Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Too humid - iPhone screen playing up
Sent from my iPhone
Monday, 15 June 2009
Turning the nitrous switch to 'on'
Day 71, Stage 48 - Destin to Perry
189 miles in 11hrs 50 mins
Total distance - 4,267 miles
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Feed me!
Day 70 - Relaxation dayI'm off for a massage then out to the beach but before I do I thought I'd post this 'cure' I found for my Tourette's during the 'dull' day in Eastern Arizona.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
State, of play
Day 69, Stage 47 - Mobile to Destin122 miles in 8hrs 45mins (just muffin, juice and water stops again)
Total distance - 4,078 miles
I didn't realise how much I'd missed being beside the water until I saw Mobile Bay yesterday. So, with the forecast being for a tasty tailwind I had drawn up a new route last night to take me down and along the Gulf coast.
The day started off with a far-from-picturesque few miles through the Mobile dockyards, breathing copious amounts of oil fumes as I looped north to take the bridge over the bay (a certain Mark Beaumont kindly checked out the route for me last year and discovered the other main routes across the bay on the maps are tunnels). Moored in the middle of the bay is the US Alabama which I stopped to take a pic of, but then quickly got going again as I caught site of a large pair of reptilian eyes and nostrils in the water ahead of me - my first, and I hope last, gator of the trip. The wind had already arrived and I sped along the road a mere 3ft above the water
(though the gps was saying 93ft) until reaching Spanish Fort on the far side of the bay. By then the sweat was already pouring off me as the temperature and humidity were continuing to climb. Thankfully, the wind was more cooling than I expected as the miles ticked up to hit 4,000 around the village of Seminole before the next, more meaningful milestone a few miles later as I left the Alabamians behind (Alabammers would be a considerably more fun name!) and crossed the state line into Florida emblazoned with an enormous grin - that 'home-straight' feeling is certainly beginning to grow.
A loop round Pensecola took me to a nervy four mile bridge crossing to Gulf Breeze which was certainly living up to it's name. Thankfully the breeze was blowing almost straight along the coast, precisely the way I was going. Here I made one of the best decisions of the trip as,
rather than continue on the Highway 98, I took the 399 onto the Santa Rosa Island sand bar. This was an awesome smooth, ultra-fast, quiet road which the pic only partially captures. It was the light that was perhaps most impressive as the sun reflecting off the narrow band of white sand stretching out miles ahead gave the sky a delicate but definite glow where I was heading. I even enjoyed the continual dive-bombing that the local sea-birds were doing to me as I raced past (well, I enjoyed their diving, I was less keen on the 'bombing' they were doing). One of the most surreal things about this place was the broken bits of tarmac scattered around the beach from the last time a storm surge engulfed this place. And in a way that added to the beauty of the place. While I'd seen plenty of places where the ocean was eating away at the coast on my way down the Pacific Highway, there was at least the knowledge that all that will happen there with the advancing waters of global warming is that another few dozen yards of land will fall into the ocean, still leaving a cliff, or headland of some sort. However, down here, with nothing much more than 20ft above the sea, it's all just going to vanish.
Unfortunately this road then ran out sending me back onto the Highway 98, which is apparently known round here as the 'Red Road', and that ain't because of the political hue of the Florida Panhandle which it passes through. I'll be leaving it very soon along the next stage.
Arriving in Destin I headed for the Henderson campsite only to pass the 'twice voted the US' best state campsite' sign - It was full so have ended up in one of the local hotels.
Its so appealing here I've changed my plans to take a rest day here which is much required after today's long, hot day.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Straight & Narrow
98 miles in 6hrs 10mins (just muffins & juice stops again)
Total distance - 3,956 miles
So much for the early start I'd planned this morning to beat the heat. I had no real right to be tired today after yesterday's short stage but I definitely was so the 6.15 alarm was switched off, and again, and again until I finally surfaced at 8.30 to get on the road at 9.15. It was already hot but I'd pumped up the tyres last night to rock-like pressures and the wind was essentially behind me. While things weren't likely to be easy, they should at least be quick.
And they were, helped yet again by the playlist of tunes I've programmed into the iPhone. In hindsight I perhaps shouldn't have put all up tempo tracks on playlist as, no matter how much I tell myself to take it easy, I can't help but pedal that little bit faster when the next tune comes on.
As for the scenery today, beside spotting the sign in the pic (which I was delighted to see, though perhaps not the wording), I honestly could have been cycling past 50 miles of fields filled with cancanning cows and I wouldn't have noticed as for most of the day I had to be totally focussed on riding along a narrow 6"-18" strip of grey between the 3" drop at the edge of the tarmac and the rutted grooves ground into the road at the side of the lanes. Mentally an extremely tiring ride. Things got even worse the minute the road crossed the state line into Alabama as the four lanes went down to two - I just pedalled on and hoped all the way down to Mobile docks and the rather ugly, but beatiful sight to me of no land on the horizon as I reached the Gulf of Mexico.
In the absence of seeing anything to write about today I thought I'd briefly write about the weather. I'd heard so many horror stories about the heat and humidity here I'd been quite worried. It was another 90F day and while the conditions are draining, I have to say I'm finding the cycling a lot more bearable than the ultra-dry heat of the east-coast desert stages.
One last point to ponder. How are people from Alabama known? Are they Alabammers, or is that just bin laden and his crew?
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Take a look down the railtrack, from Miami to Canada (well almost)
Day 67, Stage 45 - Prentiss to Hattiesburg43 miles in 3hrs 15 mins (only picture stops)
Total distance - 3,858 miles
A delightfully short stage today down the dead quiet converted old railway line into Hattiesburg with only a tortoise, some llama, donkeys and a couple of ostriches for company. If anything it was perhaps too short as it turned out to be mighty difficult to motivate myself for such a short trip but the lure of finding a laundry managed to drive me on.
Managed to track down a bike shop here (the Hattiesburg Bicycle Center) who very kindly retrued the rear wheel for free. Very much appreciated.
Looking forward to an early start tomorrow and a near on 100 mile run back to be beside water again as I head down the road to the Gulf of Mexico.
It's a sign...
102 miles in 7hrs 50mins (incl. just muffins and juice stops once again)
Total distance - 3,815 miles
...all I was thinking was 'No it's not. Can I please get going?' I was being tag-teamed but more on that later.
Even when I set off at just after nine this morning the air already had a warm viscous feel to it. Not unpleasant but enough to mean that really pushing it was out the question.
Things weren't just physically draining but there was the mental drain of the logging trucks again, especially given the lack of any shoulder lane here which really wasn't fun. The bike was also worrying me as well as I wasn't entirely convinced the new rear wheel was the best built piece of kit. And after a pitiful 30 miles my fears were confirmed as it had already started to develop a slight wobble and by the time I stopped for muffins after 40 miles it was stuffed necessitating a lengthy rebuild. This time it wasn't Tourette's - for a very brief moment I was actually angry. I'm of the view that anger isn't a very useful emotion so I decided to channel it into aggression that I was going to take out on the pedals of the bike, driving them round and me down the the road. Which I did as I continued on repeatedly checking my mirror for what was on it's way down the road. But when I looked back ahead this time, while it was a straight road I was heading straight off it at 20 mph. My years of cycling have taught me that the best course of action is don't turn, don't panic and hit the brakes slowly. It was a heck of a rough ride but I came to a dusty and bumpy stop still on the bike which was surprisingly unscathed. I sheepishly got back on the tarmac which was a fantastically quick surface as it had recently been resurfaced. A few miles down the road I was held up at a one mile stretch that was down to one lane due to it being resurfaced. I was let through by the flagman at my end, but so was the traffic at the other end. Now I've unintentionally played chicken with a van many years ago. However, this time I could see it coming so I switched across into the tarred lane and cycled through the gloop which was slow-going but not half as slow-going as when the coating of tar on my tyres picked up a layer of stones, a lot of which are still there.
But it was the next one-lane section where the tragicomedy for the day unfolded. I was stopped by the flagman so was chatting to him when his colleague pulled up in a pickup.
"Have you seen a deer like this size before?" He asked waving a picture of him with a mounted stag's head.
A proud hunting man, I obviously reasoned. Fair enough. I'll be on my way soon enough once the flagman turns the sign.
"Tell me. Do you know Jesus?" He then asked. And, out of either amusement or Christian duty his friend wasn't turning that sign.
Don't get me wrong. He was a perfectly nice, well-meaning bloke but the, what felt like well over five minutes before the sign was finally turned was up there as one of the most mentally tortuous moments of the trip.
Bite, lip, resist, fish, barrel. Don't Fraser, just don't.
I didn't. Even despite the astonishingly misguided interpretation of the big bang theory that he gave. As I stood there I was half listening to him but also half listening to the tunes coming out of my unplugged earphones, desperately hoping that the next song it skipped to wasn't the Depeche Mode classic, 'Blasphemous Rumours'. As I finally rode on I was very nervously looking over my shoulder just on the slim chance he was going to try to prove his "are you ready to face god if you're run over on the rest of your cycle trip?" point.
On the topic of misguided messages. I spotted this one a couple of days ago outside one church. I was ending myself when I cycled past it.
I arrived in Monticello which I didn't much like the look of so decided to push on to clock up another century to the start of the Longleaf cycle track at Prentiss.
One small issue is that, with all the running around yesterday to get the new wheel, I didn't have time to do any laundry, and despite much searching I haven't been able to find one tonight. 'highly aromatic' is probably the best way to describe my room tonight.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
M I S S I S S I'm a bit P'd off
Not much, but the triple century was the last real 'little' cycling milestone that I'd set myself on the trip so to have worked so hard at it only for the bike to stop me short has made for a slight air of disappointment today. Still, trying to stay positive I managed to get a new wheel today in Jackson so I'm all set to go tomorrow morning and I also just found out that there's a 40+ mile cycle track that I'll be able to take on Wednesday which is something to look forward to.
The bike fixing has meant that I've had very little time today to see the town here which is a real shame as it looks an interesting part of the world with the ominous vast dark bulk of the Mississippi slowing gliding through and past the banks on which are filled with relics from the US Civil War (worringly some of the locals apparently still refer to it as 'the war of northern aggression'). All this is mixed together in the hot and oppressively humid air which is still almost too warm as I sitting out on the veranda of the excellent Bell of the Bends B&B having watched the sunset over the river and now listening to nature's white noise as the air fills with the calls of seemingly millions of unseen creatures.
