Well my grand experiment with a rear fairing came to an end at about 9 miles into the ride, turns out it rubbed through the Stelvio sidewall and that was that. I'd love to tell you how the rest of the ride went but that would be from riding a SAG truck
 
I at least can now give a report soon on how well the new Schwalbe Durnanos perform

Quote from sstexex on Jul 11^th, 2009, 6:00pm:

 
No stress just waited for the SAG truck, the funny thing is before the ride I was thinking how lucky I was never having to need one....

Well, I did the 39 mile route, which was actually 42.  I have to admit that the hills at the first were pretty flat and the majority of the hills were on the second half of this route.  The problem was that the heat was on the second half of this route as well.  I saw so many people sitting on the side of the road under whatever shade they could find.  The encouraging part, at least to me, was that I saw several Dad's our with their kids.  One guy had two kids about 11 years old (looked like twins) and they were on 24' wheel road bikes.  There was snother Dad that has a 10 year old with him.  Even though they were having issues at different parts of the route, the Dad's seemed to stay patient.  Looks like we still have youth coming up into the riding ranks.
 
I must admit, I was happy to get back to the car and turn on the air conditioner--maybe we need to invent a recumbent with an air conditioner and heater?  Nope, we'll just head to Iowa--it's been 75 to 80 for the high there.  Hope it holds for a couple of more weeks.  I saw Mark at the start--or should I say I saw the recumbent go by with the tail box and wondered if it was him.  I saw Richard C walking across the street while I was waiting to register, but that's about it.

Quote from Bud_Bent on Jul 12^th, 2009, 10:17am:

 
It was an Optima tailbox, not a true performance item but it did add to the top speed although it weighed 6 pounds