You better not dawdle on the Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska this week, or else you might get “the clapper.”
That's the wake-up call from Kelly Smith, a volunteer who rides in a SAG wagon. The clapper is a plastic noise-maker that Smith shakes to encourage cyclists who look tired or are getting beaten down by headwinds on the BRAN that covers 454 miles this year.
Smith, you'll know him by his coonskin cap, is just one of the volunteers helping the 600-some cyclists in this year's ride that runs through Saturday, reports the Lincoln Journal Star. This is the 28th year for the ride.
Meanwhile, some 425 cyclists are plowing across eastern South Dakota in the 4th annual Argus Leader Tour de Kota. About 300 more are riding shorter versions of the week-long bike tour.
The intrepid bicyclists are expecting to hit the rains that are sweeping the Midwest this week. Except for a brief shower on Sunday, however, things have been dry the first two days.
The wind provided the obstacle on Monday, however. As Peter Harriman put it in the Argusleader.com:
“I still am trying to come up with a sentence to convey the desperate, maddening, physically draining nature of the leg between Mitchell and here. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's “Heart of Darkness” might have come as close as anything to getting it right – “The horror. The horror.”
“But for a few short stretches when the main route jogged north and the 100-mile loop dipped south and then north, every inch of ground was hard won by the cyclists who faced an unrelenting headwind that blew hard all day.”
Maybe the cyclists in South Dakota could use a clapper.
In any case, all these bicyclists in Nebraska and South Dakota have discovered a memorable way to spend a week's vacation without burning up a lot of $4 a gallon gasoline. To see more week-long bicycle rides, check out the list at Biking Bis at Across State Bicycle Tours.
Image above from Russel Daniels at flickr.com; 2006 Tour de Kota riders lining up to buy snacks.
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