Mixed Up Confusion
The desert has been taking a lot out of the riders this year, Tuesday was no exception. We've had some issues with Stephen stopping too frequently. He's deathly afraid of Shermer's neck, so he wants to stop every 25 miles or so to get his neck massaged, the problem is those stops tend to turn into 30 minutes off the bike. We've been pushing him hard to stay on the bike and he's been pushing hard back.
We've gotten to the point, where he'll take a hand-off from a moving vehicle. I've been working on teaching him how to put sunscreen on while riding. We're working on his descending skills. With more confidence and experience, he could be going downhill twice as fast.
Just north of Flagstaff yesterday, while we were waiting for a head on collision to be cleared, our crew chief went to sleep. When he woke up, he was confused, had forgotten a whole day, severe headache and was belligerent. He was showing classic signs of severe dehydration and we were doing our best to rehydrate him. It felt really touch and go for awhile there, I thought we'd be taking him back to Flagstaff for a hospital visit.
He's recovered completely, but he still doesn't remember anything from yesterday.
We're under the gun to get to the first cut-off point within the time limit.