Another ride enters the record book

Just finished the ride.  About 3000 miles and 50 plus days.  Burned 150,000 calories.

Short ride into St. Augustine today - only 35 miles.  We stopped at the A1A Brew house in St Augustine to cheer all our friends in.  

And of course had a couple of beers.  

Then we rode as a group to the beach and dipped our wheels in the Atlantic Ocean.  

A long way from the Pacific Ocean.   

The ride has a tradition of choosing a rider to lead us in the last mile.  We all chose Greg.  

Gary is 70 plus and legally blind (barely sees out of one eye).  He had several riders shout directions or lead him (he followed on their wheels) throughout the ride - every day.  Just one last funny story - as he was leading and he had no one to follow - he missed the last turn that brought us the beach!

Seriously, unbelievable man.

So the Northern Route when I turned 65.  And now the Southern Route as I turn 70 next month.  After the Northern Route I made a commitment I would do this every 5 years.  

But given the weather on this one - thinking the 75 year event might be a cruise.

Thanks for reading....

REVOLT and REVOLUTION

We have taken control......

Call us slow.... but after 50 days we finally figured out that we needed to create our own "no snore zone".    We are staying in a Armory and there was a small room off the main gym that several guys "commandeered".   Entry and membership was by "vote".  I got voted in!!!!

Again how we only manage to think this up on our last day of sleepover camp?  We are taking senior executives, business owners, etc - and it took us this long to figure this out.  Duh....

Now it is apparent when you walk back into the gym from the "no snore" zone that the other riders and not "appreciating" our revolution.  But hey - leaders and disrupters are always scorned at the beginning!  Be interesting to see if Bubba says something to us.

And taking about "captains of industry", we went to a bar last night and one of the guys (Captain Dave) had to go to the bathroom.  All of a sudden he stands up, opens his wallet and puts the following sign on his beer.....

seems the bartender always empties his beer

We had our last "sort of long" ride today - 53 miles.  We ended up in Palatka, Florida.  I have no idea where this is - other than we are 35 miles away from St. Augustine.  We had lunch at the oldest drive-in diner in Florida.

Tomorrow is our last ride day and as I previously mentioned is a slow "fun" ride to the Atlantic Ocean.  

Tonight we get "awarded" our Coast 2 Coast bike shirts.  You are supposed to stand up and give a speech.  I drift between talking about how crappy the facilities have been to just "floating along "and "not making any waves" for one more day.    

Probably depends if they try to shut down our "no snore revolution". 

Peace and Victory!

Almost There!

Today we blew away an 80 mile ride.  Wind was finally at our back.  Two more days to go and about 90 miles total to the end!

I did not ride yesterday.  The storm that was forecast came through,  We were given the choice of riding (starting late) or catching a ride in the sag car.  I chose car! 

In addition to the thunder and lightning - there was actually a tornado very close to the hotel we were staying in.  A tree fell on a house and killed a little girl and injured her brother. 

Even this morning they were still cleaning up the roads.  And this was 150 miles away from last nights storm.

Call me crazy but it did not seem worth it to ride.  It's sad, a bunch of the people that did ride "kidded" some us for not riding (for some reason they felt superior for having risked riding).  Even this morning someone asked me whether I was "riding or sagging".   Screw them.

Bubba knows this has been a hard ride so he gave us all shirts last night....

Only two items missing on the list...  Tornado and Snoring.  Last night we spent it in another gym and the snoring was really, really bad.  Bubba had committed to separating the snorers from the rest of us - but he did not follow through on this commitment.  

We had two conversations every morning.  How bad were the snorers and whether your mattress stayed inflated (forgive me if I have already posted this).

Tonight we are staying in a YMCA just outside Gainesville.  Two more nights in gyms and we are done!  We have a 55 mile ride tomorrow and then on Monday we have a 35 mile"fun ride" to the beach at St. Augustine.

Ready for the end...

Good News, Bad News

First the good news.... 

Last night was the last time we are in tents.  After this a hotel, YMCA and a National Guard Armory and then we are done!

Now the bad news.....

Forecast is for severe thunderstorms.  Mother Nature is intent on showing us who is the boss!.

We have had several long ride days with 70 and 80 mile rides.  It is clear that Florida has some serious weather as we have been riding on the roads that Hurricane Michael devastated.    Trees down everywhere and houses destroyed.  

The lucky houses that survived have their roofs covered in Home Depot blue tarps.  

We had the police chief from Marianna Florida talk about the experience at our dinner last night.  Power was out for 14 days.  Several of his officers lost their houses and they put their families up in the police station - and did their patrols - in spite of losing everything.

One of the riders asked if FEMA was any help.    His response was the the faith based organizations did a better job with the volunteers.  Quote "  The Mormons should run FEMA".

We are really cranking to get to the finish.  The last couple of rides have been 70 and 85 miles long and we have another 80 miler tomorrow which is followed by a 70 miler.

The end is almost near!  Tonight we are in Tallahassee and we are staying in our last hotel.  Again the forecast is not looking good for tomorrow.  Over 2000 flights have been cancelled.  

 National Weather Service warning that “a multi-day weather event with severe storms and heavy rainfall will impact several parts of the country.” The agency reports that there’s potential for tornadoes, wind damage, and flash flooding across the central Gulf Coast on Thursday and that the "threats will press eastward towards the East Coast on Friday.”

 Really not sure what we are going to do tomorrow.  We will have a check in at 7 tonight to figure out what we are expected to do.  Hopefully there is some rational thinking going on with the staff.

Again 80 miles is hard enough - never mind adding in a serious weather condition.

Getting Close to the end

Seems that all the lights go on in the Pensacola YMCA at 4:30 am and we had to vacate the Y by 8 am.  So we decided that we head to a coffee shop and hang out for a while. 

me,  Adrian, John, Captain Dave, Texas Dave

WE only had a 30 mile ride so after the coffee house we headed to the Waffle House for breakfast.

The Waffle House has become the "Go To Breakfast Place" for the tour.    We stayed in another RV park last night.  And again Mother Nature had to remind us who is boss - overnight temperature dropped to 46 degrees.  All of us had to dig out our warm clothes again.  Damn this is Florida.

Today we had a 55 mile ride.  There was nothing of import to take photos of.  The ride has really be bust when it comes to things to take pictures of.  In any case every time we enter a new town in the South it seems that 2 miles before the town and 2 miles after the town there is always a Dollar General...

The Dollar General has (like the Waffle House) become our "go to place" to buy stuff we need but intend to throw away after the ride.  For example a shower curtain to place under our air mattress.  Sweatshirts that we needed for the unanticipated cold weather.  Cheap water bottles - as I keep losing them.  

The sad part is that in most towns this is the only store people can shop in.  Towns too small for a Walmart.

 Tonight we are staying in a different RV park - it's only for retired senior citizens.Going to be fun.  Seems the permanent residents are making us dinner and breakfast.  And after dinner we are expecting a concert.  

God knows what the concert is going to be like!

Tomorrow we start our last set of long rides.  Each of the next four days will have 70-80 mile routes.  

Praying for tailwinds.

First rain, then sleet, then snow, then hail and then....

TORNADO!!

At 3am while sleeping in our tents a large siren went off for 5-10 minutes,  We had no idea what to do other than seek shelter.  The only cement block building in the RV park was the bathroom.  So we all headed over to the toilets.  It started as a Tornado Warning and was quickly elevated to a Tornado Watch.  The difference being that someone actually saw a tornado somewhere.

The Watch went from 3am to 5am.  We were all afraid to go back to our tents for fear some of the trees would fall on us.

You can't make this stuff up!

In any case by 7am the storm had passed and we were able to board the ferry to reach Florida....

Took about 35 minutes and the sun was out.  A much better start to the day for sure!  Passed all types of off shore rigs.

When we reached the other side we had a flat 55 miles to reach Pensacola, Florida.  And after 41 days of headwinds we finally had a tailwind that pushed us.  I was doing 20-30 miles an hour.  About half way we reached two milestones...  The first was crossing into Florida...

The second milestone is that we got to the FloraBama church/bar just in time for service.  One half of the place is a church and the other half is a bar - both operating at the same time....

And the church was right next to the bra room....

All kinds of worshipers....

After three beers and some worship, I decided that I needed to head out as I had another 30 miles to ride.  Again it was the best wind day of the year so the ride was done in no time.

As I said we are in staying in Pensacola Florida and are in a YMCA.  

Again you can not make this stuff up.  

We have 8 more days of riding and quite frankly I am tired of YMCA, Church halls, campgrounds and crappy toilets.

On that note - what is the story with one ply toilet paper.  Seems to be everywhere we have stayed.  Now do they really save any money?  I think I used twice as much paper than I would if it was 2 or 3 ply.    But of course Google has the answer -as always....

Blog/1-Ply-vs-2-Ply-Toilet-Paper

Oh well short ride tomorrow - then we gear back up for 4 days of long rides.  

Hope the wind stays in our favor.

Entering Alabama

The end is near!  We just left Mississippi and rode into Alabama yesterday.

About  2390 miles done as of today

Our ride was 77 miles and the roads were remarkably nice.  Most of the roads we have been on are "chip and seal".  This is where they throw down small rocks and then put a tar substance over them.  They wear out your tires not to mention certain body parts.  But today's ride was on smooth tared roads.

Someone took one of our road arrows and instead of a right turn they had it point to the left.

One of the riders was not watching his cue sheet or watching his gamin and followed the arrow.  I was him and called out but he was going to fast.  So I called the sag team and they had to track him down.  By the time they reached him he had gone 15 miles off course.  By the time he got in to the finish he had completed a century ride (100 miles versus 77 miles).

Still fighting a headwind but we are resigned to the fact that it will be with us for the rest of the ride.  Quite remarkable that we have not had one day of solid tailwinds the entire trip.

But we are now in Alabama!  Seems shooting out signs in Alabama is a favorite pastime....

There use to be a big welcome sign to the State but it was so shot up they had to remove it. Probably done by someone that is living in the 2 story trailer...

Our target for the end of the ride is Dauphin Island in Alabama. Getting onto the island was a challenge as there was a huge bridge that we had to climb.  The entrance to the bridge was about a mile long and of course the wind was right in our face.

The bridge itself was quite steep and with the wind I was only able to climb it at 4 mph.

I was looking forward to the down side of the bridge but with the wind I was only able to reach a top speed of 8.5 mph.  Usually on a road this steep you can reach at least 25-35 mph.  

But we made it!

Today is a rest day and we are staying in an RV park on Dauphin Island, Alabama.  One of the better ones on the ride.  Great showers and the weather for sleeping was fantastic.  Not to mention the sounds for the Gulf drowned out the snorers.

It is a resort community so I am looking forward to finding a bar that serves fresh shrimp and cold beer.  Only challenge is that I have to ride my bike to get there - a whopping 3 miles!

 Nevertheless I am hoping to get some good photos to share.

Tomorrow we are heading to Pensacola Florida (our last state).  To get there we are taking a ferry.  Weather forecast calls for rain all day - so it will be wet ride.

Hoping that it stays in the 70-80 degree range.  Getting into the last state of our ride will negate any bad weather (I hope).

And then there were 10

Just finished a 70 mile ride from Poplarville LA to Ocean Springs, LA.  Last day in Louisiana as tomorrow we cross into Alabama.

We have 10 day left of riding (plus one rest day).  Tomorrow we stop in Dauphin Island, AL and we are scheduled to stay in a RV park.  Supposed to be a great little island that has some bars and good places to eat.  We have sorely missed those kinds of treats.

Again nothing to take pictures of (sorry about that).  It was a nice ride through a forest.  But is you have seen once forest - you have seen them all.

We had a lunch at 53 miles into the ride in a Baptist Church Community Hall.  The women of the church do this every year for the riders.  They don't charge for the meal but we all left a donation.  Really nice of them.

Tonight we are staying in a Super 8 hotel.  I badmouthed it last night but this one was recently remodeled and it is quite nice.  Even the towels are big and nice.  I again took a private room as last night the snoring in the Safe House was unbearable.

I have been plagued with allergies as the pollen count is quite high.  Add to that the concrete dust from the floor of the safe house and I was coughing all night.  Hopefully I pissed off some of the snorers.

Still having problems with my bike.  The latest issue is that I blew out my bottom bracket.  This is the part of the bike that the pedals and cranks go though.  At first we thought it was a creak in the pedals so we put on some lubrication.  At the night sag stop I told the mechanic that my seat must be making the creaking noise so we lubed that as well. 

By the end of the ride the squeak had turned in to a grinding noise - so the only thing left was to check the bottom bracket.  Coach (the mechanic) opened up the bottom bracket and one of the bearings was totally ground down to silver dust.

The biggest problem with bottom brackets is there is no standard and thousands of configurations.  Thought for sure my ride was over.  But luckily one of the riders (Ernie) was actually carrying a new bottom bracket that fit my bike. 

I was saved.  No more squeals or creaks.

I was riding today and all of a sudden I started hearing noises again and though my ride was finished.  Went on for a couple of minutes until I figured out it was a duck that was honking in a pond on the side of the road.  So much for my bike diagnostic skills.

But all in all the last three days of riding have been great.  Weather A+, Roads A+, Scenery B-, and wind C to C- (another headwind today).  It's why we came - albeit late in the ride.

Tomorrow is our longest ride left in the tour (only 10 riding days left).  It is an 84 miler to Dauphin Island and as I mentioned our last rest day. 

Hopefully I can get some good pictures.

Day 40 is in the books

We have had two great days of riding.  Cool to start the ride but quickly warming up.  First two days with no headwind and even a slight tailwind.    First day was 84 miles and today was a 45 mile ride.

Last night we stayed in a Southern Baptist Community Center.  Nice but no beer allowed.  Worst there was not a place in town to get a beer.  After 84 miles you deserve a beer.  Still nothing worth taking photos of.

As I mentioned today was only 45 miles.  We left LA and entered Mississippi.

One more state bites the dust

We are staying in Poplarville MS tonight.  Nice little town (4-5 buildings) with a great little old fashion soda fountain.

Ernie, Texas Dave, John M and Rudy

That is the good news.  The bad news is we were supposed to stay in the National Guard Armory.  Instead we are staying in the local.....

Community Safe Room

The place is disgustingly dirty.  Probably has not been used in since the last local emergency.  No hot water,  Dirty bathrooms.  

I now have a new definition of the term "Bubba".  Bubba is defined to mean " almost but not quite".  A Bubba towel is a towel that almost works.  A Bubba 1/4 mile is more like a mile.  A Bubba clean place is not quite clear.  A Bubba shower is one that drizzles out water or only has clod water.

The floor we are sleeping on is covered with dust.  Everybody is kicking it up into the air.  It really sucks.  

My man Otto from Germany (reads my blog) swears he hears a high pitch noise.  I told him to not tell me about it for fear I would start hearing it.

Oh well.  We are almost done.  Tomorrow we are staying in a hotel.  It's a Super 8.  When is the last time you stayed in a Super 8?.  

But sure beats the floor of the local safe room.  It's a 72 mile ride to Ocean Springs, MS.  Hoping we actually get to see the ocean or worst case a Spring.

Well Deserved Rest Day

It's been a busy ride week.  On Saturday we did a 91 mile ride.  No rain but wind still slowing us down.  It was first day where we had normal temperatures - reached into the 80's.  It was a long ride and we left as early as we could so we could get to the 64 mile mark and enjoy Fred's Lounge.

This is a little hole in the wall lounge that is only open on Sat  mornings from 7:30 to 1 pm.  It broadcast cajun music and has a live band.  By the time I got there it was noon and the place was so packed I could not get it - not to mention it was filled with cigarette smoke.  I literally busted my ass to get there - only to walk in and immediately walk out.  Some riders were there for a couple of hours - and having to ride another 30 miles after drinking.  Egad.

I got into the hotel (2nd night in a row) and the reservation desk had cancelled my private room as they thought it was a mistake in the booking.  Luckily they still had rooms and was able to get a "private".  Holiday Inn Express!   Was going to watch the basketball games - but fell asleep at 7 and work up at 5 am - only because my alarm rang.

We were supposed to have breakfast at 7 but the cook and Bubba had some miscommunication on who was doing breakfast and a there was not food for us.  So at 6:45 I headed out and stopped at my first Waffle House.  Quite the experience.  I went to pay and they said it was free as some "big" guy (Bubba) had come in and said to feed any biker that came in.

On Sunday we had a 70 mile ride to St. Francisville LA.  We crossed to Mississippi River today.

We have one more day in LA and then we enter Mississippi.  Last night we stayed in a Girl Scout Camp (Merrydale).  Kept waiting for Lindsay Lohan to show up and re-enact Parent Trap.

We were supposed to be in tents but the forecast was for severe thunderstorms so the camp groundskeeper let us stay in the girls' cabins.  A bunch of us grabbed the first cabin and declared in a snore free zone.  There was supposed to be 14 people per cabin but they wanted some of us to sleep on the top bunks.  But the bunks were built for 60 pound girls and we probably would have broke the bunks if a 200 lb guy tried to get on top.  So when ever someone came by we told them all the bunks were filled.

In any case we named the cabin Margarittaville.   

Rudy (former federal agent) talked to sag driver to take him to town and he came back with case of beer and 3-4 bottles of wine.  He went looking for party lights but nobody stocked them.  He said to one store - What no party lights - what do people use to light up the bottom of the trailer houses?".  Did not go over well.

The rains finally came at dinner and it was as expected a violent storm.  Thunder, lightning and a huge downpour that lasted at least 20 minutes.  I can see why they have such flooding issues here.

Unfortunately the rough roads have finally taken a toll on my bike.  My rear wheel has literally ripped apart.

Luckily we are only 40 miles from Baton Rouge and Coach (our mechanic) is going to see if one of the bike stores has replacement wheel bearings.  If not I told him to by me a new wheel.  He asked me for as budget and I told him "get me a wheel that will last me another 800 miles.

Supposed to rain the rest of our off day.  But the forecast for tomorrow is calling for low probability of rain and for the first time on the ride a tailwind!!!!

It's an 84 mile ride so hopefully the forecast holds true.  We deserve it.

Leaving Texas - Finally!!!

Today we had a 72 mile ride.  Was supposed to rain today but we lucked out and the rain did not come.

We finally left Texas today....

And entered Louisiana.....

For the second day in a row our ride was relatively flat.  Not much to see - other than a bunch of tractors....

We are on Day 35 and we have about 15 more ride days (I think) and about 1000 miles..  

We are staying in a hotel tonight - Quality Inn in DeRidder LA.   I was supposed to share a room but decided to get my own room.  So tired of the snoring roommates.

Last night in the gym we have lights out at 9 pm.  It's all quiet until we hear a marching band, a loud marching band.  It seems that there was band practice for the school's marching band that started at 9 pm in the next gym.

It went to 11 pm.  Worst, they must be practicing for a competition because the kept playing the same song over and over and over.  Add in cheerleaders yelling every 30 seconds and it made for an interesting sleepless night.  

A bunch of people went to a bar and I decided that rest was more important.  Given the band - I should have gone with the group.  

Won't make that mistake again!

We have a long 91 miler tomorrow and they are calling for rain.  Will make for a real long uncomfortable day.  

Rain rain go away

Well the rain came last night at about 2am Thursday morning. The sky lite up with lightning. Beautiful except for the fact that I was in a tent. As we anticipated the rain,we moved all our luggage into the dining hall (and I use this term loosely) so it would not get wet. As we were on mattresses we would get wet - but we should hold on to the side of the tent in case we got washed away.

We woke up and the rain has stopped and our spirits soared - prematurely. We had 60 mile ride and as soon as we left came it began to pour.

We lost a rider who fell on the slick roads (my biggest fear) Luckily when he fell there was no traffic. Nothing broken but he is probably out for a couple of days.

As I mentioned we were supposed to camp again, but they were able to find us a gym in a youth mission school - so we are all sleeping on the gym floor .

Better than outside!

There are a bunch of kids from Indiana here on school break that are helping rebuild houses damages from Harvey. Cute kids, all honor students and members of a church group. Very into God.

But again we are dry - so thank the lord.