RAGBRAI day 3

90 miles of ride had been too much, but not how you might imagine...and now I officially have my first legitimate problem of the ride...

in the last two days, the combination of humidity, my body hear and sweat had neem working my sunscreen off...even with repeated applications...as a result, I have extremely bad sunburn on the tops of my legs, just above the knee, the backs of both calves, my brow, and tiny exposure spots on my neck and wrists...it's almost second degree in all spots...i can't take another day our something seriously bad will happen.

(people always wonder why I wear long sleeve shirts when I ride...not as much of a mystery more...)

I don't smoke, barely drink and have never done an illegal or ellict drug in my life.  I have super longevity in my family...but the one place I have HUGE risk is skin cancer...the ONLY way I could be at bigger risk is to have more sunburns.

I could sit a day out...that's certainly the safest...but I didn't drive 1000 miles to watch other people rode bikes...

the big problem here is I need a radical solution...i need something BETTER than "adequate protection"because my skin needs to rest and heel.

so I'm going to try an idea...

i decide to buy a pair of cycling liners and wear my track suit bottoms...while it's true that the temperatures have been tickling 100, I'm used to the "covered with clothing" concept in the heat (i never even wear shorts any more) AND I've been doing a lot of sauna and stream time since living in vegas, so my heat tolerance is pretty high.

yes, it'll make me look like a 1970s 8th grade retard, but it MIGHT mean I can ride with much lesser risk.

and it'll become real obvious, real fast, if it's a bad idea.

10 minutes into the ride, it's clear I've picked a winner.  the first 5 are hour, but once I started sweating, everything cooled fast.  I'd bought some 50 SPF t-shirts on a whim at cabella's and it's EASILY the most comfortable cycling top I've ever worn (including all jeery's).

the ride today is ultra senic, with a ton of great sights...in fact,i shoot so much, my camera starts to run low on battery.

I get into carroll and have a long conversation important with am info booth volunteer...most of it centered around the fact that carroll uses an image of the las vegas strip tip advertise their city on their web site...since the woman I'm talking to is a school teacher, during the majority of the conversation I'm  asking questions like, "so would you say teaching children devotion, our plagiarism is more important?"

by the end, she's laughing so hard she's crying ... my first contact with a person of ANY type today since when you're dressed like a muslim bike rider, you are shunned like plague carrying vermin.

I go to taco john's for infinite drink refills and hear from my brother for the first time in nearly 2 days...

when he does up, I'm shaken to my very core...

he looks *TERRIBLE*.  easily the worst I've seen EVER.he's red as a chery tomato...he's irritable, mildly incoherent and dull...it's a combo of sunburn and heat prostration, to be sure, but there's something else.

I'm not sure he should be riding tomorrow, but I'm not going to stop him.

so in the conservation of weather parity, on b1 sites had moved forward, one had moved back.

nobody said this was going to be easy, but only in my worst dreams did I think it might be this hard.