55.44 miles (Total: 1189.58) Average Speed: 11.3mph Max Speed: 37mph
I woke to the sound of horses trotting about this morning and got myself up to a breakfast of eggs and bread. Cooper was last to get up as he often is, his face is hilarious on a morning as he takes a few minutes to wake properly and looks around bewildered at everybody packing up their tents. I tell him he looks like death warmed up which gets a laugh then we finish packing up. The early riding was uneventful, stopping where we could to take shade from the relentless sun.
We stopped in Goreville for lunch at a well known cyclist stop, Delaneys. I ordered the Taco Salad which was then followed by free Cherry Pie, dished up to all riders who pass through.
Immediately after leaving Goreville there were storm clouds overhead. We heard rumbles of thunder around and it seemed a matter of time until we got soaked. However the route changes and turns somehow managed to take us right around all the nasty stuff and we remained dry except for a small welcome sprinkling.
As we continued to coast along towards Carbondale Joe’s front tyre suddenly let out a huge scream of air, he had ridden over a thorn. We stopped so he could repair the flat and Cooper took the chance to replace one of his. he had been riding with an extremely slow leak in one of his tyres for the past day, after a pump it would last for hours until it was noticeable.
Roadside workshop
Once everyone was fixed up we headed out again an soon passed by a huge lake. The chance for a swim was too good to pass up on such a sticky day so we pulled up and jumped in. The water was perfect, nobody even bothered to change out of their cycling clothes, they would be dried within minutes of riding anyway.
After finally arriving in Carbondale we made our way to the motels and got ourselves checked in. Joe had earlier rang a bike shop in the city to get our bikes serviced, being the busy time of year for bike shops they are always full but make special room for cross country cyclists. So we unloaded everything and rode down to hand them over before the store closed. We would be taking a rest day tomorrow and then pick them up in the evening. For supper we went to the Chinese restaurant next door and had some great food with even better beer. This was to be Cooper’s last night, tomorrow he would leave us before then making his way back home for a wedding and then returning to continue the trail in about a week.
Horses trotting past the tent walls made for a strange alarm clock, but it did the job, and I got up to eggs and bread and the daily comedy of watching Cooper wake. He’s always last, and always the same — a few minutes of blinking around at the rest of us breaking camp like he can’t quite place where he is or how he got there. I told him he looked like death warmed up. It got the laugh it always gets. We finished packing and rolled out into a morning that gave us nothing to write home about, just heat to duck out of wherever a patch of shade offered itself.
Lunch was in Goreville, at Delaney’s, a place every cyclist on this route seems to know by name before they’ve ever seen it. I had the taco salad. Then came the cherry pie — free, for anyone who rolls through on two wheels, which is the kind of local tradition that makes a hard day feel like it’s rooting for you.
We hadn’t gone far out of town before the sky turned on us, dark clouds stacking up and thunder rolling somewhere close. It looked like a soaking was coming whether we liked it or not. Instead the road bent and turned just enough, by pure accident of the route, to carry us around the worst of it — we came out the other side with nothing worse than a light, almost welcome sprinkle.
Coasting on toward Carbondale, Joe’s front tyre let out a scream of escaping air loud enough to make us all flinch — a thorn, straight through. We pulled over so he could patch it, and Cooper used the stop to swap a tyre of his own, one that had been leaking so slowly he could pump it up in the morning and ride most of a day on the fading pressure before it turned obvious again.
Roadside workshop
Patched up and rolling again, we came on a lake big enough to be impossible to ignore on a day this sticky, and pulled off without much discussion. Nobody bothered changing out of their cycling kit — a few minutes back on the bike in this heat and it would be dry again anyway — and the water, when we hit it, was about as close to perfect as water gets.
Carbondale, when we finally reached it, meant fifty-five miles behind us and motel beds ahead. Joe had called a local bike shop days in advance to line up a service — this being their busiest stretch of the year, they were booked solid, but a shop like that always finds room for riders crossing the whole country. We unloaded the panniers and rode the bikes down before closing, planning to take a rest day tomorrow and collect them in the evening. Supper was at the Chinese place next door to the motel, food good and the beer better. It was also Cooper’s last night with us — tomorrow he’d head home for a wedding, promising to rejoin the trail in about a week.
3 comments from 2010
Loving the last image! Just about to finish work early to get home for the big game! COME ON ENGLAND.
love the roadside workshop... notice the hairs grown rye! xx
description of coopers face in the morning made me chuckle, keep it up lad. proud of ya