One of our company from last year's cross country made a Facebook comment a few days ago to the effect that she could not remember another vacation where, one year later, she was thinking almost daily of what she had been doing one year ago. And I can only affirm and attest to the same phenomenon. The 2010 edition of that ride started last Sunday and armed with URLs for half a dozen blogs I have been following their adventures and living the ride vicariously all week. I went out today for my own ride and as soon as a bit of headwind came up I immediately flashed back to the breezes we experienced last year. This is perhaps the toughest one week period of the ride. They do back to back centuries through the desert, go immediately into the the climbing in the Arizona mountains and that while they are still getting used to the fact that they ride every day - no chance for a day off to recover. I, of course, was riding through the familiar roads around my town but I was seeing the mountains, climbing the hills and thinking of where I might stop for a few minutes of gatorade - and, oh, why didn't I put a Payday in my pocket? Alas, I didn't have Tom rumbling and grumbling beside me, didn't see Hank and Champ at the deli that I passed and Nancy and her distinctive bike were nowhere to be seen on my roads. It was still a good ride: 40 miles, 1800 feet of climbing and enough humidity to raise a real sweat. And tomorrow is Saturday - all the weekend warriors will be out on the roads and we get a bit of the cameraderie that adds so much to the experience of the bike.