we rode through virginia in 10 days, left behind the appalachian mountains by day 13, and this morning crossed into central time zone! it's crazy how fast this trip is flying by. kentucky has been a lot of rolling hills, which is nice compared to the mountains we had to climb in virginia. i've noticed just in the past few days how strong i have become. before these hills would have been the death of me, but now they are no big thing (not counting the 17% grade hill today that came out of nowhere and almost killed us all. i swear, i thought i was about the fall backward riding up it.
on monday, we did our longest ride. it ended up being around 92 miles. a few of us woke up around 5:15am so we could get a head start on the day and try to beat the heat. tara and i fell back and ended up missing a turn. we didn't realize we had missed the turn until we were about 10 miles past it. we decided there was no way we wanted to add on a good 20 miles to an already 90 mile day so we looked at the map and found a different road we could take. unfortunately, that road seemed to be an extremely busy road without a shoulder. so, we road 20 miles thinking we were going to die the entire time because semi-trucks kept cutting it pretty close. sorry mom. it ended up being 100 degrees out that day, so with only about 8 miles until we reached camp, tara and i found a very large tree in the front of someone's yard and passed out. we were laying in their yard for a good 30 minutes before anyone came out and asked us what we were doing. that's when we decided we should probably finish the last 8 miles. when we finally got to the camp site, we realized that not only were we one of the first people there, but also that our route was 2 miles shorter than everyone else. WIN! then don, the founder of bike the US for MS bought us lots of pizza and beer. a perfect ending to a very long day.
yesterday was a short 45 mile ride which was so nice after such a long ride the day before. it was a fun ride with just a few hills. there was one point where a bunch of us were chasing after the support vehicle. it was such a fun road to ride down.
we ended up staying in hodgenville, kentucky which is the birthplace of abraham lincoln. liza and i decided to stop in the 'abraham lincoln birthplace national historical park.' i was so excited to see the house that he was born in, only to find out it wasn't there. it was just the land where his house used to be. so... it was pretty lame. but humphry had a good time and liza got her picture taken with lincoln.
today was another short day. we rode about 55 miles. usually me and the girls wake up around 6:30 and try to leave around 8 or earlier. today we decided to stop at subway to get some coffee before heading out. we rode to subway and ended up hanging out and talking for a long time. we didn't get on the road until 11am! the route leaders drive the support vehicle and stop every 20 miles so we can have a rest stop. they usually leave at 8am every morning and stay at each stop for about 2 hours or until everyone stops there to get water. they called us wondering where we were and we had only left subway 5 minutes before. needless to say, they left before we got there so we had to make our own rest stop where we filled up on chocolate milk. we saw a few amish people riding in their buggies which was kinda cool, but not so cool that we had to ride our bikes through the horse poop that was all over the road.
also riding through kentucky, i have seen a lot of rand paul signs! this basically makes me love the state that just a few days ago i hated because of all the coal trucks and dogs trying to run me off the road.
tomorrow we ride around 75 miles so i guess that means no hanging out at subway for 2 and a half hours.
each week, the route leaders create a video to capture the highlights of that week. video 3 was just created and you can watch it here. everyone keeps telling me that i have the best quote in the video, so watch for that. it's right after we climbed hayter's gap -- 1600ft climb in 4 miles.
No comments:
Post a Comment