Wednesday July 3:  Chillicothe, Missouri to Kirksville, Missouri
Distance:  83.3 miles
Total time:  6 hours 28 minutes
Riding time:  5 hours 35 minutes

Once again all the Show Me State could show me were hills, higher and steeper than yesterday's.  What I really want Missouri to show me is the Illinois border, but I'll see that late in tomorrow's ride.  I deeply regret my words of yesterday, that I actually enjoyed the hills and the change of pace.  For me today's ride was probably the toughest thus far, certainly top three.  As our UK colleagues might say, I am well and truly knackered.  This is the most tired I've been yet on the trip.

The Run in the Sun came to a thundering, and lightning, end today.  There were thunderstorms and lightning strikes all around us from the midpoint on, as you can see here.

Our amazing run of dry weather finally ended about 25 miles from the end, and we rode through rain for about 15 miles.  The bad news is that we were soaking wet and miserable.  The good news is that the temperature dropped from the 90s to the 70s very quickly.  I started the day worried about heatstroke and ended it worried about hypothermia.

I wasn't in a mood for photography for most of the day.  I was just trying to get up and down those damn hills.  The rain made it more dangerous to hit high speeds on the downhills in hopes that the momentum would carry you up the uphills.  We had to slow down, and that made the climbing harder.

That's me on the far left, before the rain hit.  We stopped frequently for water in an effort to stay hydrated.

The crazy Missouri letter system for highways persisted throughout the day.  When they run through the alphabet, they just start over with double letters.

Our Three Amigos riding group has a friendly competition with the Brits on who finishes the rides first.  They are faster than we are, but they stop frequently for tea, lunch or to sightsee while we generally plug on.  Today we were out ahead of them all day and joked that they'd probably try to out sprint us to the finish.  Sure enough, literally 100 yards from the hotel they came up behind us and beat us by inches to the hotel.  A demoralizing end to a difficult day.

Each afternoon, usually at 5:30, we have a group meeting that is called "route rap."  Our Fearless Leader Jim talks us through the next day's ride, the weather, traffic, what time we breakfast and what time we load luggage, and so on.  That's Jim second from list explaining tomorrow's route.

He hands out these cue sheets which give the navigation directions, location of the SAG stops, and other important information.  You see Andy above looking at tomorrow's cue sheet, and this is what it looks like.

The back of the cue sheet shows the topography of the upcoming route.  You can see that tomorrow we will face more of these Missouri hills before we cross into the Land of Lincoln.  Each one of the spikes you see on the sheet below is a sharp climb.

We did have an excellent and well-earned dinner at a local steakhouse tonight.  It was very nice to get away from chain restaurants that emphasize quantity over quality.  Here are some of the gang - on the left Sean, Jake and Mark, and on the right Mike, Zach and Dave.

Tomorrow is another tough day in this very tough seven day stretch - 90 hilly miles through Missouri, across Big Muddy and into Illinois.  We'll spend the night in Quincy and hope to see a parade and fireworks there.