Tour day 74 Jeuse Take The Bars... And My Luck Sept 7 2010

I woke up this morning with a good feeling in my heart. I had a new tire, new tubes, and a fresh mindset in terms of my bike.

I cooked my breakfast and went outside to eat. When I went outside I encountered a shock… fog. This was not like Canadian fog because it was hot. When you rod through it, it felt as if a blanket was wrapped around you. It was 7 in the morning and I was already sweating. This is when I realized my mindset means nothing if the other elements do no cooperate.

The fog stuck around for about 3 hours. It made me a little nervous at first because it was dark, but I had my big headlamp charged and used my other lamp as my taillight. It all worked for the best because most drivers drove very kindly.

Augusta came sparingly quickly. Unfortunately I could not find the golf course so I just kept trucking along the main road. The main road was something else because it had 4 other roads connect with it, so by the end the road ended up being 6 lanes wide. Now crossing that to get onto the number 1 at a stoplight was interesting to say the least.

I was 10 km from the Georgia state line when I was climbing at a slower then normal pace. I look down and you guessed it another front flat. I stopped at the top of the climb and came close to throwing down my bike. What the heck is going on here? What did I do to deserve this karma? I was not happy in the least. On top of tat stopping in the hot fog meant that I was literally dripping in sweat changing the flat. I was thinking at the end of this change I was going to take the day off and stop at Louisville.

I was 30 mins down the road and expected another small pinhole flat because I could not find anything in my tire. Fortunately this was not the case, but now my cassette and derailleur were giving me troubles and going all over the map.

The map was actually the one surprise today. I over estimated my distances so I hit my stop early. It was at this point I decided to press on. I figure the kilometres are not going to complete themselves so why not if my legs were feeling good.

After lunch I turned on the radio thinking I would get a good selection of music. Instead I had one choice… the gospel station. Now I gave it a shot because when in Rome do what the Romans do. When in the Bible belt do what Jesus would do. After roughly 12 minutes I turned it off. I hit my limit for the use of the word Jesus in a day. If you are wondering the limit is 500 times.

The end of the ride was a mixed bag. The plus I had a closed road to myself so I had 2 lanes to myself. As well I had a few dark clouds overhead so the temp dropped to a cool 87 degrees. The minus was a crosswind. I am not going to complain yet though because at the end of each day I always seem to summon up a lot more power then the first 6 hours of the day.

At the rest stop I got to catch up on some bike tech stuff, which I love. You know im a bike geek because my job 7 days a week is riding, then when I have a spare minute what do I do? Research bikes of course.

I also got some time to reflect on my first day in the Bible belt. In ways it is very similar to bike touring because it is never normal. It is always one of the extremes. One example is the radio. One county I was listening to a black radio host telling “his people” to man up. Telling them its time to change our image. The next county the radio talked of “homos”. The in the final country it was all about Jesus. I want to say it is a culture shock, but really it isn’t. They simply do not censor their thoughts. What goes through the mind is what is said. Where as where I am from it would be taboo to not censor yourself. In ways it is refreshing, and in others disappointing. I guess it all depends on whom you meet.
Trip Distance: 157km
Ride Time: 7:28hr
Avg. Speed: 21.01km/h
Total Distance: 10896km
Total Ride Time: 511hr
Destination: Swainsboro, Georgia