- Day 1 -1 Week
- Day 1 -12 Hours
- Day 1
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- Day 3
- Day 4
- Day 5
- Day 6
- Day 7
- Day 8
- Day 9
- Day 10
- Day 11
- Day 12
- Day 13
- Day 14
- Day 15
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- Day 17
- Day 18
- Day 19
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- Day 21
- Day 22
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- Day 24
- Day 25
- Day 26
- Day 27
- Day 28
- Day 29
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- Day 31
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- Day 42
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- Day 46
- Day 47
- Day 48
- Day 49
- Day 50
- Day 51
- Day 52
- Day 53
- Day 54
- Day 55
- The End
- Retrospective
We woke up early and went across the street for breakfast. When we sat down I was faced with a picture that immediately let me know today would be a better day then yesterday.
After breakfast, back to the room to finish getting ready and head on our way.
We had taken notice of a sculpture of a woman holding a flag and wearing a American Flag apron, the night before as we headed to our hotel. We also took note that the woman, the flag, and all of the “Women for Trump” banners were taken down. We wondered if all of this was put up and down EVERY DAY? Was it due to the politics of yesterday? It felt like a big statement. Therefore it would be a lot to “re-say” it all every morning. Also if you feel that strong about it, was yesterday’s news cycle so much to make you second guess your entire front yard look?
As we got to the main road we saw a good lunch spot and talked about getting something to go, now while we had the chance. This way we could just do our thing basically all day.
Shortly there after we’re on the road, still early. I am kind of excited. It’s early enough that the air is still crisp. We start our ride. It is almost too cold. With the first down hill it is too cold. Cold enough to get me thinking about pulling out my jacket. It’s funny how small of a window of comfort we have. Too hot, too cold…
The road fell behind us. It was nice to have some good movement. I was now having comfort basically all day. Manhattan – Miami it had lots of difficulty with my saddle. I was never comfortable for long. I am pretty excited to be able to stay in the saddle for longer and longer. I ride as much as I can, and living in Miami let me ride even more… but not hours and hours constantly. I’m not sure if its the saddle, small tricks and tips I learned on the last tour, or having more bike pants letting me change and adjust instead of just staying with the one option.
We rode for about 35 miles and decided to stop for our lunch. I was really glad we chose to buy lunch early, with the lack of ANYTHING we saw along the ride. We picked a nice guard rail with a larger shoulder to leave our bikes while we ate. We sat down on a curb and thought we were about to have a nice lunch. Suddenly a guy in a mobile home towing a car, angrily honked and swerved toward the shoulder. He was not too close to us, however if felt like he disagreed with where we chose to have have lunch so he’d show us what a dumb idea it was. Even if one agrees with, ‘this is a bad place to lunch’ is this really a license to do something potentially even stupider? Lets say lunching in the shoulder is a bad idea… is aiming your moving vehicle at people an even stupider idea?
After lunch we hit the road… or really the road hit us. We had a 2% up grade with a 15 MPH head wind for the next hour and half. Something harder might have been better, just in that it never felt like “this is it, hit and we’ll get over it”. The hill and more importantly the wind was unrelenting. It was never so bad that it became the foe, but not so easy that I wouldn’t write about it. It was kind of brutal. Unrelenting and unforgiving. And even when it did break, there was no big down hill, the wind didn’t stop, it just leveled off, with slightly less wind.
We pressed forward and came across a small town. It looked like a shore town with nicer restaurants and bed and breakfasts. We stopped for some citrus at the grocery store. I was unimpressed with their fruit but impressed with their Cliff Bar selection. We decided to stop across the street to look at the local motel. It might be a shorter day but the wind kind of took it out of us.
The motel was out of our price range so we started making phone calls. Everyone in town was sold out or the last room was super expensive. Finally after a lot of calls I found a motel 12 miles away.
Back on the bikes.
A few hills and lovely scenic views and we finally found our first real down. Down into town. The lake just to our right gives the feel of riding around the coast. It was very beautiful. Although I finally broke down and had to pull out a jacket. Luckily our new motel come fairly quickly. It was pretty no frills and had no internet connection so I’m a day behind on the blog posts now… but the pizza place was close (and open) and the room was affordable. Today day was a good day, I didn’t even have to use my AK.
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