Sis : Sobibor
Today I decided to mix things up. I have been riding the first leg each day and today I decided to ride the second leg. Three of the riders on the second leg group like me, are riding all the way to D.C. So they have been riding together almost everyday. Those riders are Vasken Melikian, Grigor Gevorgyan and Sedrak. Also Khachik and Nick would be joining us for this Leg.
Since this was the second leg of the day we would drive for a couple hours to the start of the Leg while the first Leg riders rode. The drive over was interesting! Grigor was reciting Poems and leading in the singing of Armenian patriotic songs. It was a lot of fun! It was also nice to get the drive done first instead of after the ride when we are tired, dirty and hungry!
These guys are all good and experienced riders. They know to start easy and get in a good warm up. After a few minutes I felt comfortable in the pack and could relax a bit. 
This would be our biggest day of climbing so far with almost 8k of climbing in over 100 miles. The climbs were mostly rolling hills, so the climbs were short. Since I could not stand up and charge to the top of the short climbs as the others were doing due to my back pain I would fall behind on each climb. The guys would slow down at the top to let me catch up!
When we got to the busiest road of the day it started to pour rain. We rode in the rain for a while and then took cover under a bridge for a few minutes. It seemed that after a while we were outrunning the rain and it started to ease up. It was a scary spot to be riding in the rain on such a busy road. Several times we pulled to the side and had our support vehicles do the same to let cars pass. It did not take long on this road to back up so we pulled over often. It seemed as though we were in the middle of nowhere so we could not make sense of how busy the road was!
A couple of times I moved to the front of the pack and Khachik told me to move to the back that he was my Domestique today and I needed to rest. Domestique is a french word meaning servant. In cycling a Domestique is a team member that works for the leader by riding in the front so the leader can conserve energy.
During the ride most of the conversation was in Armenian so I did not understand most of it. But the mood was jovial and the time went by quickly. I am slowly picking up a few Armenian words here and there.
Ride stats:
117.4 Miles
7579′ Elevation gain
5085 Calories
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