This year the DAM J.A.M. celebrates the 200th year of the bicycle.
This year the DAM J.A.M. celebrates the 200th year of the bicycle.
The DAM J.A.M. is a jam around the dams, organized by
Jim and Marie (J.A.M.), in Pryor, Oklahoma.
Here we are unloading our made-in-Kansas RANS Screamer in Pryor for our tenth DAM J.A.M.
We air up the tires to 90 psi.
Marie asks everyone to be nice and ride safely.
There were more than 600 riders and two starts to accomodate them. The first was at 7:45 A.M.
Here we are, fixin' to start. Now I see why I have that funny suntan pattern on my head.
There's a drone above the starting line taking pictures.
The police block the intersections and help us out of town.
We head east toward Hudson Lake.This was the nicest day for
a ride ever. Carol even wore her jacket for a while.
We get tired of looking at everyone's back, so we took some pictures in the mirror.
Pretty soon we're out in the country on nice Mays County roads.
About every 10 or 12 miles there's a rest stop with nice people
handing out fruit, water, candy bars, and other good stuff.
This time somebody made bicycle cookies.
Jim and Marie do a really good job marking the roads. We chose the
30-mile ride this year because we're old and haven't trained much.
It was a perfect day. Not long after this spot we came to a great hill. It was
long, narrow, and twisty, so we had to use the brakes, but we hit 38 miles per hour.
Here's the elevation profile. The best hill is the real steep part at about 18.5 miles.
At the bottom of the hill is Hudson Lake. Then we ride along the lake shore for a while.
We stopped to help someone who needed a screwdriver to adjust her brakes.
We carry tools, spare parts, spare inner tubes, a pump, and other stuff.
We're getting near the end.
With about six miles left, there's another rest stop.
This one is always run by a Boy Scout troop from Adair.
We wore our Pelé shirts because he's our buddy.
A few more miles and we're back at Whitaker Park.
Total distance was 33 miles at an average speed of 12.0 mph. Top speed was 38.0 mph,
on a steep, twisty, narrow road, with the brakes on. Too scary to take pictures.
Back at the truck, we review the map.
Then we load the bike.
After the ride, we went to the Dutch Pantry again for Amish home cooking.
Back home, I threw away the terrible, noisy, SRAM twist shifters. The right shifter was
so loud it made my ears ring. I put on nice Shimano shifters with combined brake levers.
That required changing the rear cassette and derailleur too, but it was worth it.
Now we're excited about our next ride.
Visit the real DAM J.A.M. website