The rest day started early as we all woke around 6:30 and headed down to Mary Lou’s cafe for breakfast before saying our farewells to Cooper. He was the perfect trail companion and everybody was going to miss him. I’m just glad I had his company up some of those incredibly tough climbs in Virginia and through the dogs of Kentucky. He has also loved all the comments people have left about him on my blog.
Cooper Hanning
Once Cooper left me an Joe went back to the motel room and watched the Portugal - Ivory Coast game on TV then headed out to a coffee shop to finally catch up on some blog entries. I’m constantly about a week behind now, I type them up offline each night but its uploading the pictures to accompany that slow me down. Also I tend to do them in my tent when I’m really tired so they are usually full of spelling mistakes which you will have to ignore.
We met Michael again, the leader of the ACA group. They were also taking a rest day in Carbondale and he invited us to join them for dinner tonight at a thai restaurant downtown. We picked our bikes up and I replaced my tyres with some Schwalbe Marathons as my others had around 2,000 miles on them and I also had an extra layer of soft chunky bar tape added. The bike was spotless and working a dream, they had stayed up after hours just to get them done.
Rest days start early around here, oddly enough — we were all up by half six, headed down to Mary Lou’s for breakfast and a proper goodbye to Cooper before he peeled off for home. He’d been the perfect companion for these miles, the kind you don’t fully appreciate until you picture the road without him — up the brutal climbs through Virginia, through the gauntlet of dogs across Kentucky, always there. He’d taken a real liking to the comments people left about him on the blog too, which I suppose made two of us glad he’d come along.
Cooper Hanning
Once he’d gone, Joe and I drifted back to the motel room and lost an hour to Portugal against Ivory Coast, then wandered out to a coffee shop to finally chip away at the blog backlog. I’m perpetually about a week behind on it — I type the entries up most nights, offline, usually in the tent when I’m too tired to see straight, which explains the spelling. It’s the photos that slow the whole operation down, not the words.
We ran into Michael again, still leading his ACA group through their own rest day in Carbondale, and he roped us into dinner that evening at a Thai place downtown. In between, we collected the bikes — new Schwalbe Marathons replacing tyres that had put in a good two thousand miles, plus an extra layer of soft, chunky bar tape for good measure. The shop had stayed open well past closing just to finish the job, and handed the bike back spotless, running like new.
3 comments from 2010
Hi Rye, it was a bit sad that cooper had to leave,he looks and sounds like a real nice guy,good of the bike store to work later to get your bikes done for you. i think its great that you are still managing to do your updates on your blog,you must be tired after along day cycling,keep up the good work, luv mum xxx
Bikes looking fresh. Keep the updates coming it will keep you focused! I'm loving the pictures on all the cafe/restaurants/buildings etc. Bye Coops, hope you get to meet up with Ryz again later on in the journey!
Sounds like everythings going really good rye. Hope to see coops hittin up egg in the future!!