This will be my 5th. Yes, there are crowds, and yes, it's hot, but if you get started early in the morning, you can do a lot of miles before the heat. And every town that you come through welcomes you like you're part of a liberating army. There are bikes of every description, uprights, recumbents, trikes, tandems, and one group of 4 guys on a vehicle that would have to be classified as a quadricycle I suppose. There are teams that dress in tutus, others that wear these holstein cow spotted jerseys, guys that decorate the road kill with Mardi Gras beads, people who strap all kinds of decorative arifacts to the tops of their helmets, etc. It's wierdly fun, and it's possible to eat pie from one end of the state to the other .