The day we hit the coast

Since I got a motel room last night, I decided to milk it for its worth and didn't get out of my king-sized bed until about 9 am. Giving me enough time to pack and be on my way before the 11 am check-out.

I let the motel room, because there were no places to camp; just swamp and box stores. The guy gave it to me at 50% of the already discounted price.

To find my motel, I varied from the red-ribbon on my ACA map, and had some trouble finding the ribbon again in the morning. This detour put on about 20 km and an hour of messin' around. I just generally wanted to get where I was going, I wasn't in the mood for residential neighborhood sight-seeing. Later the landscape was wonderful, and the wind frustrating. I rode most of the day into a headwind which got my spirits down. Essentially, my mood is directly related to how fast I'm going. Traveling at 15 km/h and I'm not feeling too hot, traveling at 25 km/h and I'm feeling fantastic.

The bike culture on the coast is amazing. Those low-rider bicycles are popular down here; I like individualized bikes. And the sport cyclists were out in force.

There is one main road and it had a bike lane. A gentleman in his late fifties passed me, and I took the opportunity to ask if I could draft him. He said sure, and I stuck with him for about 2 hours (he was on his before dinner 45 mile ride on a hybrid). It was awesome, I went from struggling at 17 km/h to riding at 23 km/h. The guy was stoic, but it's hard to carry on a conversation riding like we were. I did find out he was planning to ride the Northern Tier this summer.

I'm still riding with my ankle taped. So, earlier in the day I dropped my seat, so I could get more power out of my sore leg without moving my foot. Before my seat was too high for me to ride with my hands on the drops , but now since my seat was lower when I was following this guy I rode with my hands on the drops the entire way. By the time he turned around to head home, my hands were stiff and bruised. You put a lot more weight forward when you ride low. I missed all the landscape and everything, I just focused on his back wheel. It was hypnotizing.

I got Saint Augustine. It was suppose the be a haven. I checked into a place called the Pirate Haus, and ran into Joe in the street. He had met up with Ricky and Alison; who are keeping there own blog at - http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/4765

Ricky is a bike mechanic, and Alison had hiked both the Appalachian and the Pacific Coast Trails. They knew how to travel light. The two of them had half the stuff I had - the math works out to a quarter of the stuff per person.



Yeah, I can't crop any photos on the road.