Lynne or chef/ guide who whips by all of us nearly every day getting in her 20-40 miles of riding, most definitely needs to write a cook book!

After dinner is the cue sheet handout for the next day, with corrections, things to look for, cautins, distance corrections etc. and then it is off to bed.

Most of us are in bed by 8:30 or 9:00

That's basically the day, eat, ride, eat, relax, eat some more, relax, cue sheet and bed.
Tough life but someone has got to do it and Womantours does it superbly.

the photo is Carolyn in a moment of bike yoga zen at a SAG stop.