Day Four: Hit the Ground...Riding

Hello, faithful blog followers.  You are going to want to see all of this blog! :)

It's been an eventful fourth day on the bike tour trail!  This morning as we left Sara Gensmer's courtyard at 5 AM to load up the car (it's carrying our massive amounts of luggage, water filters, etc.), we were greeted by a posse of uniformed, armed gendarme (military) waiting for us.  By chance, we had dined at the same restaurant the night before as the mayor and head of the gendarme.  The city knew we were coming through on the bike tour...so when they saw a big table of "whities" they remembered the tour and came to introduce themselves.  The head of the gendarme asked where we were staying and promised that the gendarme would circle the area all night so we could "sleep easy."  He also offered us a police escort out of the city the next morning...hence the 6 armed military men on motos at our gate at 5 AM.

They escorted us out of town, all the way to PCV Audrey Kidwell's site, where they turned back.  Audrey very generously bought us all water saches and had put up encouraging signs along the highway.  Thanks, Audrey!

Our whole route today was relatively good, paved road.  Interestingly enough, in 81.9 kilometers of road, there were very, very few towns.  For the most part, we just passed through countryside, which was beautiful (though a bit lacking in gateau and other snacks).  Our accumulated distance is now 310 kilometers.  Max speed today was 41.7 km and the average speed was 23.1 km.  We all finished the day in a little over 4 hours.

We came into new PCV Joey Glassi's site, where he welcomed us into his newly painted (robin's egg blue!) house and found us AMAZING food to eat (300 CFA ragu and roasted chickens).  With his easy demeanor and knowledge of his town, it's hard to believe he's just been here for 10 days.   

Other than that, the day was pretty standard....except for a little tumble that one of our riders took (ok, so it was me).  We'd like to give everyone an idea of what it's like to fly over your handlebars while going 27 kph, so we've re-created the moment for you.  See below!