The day after I got home I gave Margaret, my wife, an overview of the trip, and probably overly focused on the gradual deterioration of my hind end (as I have done in this journal as well, I'm sure). I told her that even my Dad's Ancient Cyclist Secret of dosing your bike shorts with baking soda didn't do the job of easing my posterial pain.

She looked at me with furrowed brows: "Baking soda? Are you sure that's what you're supposed to use? That stuff is super abrasive and has kind of a salty chemistry. Isn't that like rubbing a mixture of sand and salt into the wound?"

Hmmmm .... that did make sense, but what the Hell was the actual baking ingredient that was the balm for saddle sores if not baking soda? Margaret walked me through the kitchen cabinet. "Do you think it was Corn Starch? That kind of absorbs fluid and helps things firm up and congeal."

Again, cue the cartoon light bulb above my head. YES! Corn starch!! Not baking soda!! So I had essentially committed a War Crime against myself by misidentifying the secret sauce that one should use. Imagine this: You have a raw spot rubbed on a portion of your body. Your solution, to help ease the pain of riding 168 miles on your bike, it to dump an ample mixture of very fine grain beach sand and sea salt into your shorts. Yes. That makes perfect sense. I have stuck a post-it note next to the bike gear as a helpful reminder about this for future reference, but you watch ... Prior to the next tour I'll convince myself the secret ingredient is Tabasco sauce. Happy Trails!

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