Day 5 – A bit of a late start makes for a late end!

Because we did not bike to the campsite the night before someone had to bring us back to where we finished the night before (otherwise we could not say that we truly biked the entire way across the country). This does not allow us to start as early as we need to. The 20 miles that we had to make up from the night before were the most treacherous and scary that we have experienced yet. The roads we have ridden on have been divided highways and allow traffic to go way around us in the other lane. Today they are changed to two lanes and lots of hills. GA has attempted to make a bicycling path but it consists of road to white line to rumble strips to 2 feet of cycling space. This 2 feet is an average and can be as small as 1 ft. This in writing sounds more than sufficient but all along the way I have to swerve for rocks, bolts, lug nuts, sticks and even road kill. Dad and I ride about 50 yards apart on the downhills and it was good because at one point we were flying down a hill (30 mph) and he began to flap his right arm very violently (this means look out there is something in the road). I scanned my eyes forward and all of a sudden saw a 40 lb raccoon that had been hit probably the night before. He died in a very inconvenient place. He only afforded us about 5 inches of precious road left before a pretty steep ravine. Dad said he closed his eyes and hoped that he missed it. I did almost the same and we both missed it and thankfully both stayed on the road. We finally got off this section of road and began to wind our way through some quaint lazy city streets. Up ahead we saw a train and came to a stop. But unfortunately so did the train. It stopped right in the way.

What do you do when a train is in the way and is stopped? I decided to look to see if we could see the end and carry our bikes around the end then back to the road and continue on our way. The end was much too far to walk around! The only other option was to go over. We would never do anything so dangerous would we?!? YES! And it is a good thing that we did because that train may still be sitting there today for all I know. It did not move for as long as we could see.

We turned on another road and began flying down a hill (I love doing that) and then Dad, for the first time, pulled off to the side with a pinch flat. A pinch flat results when you run over a large rock or ride through a hole at enough speed and force as to force the tire to touch the rim. This forces the air pressure to spike too far and blows a hole in the tube. Unfortunately we are getting good at changing tubes but this fortunately allowed us to get back on the road in about 5 minutes.

Like yesterday when I hopefully didn’t bore you too much with the background about the dogs, today I am going to try to enlighten you about road conditions. There are three different types of road that we have ridden on. 1) Asphalt – Blacktop. This is the most enjoyable road surface. At normal effort on a flat road we can average about 19-20 mph. (Right side of top picture) 2) Chip Seal – Tar is sprayed over the road and then crushed limestone (to the size of about a pea) is spread carefully over top. I believe normal traffic is used as a steamroller to smooth out the road. At normal effort on a flat road we can average about 17-18 mph. (Not pictured) 3) Cheap Seal – I don’t know the right name but it is the worst surface that we have faced. It is the same process as chip seal but instead of using small crushed limestone, they used the larger rocks that would not crush smaller than jagged golf balls. At normal effort on a flat road we can average about 15-16 mph. (Left side of top picture and close up in bottom picture!) Again, I hope this is not too boring, just information about our trip.


After getting off this road we made good time into the city of Rockmart, GA where the girls were patiently waiting to give us our fuel for the afternoon! (FUEL – a drink that gives us 200 calories per hour enabling us to stay on the bike and not have to stop and get off to eat something) We did eat a sandwich at Subway and again aggressively decided to try to make it the rest of the way to the campsite without requiring the girls to come back to pick us up. This would be 85 miles. It was 3:30. At 15 mph average we would drag our sorry carcasses into the Park at 9:15 PM. Lights were retrieved and nerves of steel were purchased as we considered doing this. 20 miles later we were in Rome, GA and then we entered maybe the most beautiful section of our trip so far. We were able to do mostly side-by-side riding in winding mountainous terrain. All a person can do is stand in awe of the amazing Creator who has given us all these things to enjoy. I am saddened to think that some would take the credit away from our loving Savior to think that it all came to be by a bit of random chance. “IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED . . . “





Cloudland Canyon State Park was not reached before dark nor after dark but Mom came and picked us up in Menlo, GA at about 8:15. Not too bad we were only 30 miles away. We have now made up all but 30 miles. On our way out of Menlo, GA there was . . .

Stay tuned for tomorrows ride!!! Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave comments and let me know that you are following along!