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

Sent from my iPhone

Turning the nitrous switch to 'on'

So much in sports is all about statistics and records so, no photo today, little in the way of words, I'm just going to let the numbers below do the talking - and they're going to have to cause I ain't got any energy left to.

Day 71, Stage 48 - Destin to Perry
189 miles in 11hrs 50 mins
Total distance - 4,267 miles

Feed me!

Day 70 - Relaxation day
I'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.

State, of play

Day 69, Stage 47 - Mobile to Destin
122 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.

Welcome to my world

Straight & Narrow

Day 68, Stage 46 - Hattiesburg to Mobile
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?

Take a look down the railtrack, from Miami to Canada (well almost)

Day 67, Stage 45 - Prentiss to Hattiesburg
43 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...

Day 66, Stage 44 - Vicksburg to Prentiss
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.