Tuesday 16 June 2009

Slaying the rat

The warm and tranquil green water of the Gulf sea lapping against the dazzlingly white sand on which I lay basked in sun should have made for a serene relaxing afternoon on Saturday in Destin. However, it was gnawing away in my head. Not getting the triple century clocked up into Vicksburg due to the broken hub had been the source of small, but growing irritation, and let's face it, I'd had plenty of time to think about it over the previous few days.

I didn't want the trip just to fade out into the series of mediocre length stages I'd planned. I really wanted to try and put a marker in the sand, to try to see just what I was capable of and where the past two months had got me. I had penciled in four days to get, via Tallahassee, to Silver Springs. But I could do that in three, I thought. Could I do it in two, though? Over three hundred miles in two days? Yeah, I'd take that as a more than adequate marker.

The roads were flat, the wind was forecast to be a 15 mph tailwind, I was rested, massaged and very well fed. It would still be an enormous ask but if you don't try...

PART 1
Day 71, Stage 48 - Destin to Perry 189 miles in 11hrs 50mins (numerous muffin and juice stops again)

Total distance - 4,267 miles

There was a light breeze pushing me along the early, smooth and quiet miles during which I veered with glee into the mist of the morning sprinklers until mile 10 when my first cycling 'prey' since Albuquerque, 1,500 miles ago turned onto the road a few hundred yards ahead. This guy looked serious, but catchable at a push, which he was after a couple of tough miles. I think he (Steve) felt less surprised and hurt when I explained just how far I'd ridden to get into his
slipstream. We raced along, my legs burning, until I thankfully turned off the highway 98 to take the bridge across the unpronounceable Choctawhatchee Bay (I think I spent about the next 10 miles trying work it out and am still probably wrong).

I turned onto highway 20, the sign read 116 miles to Tallahassee, I was looking at going well beyond that. So then, I switched off.....out of self preservation I had to. A few times during the early miles up to that sign I'd momentarily thought about what I was looking at attempting in day and I actually couldn't quite cope with the scale of it. So, for the next five hours up til I stopped at another garage after 115 miles I put myself in an almost trance, just staring at the road, turning the pedals and not thinking. Take me back to those roads and I'm sure I wouldn't recognize any of them. However, I was snapped out of the trance as I sat looking round the garage. This place looks familiar, I was thinking to myself - an awful lot like the garage where Top Gear had their infamous decorated cars incident. It probably wasn't, but I was dressed in Lycra, was not 'from round there' so wasn't sticking around to investigate.

It was well above 90F, and had been since the early morning. The air was still with the promised tailwind having seemingly wilted in the early morning heat and, try as I might, I couldn't get back into my trance.

70, 60.
50. 47.
45.
42.

39.

Tortuous.

35,
30,

Straight, flat, dull roads
20,

19.5
18.7

'why hasn't it clouded over? It was forecast to cloud over'

15,
11.

Hellish

9, 7

'why do you do these things to yourself Fraser?'

6.4, 5.1, 4.8, 4, 2, traffic lights, junction

Mo, tel

When I finally collapsed gasping into the room just after 7pm the Weather Channel was showing 89F, but with a heat index (i.e. Humidity adjusted) of 97F, even at that late hour. I literally staggered into the Italian restaurant next door to refuel on a infusion of pasta and celebrate my achievement.

She was polite and very apologetic
'Sorry but we can't sell beer on a Sunday'

'Ah cr@p!

PART 2

Day 72, Stage 49 - Perry to Silver Springs
125 miles in 8hrs 40mins (muffins & juice again and the first packet of salt & vinegar crisps I've seen all trip - a joyous moment)
Total distance - 4,392 miles
I was tired, but not as much as I expected to be. Thankfully it was to be a shorter day today with a mere 120+ miles and a tailwind forecast again. Yeah, a short day I was telling myself. Nope, I didn't really believe it. The first 40 miles into Cross City were memorable only for my first sight of one of the ferrel pigs you lot in Seattle were warning me about.

Another 20 miles on a converted railway track (see pic) gave me about my only shade of the two days and took me to the halfway point for the day. Here I accidentally purchased my second bottle of diet juice of the whole trip (the first error had been just three hours earlier).

I pressed on, the NW'erly tailwind hadn't arrived and was threatening to turn into a NNE'erly. I was struggling and craving salt so you can only imagine my joy when the tiny garage I stopped in next had a large bag salt & vinegar crisps on the shelf. I instantly opened the bag, scrunched the bag to a pulp, and almost drank the dry salty chips. It was enough to get me to painful last 20 miles to the Silver Springs Campsite.

20 hrs 30 mins in the saddle over two days posting a total of 314 miles. The sand was well and truly marked...and the gnawing had stopped...

...But, little did I know it, the toughest challenge had just begun.

I was showered, the tent was pitched my dinner was cooked and eaten. I was going to sleep, lots. The mosquitoes were out and while they were easily the worst I've experienced, they weren't a patch on a normal midge-filled night in the Highlands of Scotland. They were getting worse so I retreated into the tent, zipped it up, and then torture began. The tent isn't the best for condensation and letting in fresh air but in the 85F saturated air, with my metabolism running a touch below a nuclear furnace, it was absolutely suffocating - I think I know what it's like to be a boil in the bag meal. The sweat was pouring off me and within 15 mins, there was a sizable pool of water collected along the edge of the tent. Opening the zip to let in 'fresh' air, just let in a cloud of bugs to feast off me. For the first time since the first hot day out of Ferndale, California, I was facing something that I wasn't sure I could get through. This was tougher than anything I'd faced all trip. No, seriously!

I poured the water out the tent semi-chuckling at the old sleeping-hand-in-lukewarm-water trick that I knew I was going to play on my self if I wasn't careful. I couldn't take it so I dressed and paced around outside for about an hour waving the mozzies away, then realised I'd stopped sweating. Totally stopped sweating - not good. So I poured litres of water over and into me then tried again to sleep. Melted again. Paced around again, listening to the drone of the small creatures in the forest and the occasional crash and grunt of some of the bigger ones. Then I heard the snort of something that sounded very big - I definitely wasn't sleeping, especially as I'd not taken any real 'bear care' in cooking and storing my food as I'd not realised I was anywhere near their territory. A quick check on the web and I found I was. I'd ditched the bear spray in Arizona so was suddenly very worried. Perhaps a hasty move

The temperature slowly dropped and I finally passed out at 5am before waking before 9am as the sun began to cook me in my little green nylon bubble.

The rat was no more.

Effing bears here, I've just discovered

Sent from my iPhone

Too humid - iPhone screen playing up

125 miles doNe rest tomorrow proper post then

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