"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread

Feely - I tend to agree although today she has been an eating machine and feels pretty refueled after last night shenanigans. She has been stopping as often as possible to obtain ice that she puts into ziplocks and stuffs down her shirt etc. I think she wants to keep the pressure up on the 2 dudes she is currently neck and neck with. All i know is its hot as fcuk in the mountains and when I got home from doing my fitness activities i was super happy to lay down and take a long nap.

She told me she did 5 tire changes yesterday and this morning and feels like shes pretty good at it now

Yeah, It hit 100 degrees during martial arts today. Ridiculous. Glad to hear the thread support is helpful.

Valentine to Norfolk is a really long push, so I can see the value in trying to get a bit further, if she has it in her. OTOH, I can see putting off Norfolk until Tuesday, when the bike shop will be open, too.

Sat on a rack in the fridge for a day. Put in the oven @195 until center internal temp was 93'. Grilled at highest heat, flipping every 15 seconds until center hit 114'. Came out decent, imo.

We need some tire run good for SPC now... GO GET EM!

Don't want to jinx anything, but she's making a strong move. One time, tires!

What tubeless setup is she running (brand, etc)? I’m not familiar with the bike side of things, but I run variations on my dirt bike. The tubliss system is what I used to run - it’s not the easiest system to change in and out. I run Mousse now and it’s the best thing since sliced bread - zero possibility for flat (install difficulty level 8/10).Point being tubeless stuff is a pain to fix on the fly.

From what I’m reading about bike tubeless some are harder than others to seat on the rim. Most need a high pressure air system to get it seated. Is she carrying a standard pump, co2 cartridges, or?? Also, is she adding the sealant to cover any punctures along the way?

I’m trying to figure out what the advantage is here? Is she running lower tire pressures? (Sorry lots of questions)

On a side note…. GOGOGOGOGOGOGO!!!

SPC takes second place! I go to bed now. If she's stopping in Wood Lake, glad to see she went 20 feet past LS to take second. My assumption is she's pressing on though. Guessing she's planning to stop in Long Pine, and I'm not dot watching that late.

guys i know you're all madly impressed with her progress, but i just want to re-iterate that what she's doing is crazy high endurance stuff

to put things in perspective, no casual rider says "hey i'm going to race from seattle to washington dc"

she's not just in 2nd, but half the field dropped out, and of those remaining, half of them are a full time zone and several states behind

just insanely impressive, if i were out there i'd 100% still be in idaho

it's incredibly impressive. And then there's that mad**** half the country ahead of them all

Great recovery food imo. Just get some Amazon drones and airlift a slice to SPC.

She put 50+ miles between her and anyone even close behind her. So impressive.

Gogogogo SPC

SPC just finished her day. She put in a total of 178 miles yesterday and wound up in stewart. She got a room for 50$ and has an 8pm check out. The riding last night was fantastic and she is happy to have made the switch, especially since the heat index values are going to 105 today.

Ace - i do not know bikes and IDK what tubeless system she uses. I think her tires are 48mm and she runs low pressure. Evidently there is a trick using gas station air to set the tubless in place. She was unable to do it and is now waiting for the shop in nebraska to do it.

Gogogogogogogogogogogogoooooooooooo!!

Here is spcs writeup of the day:

GAWR 15+: Pulling a Double 179.96 miles

I spent some time this morning trying to mount my tire tubeless, then giving up, patching tubes, and getting a tube running. When I was warned about goat heads on the trail, it occured to me that I could put some sealant inside the tub, which is what I did.

My cassette started skipping gears a lot, and it was getting worse quickly. I was worried that I might not make it to the next bike shop in Norfolk. Luckily, I ran into Adam and Greg for a tater tot snack, and Adam showed me that the cassette itself was loose, and where to tighten it. I can't get it properly tight without a special tool, but I can get it tight enough to do its job for a while.

It was hot today, and riding on the pavement which reflects a lot of heat, with no shade, was rough. I decided to switch to a night riding schedule, and sleep through the heat of the day. To get started on that, I rode through the night last night.

I saw lightning bugs, turtles, frogs, deer, MY FIRST EVER PORCUPINE SIGHTING, and lots of birds. The bugs went absolutely crazy at dusk and dawn, but were manageable otherwise.

After dark I rolled through the park where James was, and he was still awake and down for a chat.

Now I'm feasting on a gas station egg and bacon burrito and a half gallon of chocolate milk. I plan to set sail again just before sunset.

Any high-pressure air can help set the bead. I carry CO2 because my hand pump doesn't do shyt for tubeless tires.

Norfolk coming up, maybe next day's rides? New saddle, hopefully can get the shop to help maintain the other parts.

squid, can't remember if you've mentioned how SPC is going to get from DC back to PC. You going to zoom out there and get her?

she'll just roll on up to sqid's newly decked out car

Golddog - Norfolk is 100 miles. She has her alarm set for 6pm. This will be her longest sleep since the trip has started. I figure she will go to norfolk and hit up the bike shop and grab her saddle. Depending on how long it takes to get the work done on the bike and the temps it may be a short day. But with her you never know. I think her bike stuff is pretty straight foreword and should not take too long.

I was planning on flying on dc to meet spc at the finish and do a little celebrating for a few days. She mentioned she wanted some boondoggle fancy meals after living on this crazy diet for a month.

Donatello - spc is really a novice when it comes to bike maintainance and has learned a ton this spring in prep, but even more when thrown into the fire. Space is such a premium that she did not bring any co2. She learned about the gas station air trick from a friend. There is a pretty big group chat shes part of and an absolute ton of support in terms of coming up with solutions to problems. She watched some videos on it and spent about 1/2 bottle of sealent trying to set the bead before giving up.

I just checked the weather and they have big time heat advisories going on . Norfolk will be 107 heat index today. It will be brutal

We only talked briefly she was obv super tired but it sounds like the trail is much improved with minimal goat heads and zero flats.

Made it through all the video updates this morning. What an awesome experience and accomplishment. Gogogogo!

Good news indeed. Goat heads is a much better name for those protruding rock tops than what they called them when I was a kid, if still a little weird. I assume that's what they mean here, as the puncturevine doesn't grow that far north, afaik.

I've been thinking goat heads was referring to the stickers, lol.

I mean, it could be. I just always thought of those as a Southwest thing.

I thought about you this weekend Garick. I found a 1935 silver certificate dollar bill with a bunch of signatures all over it and Nov 7 1942 Egypt written on it. I assume it was all the guys in my grandad's squadron over there. It has "Short Snorter" by my grandad's name, so I guess maybe that was a nickname we never heard of until now or maybe his plane's name?

Interesting, and thanks for the update.

Not the plane, I don't think. I'm pretty his plane when he was in Egypt was the "Pair-o-Dice," which was his crew's main plane until it was lost after another crew used it in a raid on (IIRC) Crete, and it ran out of gas and had to ditch in the Med on the way back.

Weird nickname, which may be why you never heard it before. Sounds like a reference to a very specific "you had to be there" incident, and thus unlikely to stick.

Would be an interesting nickname to he sure:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_sn...