Day 11 - Clinton, LA - Markville, LA

Let me start by saying this is day 11 of our ride! We have had 2 rest days. We have rode 907 miles in 9 days towards our goal! This is crazy, we are cruising across america on our bikes! Let me tell you about my day!

Well this morning started out great. I had a wonderful night’s sleep, nice warm shower and a good bowl of cereal. We had about a 10 minute drive from the bed and breakfast to the starting point for the ride this morning.

Shannon and his father aka POPS were riding the tandem bike this morning. We set out and started pedaling. The roads this morning were beautiful, most of the roads were covered by trees and although humid, the temperature wasn’t very high. The problem at this point was my legs. They felt fine when I was up and around before we started riding, but when I started pedaling they felt very heavy and non responsive. I mustered through the first 40 miles when we were surprised with another ferry ride. When I say we were surprised, mainly I was surprised. I think everyone else knew it was coming but like I have said before I take it one mile at a time and don’t spend to much time looking ahead.

We crossed the mighty Mississippi river on a ferry, this time we were able to take the RV with us (sorry Jerry!).  It was a short ride across river to the other shore.

After the ferry we rode another 12 miles until we stopped for lunch. We all relaxed inside the RV with the air conditioning on. POPs rode from the start to the lunch spot and I had a hard time keeping up with them all morning. They were moving on that tandem! However the temperature reached 91 degrees today, and I am not sure what the humidity was but what I can tell you is I would trade a 105 day in Phoenix for a 90 degree day down here.

But there is good news! After we crossed the Mississippi the roads have flatten out for a while. This is good news because I also started to experience mechanical issues. You see my front derailleur started throwing my chain off the high end and the low end. To make matter worse I had a bent chain link that was causing a hiccup in my rear derailleur…I almost hate to admit this but there were curse words out here in Louisiana today. I was able to find a sweet spot that everything worked and got me to our end destination. I am thankful for that.

The roads were flat but far from smooth. We managed to dodge all the really big potholes but we hit our fair share. This is defeating because it takes its toll on your arms and your shoulders. It also slows you down, and with the Louisiana sun beating down on us we wanted to get off the road as quick as possible. The final mileage today was 103.5 miles. It felt extremely good to get off and get inside the RV and off those bumpy roads.

We had a 30 minute drive to our RV park we are staying at tonight. We have a RV spot and a cabin here. The cabin is very nice and comfortable. Once we unloaded Shannon quickly went from bike rider to bike mechanic. He worked my bike over for some time until he had my chain fixed and my derailleur’s shifting. He is my hero for getting my bike ready to roll again.

 We ate some pork chops and mac-n-cheese for dinner and it hit the spot. Once I was able to shower and sit down to blog it is already 9:15pm and time for lights out. Because we have a 30 min ride to our starting point, we have to wake up early to be on the road by 7am.

That is all for tonight folks! All in all it was a tough day for me, I made it through and nothing hurts to bad tonight. Hopefully the terrain is flat and the wind is at our back in the morning to help ease into the ride tomorrow.