Day 21 – Pranks and U2 Concerts!
Posted on July 27, 2011
July 27, 2011
Yesterday (July 26) was one of our shortest yet longest days on this tour. Some of our groups did 20 extra miles due to missed turns and confusing directions, and the hills in Pennsylvania are horrible. The morning started off with Jackson, Jack, Alec, and Justin pranking Liam and Ty by zip tying them inside their tent when they were sleeping and then knocking it down. If I can find my camera, I’ll show you photos. Good job boys, you did good!
As soon as we started riding both groups got lost separately and did between 3 and 5 extra miles up and down rural Pennsylvania hills. Only when both groups met up on the same road did we realize that we were on the right track. We did a few more circles, sat under a couple underpasses, debating which side of the river was on the west side, crossed over a few bridges, and looked desperately for a bike path that didn’t exist before finally meeting up with the support vehicle for break.
Soon after that we were on the road again and spent four miles navigating our way through construction on a busy highway. As soon as the construction ended we were blessed with four flats between the two groups in less than two miles. In an hour and a half we were rolling again, but the groups soon split onto two different routes. One group ended up at lunch in 1 mile, the other group did ten miles of terrible hills because they missed the turn or something and never made it to lunch. They finally got a short break around 5:30 before making their way into Pittsburgh where we literally ran into the last U2 concert of a 60 city tour at Heinz Stadium where the Steelers play! The leaders made plans to return later that night and we continued to The First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, an awesome castle like church you could easily lose yourself in. We had a delicious dinner prepared by the church, but unfortunately for the riders it was too late for them to really explore the mall or the city. The leaders went to the U2 concert though where they had a free but better view of the amazing rock concert than some of those who paid for seats inside the stadium.
Ty and Liam, then got the boys back for their earlier tent incident by freezing their bike shorts and filling their body wash with mayonaise. Unfortunately, at this point I cannot disclose any more information on the pranks played by Ty and Liam last night, they are still works in progress!
We are on a bike path today and river rafting tomorrow, hopefully today will be an easier day than yesterday. We miss you all, thank you for all your support and well wishes….we’ll see you in Jersey!!!