day 2 - Eustice to Maywood, via North Platte

here we are having lunch in north platte after hammering for 60-70 miles. i needed some junk food so we pulled into a taco john's. i wanted to take some more pics during this ride, but it was too hard as it was. we were going pretty fast and i had to hang on rather than expend energy trying to get some pics of the action. too bad though because it was an epic day. sydney kicked major ass on a day that started out with us getting drenched in a thunderstorm in Eustice, catching a good tail wind and flying up to North Platte, and then enduring the heat and hills of the afternoon as we headed south down to Maywood. all total... 100 miles.
BRAN isn't a race ofcourse, it's a tour. people of all sorts of abilites on all sorts of bikes riding for various reasons, but mostly to have fun and see parts of nebraska beyond the I-80 corridor. everyone starts whenever (some of the slower people get going as early as 4-5am!!!) and just rides at their own pace. i've been starting around 7-8am, and with sydney pulling most of the way, well... we end up passing most people. so ya, sydney and i ride alot faster than the typical BRAN'er, but thats how we ride. we like to push ourselves and ride hard on some great roads while meeting people and have a good time. but even on a fun ride like this sometimes things can be a bit competitive. well, between Gothenburg and North Platte we came up on these 7-8 guys who were in a paceline. they were out of Omaha, judging from their jerseys. we came up on them and followed them at a distance for a while. we just kept going our pace, and when they slowed up a bit we passed. they didn't know we were there until then, and thats were it began. i could tell they were totally miffed that they were passed by a woman. well... they may have the nice bikes and everything, but sydney killed them on her old b-stone RB-1. after passing them, they immediately passed us back a few times trying to drop us, but sydney just kept going the same pace as before and then they blew. they sent their 'fastest' guy after us in a vain last attempt to catch us but he was no match for sydney's diesel like power pace. we left them behind and headed into North Platte. we ended up taking a 45min lunch stop, so i figured they would catch up and pass us, but i wasn't worried as i knew we'd see them again. we got motoring again and flew south to Maywood. even with their huge head start, and with sydney and i having to stop a few times for water (and getting one flat), we still caught them and beat them into Maywood by 15min. score 1 for sydney.