We Don't Love Chip Seal

Tuscaloosa to Prattville AL. Temp low 50's at load. 118 miles and 6000' of climbing Breakfast at the motel. After putting two slices of toaster french toast through the toaster twice and have it come out just like it went in. I ate it the way it was, almost warm. Then it was on to cereal. I'm trying to remember the last time I bought honey nut Cheereos. Yeah now I remember, never. We load at 6:45 am. The cue sheet is once again looking like a navigational nightmare. It is 3 1/2 columns of instructions. Plus we find out that a new road has been put in so just follow the painted arrows in the road put down last night. I lead the way out motel lot and stay at the front of the group until almost 13 miles, to the bottom of the first column of instructions. At 15 miles we turn and the next turn is in 0.3 miles. All of a sudden I realize we have been going to long and haven't turned. So I say something about going to far and we all u-turn and march back up the hill and turn the right way. Our next road segment is fairly long for today any way. There is a nice downhill with a few hard cranks I open a gap. Next thing I am sailing down the road by myself. I start passing the slower riders who have left early. I catch Steve on the recumbent bike at the top of a climb. Near the bottom of the next downhill he comes around me. As we start up again I have to go around him for the second time. Next I pass Barbara and I know that there should be no other riders in front of me. The SAG is setup at 42 miles. I pull in and sign the sheet and the one for lunch. I tell Karen what I'm doing and she says OK then we won't worry about you. See you at the motel. At about 57 miles there is a small grocery I stop and get enough supplies to last me all the way in. Now we have been having chip seal road off and on. Chip seal is made by laying down tar and putting crushed rock on top of it. It is bone jarring to ride on. As I leave the small store I turn on to a county road. Very soon I am into where they are resurfacing the chip seal with new chip seal. Not only is it rough it feels unstable. Luckily there is less than six miles of this. Most of the ride is in second growth pine forrest. The area is dotted with homes. Every once in a while a dog will chase me. I usually try to discourage this with a sharp no. At one house two little terrier cross types come after me. I let them chase me as they are not getting to close. I want to see how far they will go before turning back. The answer is not very far. Comming through old downtown Prattville I see a restaurant I would like to try. Usually this wouldn't be possible but members of Mike's cycling club are comming to ferry us around. I arrive at the motel at 1:50 pm. When I sign in I put the time down. Later some one will change this to 4:50 pm. Oh well. Next I go to McD for some eats and a shake. Then into the motel office for some popcorn. Some riders come in and it's back to McD for another shake. By the time the luggage arrives there are plenty of riders in and the unloading only takes a few minutes. John from the bike club takes two to do laundry and four to dinner. Another member bringing in four more. The food is quite good and a welcome change from fast food and chain restaurant food. Every body is now in countdown mode. Four riding days left.

Seven States Down

Aberdeen to Tuscaloosa AL. 110 miles and 5300' of climbing. Mid 50's at load. We had breakfast at the motel and nobody was impressed with it. The day will be spent going up and down. The navigation will be intense as there are 3 1/2 columns of instructions. We never go more than 10.8 miles without a turn. For the most part the segments are much shorter. As an added bonus there are a few mistakes on the cue sheet at the end. At the AL state line Mike has made his own welcome sign. We have a rather large group rolling down the road today. The pace is fairly easy and for me that is a welcome change. The rural roads are just beautiful. Lots of trees and everything is green. There are a lot of loose dogs about and all want to play chase the new thing. After the first SAG the group is down to 7 and we will ride together till Northport just before the river into Tuscaloosa. A few need to go to the bike shop and some are looking for a milk shake. When we determine that there are no milk shakes in Northport we cross the river and go by the campus of U of AL. Others will stop later and determine that the football stadium is the most interesting building on campus. Back out on the road Will has broken his chain. Sandra comes in with grease up to her elbows and Will is clean as a whistle. With all that Mike still had to replace Will's chain on the road. Sandra's dad and aunt have come to meet her. The dinner situation is better tonight there is a Chiles in walking distance. Tomorrow is going to be a lot like today except we end in Mike and Barbara's home town.

Food???

Senatobia to Aberdeen MS. 138 miles and close to 5000' of climbing. We start the day at the Huddle House across the street from the motel. I think it's OK. Some elect to just eat cereal at the motel. After last nights culinary hell some are not taking any chances. Load the luggage at 6:45 am. With the distance and the climbing it will be a real long day for some. The good thing is the favorable winds. The cue sheet's second instruction R at Yellow Dog Rd and Don't Miss in bold. The next instruction should of had some warning about not missing that turn. When we get there I see 2 riders have gone straight I call out to them twice but I'm not going down the hill after them. At least 4 others went the same wrong way. James needs to take a nature break. I'm rolling along slowly waiting for him. A group of 5 comes along and every one of them gleefully says on your left Norman. Two riders trailing them come by and one of them says what a bunch of smart asses. I didn't say so but I couldn't agree more. James, Pat and I roll up behind them and just tag along at the back for a while. We cruise up on Perry, Eric and Kirsten. Kirsten looks green. Shortly after Pat flats. Just as we are getting under way again. Kirsten, her dad and Perry roll up. I fall in beside Kirsten and she thinks she is a Huddle House victim. Pat and James are getting smaller. All Kirsten wants is Jim in the mechanics van to pick her up. I try calling him. No luck. I pace her to the first break. James and Pat are still there. James fills my bottles and gets me a few cookies so I don't waste a bunch of time removing my gloves and sanitizing my hands. Five of us start out together. There are many ups and down Pat is really pushing the pace on the climbs. Now there is a gap and getting bigger. Tom and I try to chase but Pat keeps pulling away. The two of us go into time trial mode. We were getting closer at one point but then the climbs got longer and steeper. Then I saw why Jim wasn't available he's parked in a ravine. No cell phone service in that spot I'm sure. Then the road starts to flatten out. Tom and I are slowly but surely eating into Pat's lead. It takes awhile but we finally close the gap. Pat is still hammering us on the climbs. All I'm trying to do is recover from the chase. All Tom wants to know is do we ride like this all the time? Miles and miles of nice road and some nice farms and ranches. We had a small bicycle induced cattle stampede. At one spot there was a bull on our side of the fence. There is a drainage gully between us. The bull runs out of room to run. It starts to make a u-turn and it looked like it got snagged by the barbed wire fence. Ouch. James catches up at the lunch SAG. We get cleared to miss the third SAG of the day as we will beat the van there. Aberdeen has no restaurants other than fast food. We stop on our way to the motel at McD and later have dinner at Subway. Both of which are about 2 miles away. Sonic is 1/2 mile in another direction and Wendy's a mile and 1/2 past that. Not having good wholesome food is taking a toll. Mostly mentally but I wouldn't eat this way at home. We are in a city tomorrow. A shorter ride and the promise of better food.

Six States Down

Brinkley to Senatobia MS. Still in the 50's in the morning. Arm and knee warmers again to start. Overcast. First order of business today is the memorial for Darrell. We are outside at 6:00 am. We form up in a circle with a space for the "missing man". Eric Kloor has written a poem that paints a vivid picture of Darrell. This will also be read at the funeral. Rev Scott closes with some very comforting words. We are going to ride to breakfast at Gene's a little place about a mile away. Mike tells us not to expect much in the way of service. I don't think they do too bad getting out 30 breakfasts. Will and Sandra are running like thieves in the night. Leaving before some have been served. James, Pat and I are in no particular hurry. When we do get on the road we ride with Pete and Russ. So we are 3 Brits and a pair of bicoastal Yanks. You wouldn't think we were a organized group with someone stopping to water the weeds on the side of the road every few minutes. Pete and Russ stop and wave us on. So we are back to our usual 3 man, 1 mile pull per man group. Just before the first SAG we get on the Mississippi River Trail(MRT). This is a designated road that runs on both sides of the river from the delta to almost the start of the river. We turn and head to cross the river the road is narrow with no shoulder. The bridge itself is fairly high with all the ship traffic though as I cross I see only one barge upstream. The water is so muddy. It kind of looks like flowing clay. We stop to take pictures on the MS side. There is a welcome to Arkansas sign on the bridge for the west bound traffic. I don't know how the picture will turn out the only safe place to stop is pretty far away from the bridge. At least I got a shot of the welcome to MS sign. Now the road is concrete slabs and every two bike lengths is a little jolt as I go over the joint. We come to the lunch SAG and soon after we arrive Will and Sandra leave. Sandra tells us before they leave Will is pushing hard to stay in front of us. We eat and just as we about to leave James discovers a cut side wall on his tire. He sticks a dollar bill in the tire. This will get him in for the day but the tire is shot. We get to a small town called Crenshaw. Will, Sandra and her husband are there. The story later is Sandra's husband wanted to stop for bar b que. That's fine he has a car. We keep riding and now we are into the days climbing and it will be up and down to the finish. Nothing really steep or long but 2 or 3 short climbs a mile. Into Senatobia we a turn but end up going straight to Main St our destination. We stop just before the motel for chocolate milk and snickers. We have rap at 6:00 pm. A large group of us go to Pizza Hut for dinner. It's a disaster. They run out of every thing. I end up giving part of my family size order to Tom and Conrad because they ran out of pasta. They ran out of personal pizzas. If they wanted a med pizza the would have to wait a 1/2 hour. The salad bar was dismal. At the end they couldn't figure out the check for the other table. Paul came late to this party because he went to mechanic's time to discover he has a cracked rear rim. No bike shop till Monday. His equipment is Campagnolo and the spares in the truck are Shimano. Needless to say they can be used together but not very well. As I write this a storm is moving in. Tailwinds tomorrow.

Won' Get Caught Again

Conway to Brinkley AR. 100 miles, 1900' climbing and air thick enough to breathe. Temp at the start 56f. During breakfast it has been raining though not very hard. It will be one of those sloppy rides that slings muddy water off the wheel in front of you. The bike will need a through cleaning at the end of the day. There is confusion at the 3rd turn just 0.7 of a mile into the ride, no street sign. We don't get confirmation that we are on the right street for a mile. James, Pat and I are rolling along at an easy pace. For the first time in the trip I hear "On your left, Norman" meaning someone is going to pass me. Tom, Frank, Conrad and MIKE!!! come by. This is the first time I have seen Mike on the road so far. Now there are 7 riders in a nice smooth working pace line. I notice Mike is doing some nice hard pulls. We make a turn and a short while later Frank gets a flat. James, Pat and I roll to a stop and start to go back when Mike waves us on to continue the ride. He probably didn't think it took 7 to fix a flat. When the flat was fixed Frank wanted to try to catch us. Mike told him that there was no way that we would let that happen. James made sure of it by keeping the pace brisk to the SAG stop. Though we were first to the SAG we didn't leave first. We got under way with Sandra right in front of us. She was rearing to go as her husband was comming to meet her. We came up to a turn as James got a flat. I didn't hear him and kept going. These soft spoken English boys must learn to project. I pass Scott, then I pass Will. I'm rolling along easy and look back every once and a while. Thinking I know they're comming. Finally I see some riders. Though I am surprised when it's Will, Sandra, James and Pat. James, Pat and I are setting a pretty hard pace. Soon Will is dropped but Sandra hangs with us all the way to lunch. Leaving lunch Will and Sandra are out first. Sandra does have incentive. We don't seem to be in any hurry to get going. Finally under way we cross the White River, it is above flood stage. There is this house on a spit of land with a pickup parked on the north side and no visible road around just water. We eventually catch Will and Sandra but we must have beat up on them enough as they don't jump in with us. The requisite stop is made for chocolate milk and snickers. A reporter from a local paper comes in and we give her a general outline of the trip. James went to call home, time difference to the UK. The reporter has to leave but wants a picture. Eric has arrived during this time and we snag him for the photo. He wants to tell the reporter his name is Stephen Colbert. We talk him out of it. I don't think they even get the comedy channel around here. We have a rather long meeting tonight. What to expect for the next few days. Warnings not to get off the road in any kudzu or you will never be found. Watch for fire ants. Our end banquet. Tomorrow is Darrell's funeral and we will have our own service in the morning. Conrad will be making a sculpture to send to the family commemorating Darrell's Ride. Crossing the mighty Mississippi tomorrow.

Climbing The Tailwind

Ft Smith to Conway AR. Temp at the start 59. Climbing 3100' plus some extra. Mileage 125. We are now in our last ten days of riding. No more rest days just pushing to Savannah. Breakfast is at the motel at 6. Load at 7. We already know that at load we will be getting a revised route sheet. We have to compensate for being at a different motel. Mike doesn't want us to ride on Rt 22 until we get out of town. That road is very busy with no shoulder, high curbs and no sidewalk. We are leaving just about last except the couple on the tandem. Their tandem is at a bike shop in Ft Smith awaiting a part. They don't appear all that stressed about it. They are taking this better than I would. We have some very hard short climbs right out of the start. We get to a really steep one at about 5 miles. Mike has spray painted something in the road that is supposed to be encouragement. I just may have to call one of those numbers to report graffiti violators. It is the smilely face that gets me ;-). At the top Mike is taking photos and Kirsten is walking back to the van. I ask her if she is OK. She replys she doesn't feel well. Her dad is riding away. James, Pat and I go into motor mode. It seems that every time we see a rider or a group of them our pace goes up a notch. There are two new riders on tour, they are friends of Tom. All of them are from Indiana. One of them is riding a recumbent with a plexiglass wind screen and lycra cowling. A third friend is riding only to the first SAG and then returning Ft Smith and then to home. This is one hard core rider for he has done Pac Tour's elite ride crossing the country in 17 days. Wow. One of the highlights today is going to Paris. I looked all over for the Eiffel Tower but I couldn't see it anywhere. Immediatly after the lunch SAG we cross the Arkansas River. The photo op of the day is a painting of a razorback "Hog on a Hill". It is so far away that the picture would look like a white rectangle with a brown dot on it. So we keep on rolling gentle up and downs. It's green everywhere. A rat terrier checks us out and looks like he is about take off after us in full pursuit. He who hesitates is lost and we are gone. About 15 miles from the end we stop at a light. It turns green and pulling away I go over a rough bump in the road and catch the rear derailluer cable with the cleat of my shoe and the cable housing at the back is destroyed. Now I have only two gears high and higher. Luckily my legs do not feel like they did going into Ft Smith. Luckily there are no hard climbs either. Into Conway and chocolate milk and snickers. The desk clerk directs me to a bike shop a 1/2 mile away. The employees there are quite impressed with the tour we are doing. The one who worked on my bike liked the way mine was set up although there were plenty of high end bikes there. A little pasta for dinner. A little time getting ready for tomorrow. Only a hundred miles, seems like an easy day.

Five States Down

McAlester to Ft Smith AR. 1900' of climbing. Temp in the mid 50's. We have a 8:00 am leaving time after the shock of the previous days news. Since we are leaving so late and we are into the established routine almost everybody is ready to go early. A small catch is the weather. It's raining and worse weather is comming. Even though it is way after sunrise it is dark and gloomy out. Pat, James and I head out on to the rain soaked streets. We are to exit the road we start on to Rt 270 East and we all do except one. Who is now headed to Canada. Luckily he knew something was a miss when he didn't come to the first town on the cue sheet. One of the vans goes to pick him up. Others are having flat trouble early on. The morning will be a mess from any way you look at it. James gets a flat just as the thunderstorms hit. We take shelter in a car port type structure next to a mobile home. In and around the car port are 2 tractors and 2 wrecked cars. Pat and James are expecting someone to come out of the trailer any minute with a shotgun. I think in this weather no one is going outside unless they have to. We are there about thirty minutes. The storm has been moving fast and is pulling off to the east. Back on the road and we start to warm up. Pat gets 2 flats at once. Cold again. At the Sag it stops raining but I am still cold. Karen is kind enough the open the back of the trailer with the luggage and my duffle is right there as I was one of the last to load. I get my jacket out. As we are leaving Chris rides up and we stop to talk for a minute. We exchange flat stories and Chris says you better get moving Norman's freezing. On the road James gets another flat. Then a while later I get my turn. With a piece of glass finally getting through. The thorn proof tube I am using is so thick I can't put it in my seat bag and have to wear it. I give the tube to Karen to hold onto till we get in. She finds a piece of wire in the tube but at a later inspection this is not through the tube. Before we leave Barbara tells us of another change to the end of the route getting into the motel extending the days ride even further. A navigational error then adds another 2 miles to the day. Some where about 80 miles my climbing legs disappear. I'm OK on the flat but every time we head up a hill I'm just FLAT. Pat and James nurse me along till the last 10 miles when I have to go to the front being as I had the only viable copy of the cue sheet left. The route from the original motel to the replacement was torture for me as today's ride couldn't end soon enough. We had route rap at 7:00 pm for Thursday's ride. The last four riders came in just as we were finishing up. A tough day all around. Tomorrow we get 2 new riders to go to Savannah. We just keep rolling along.