bicycle tour macon

We wake up at 0730, same as Danny–he’s going to work. He showed us some true hospitality last night, beyond giving us couches to sleep on–he brought us food and Red Stripe and we hung out in his house chatting late into the evening about our respective journeys. He was a philosophy major at UGA and he and I find some literary common ground. After he leaves, Stephanie and I write him a note in that copy of “Zen and the Art…” and leave it for him.

The metal bracket which holds my rack to the frame broke yesterday as we rolled into Athens. I mitigate this problem temporarily with a bungee cord, but as we’re zooming around Athens looking for a library we find an open bike shop instead whose employees give me brackets and nuts and bolts to get myself re-situated. I buy some tube patches from them and in just a few minutes I’m good as new :o)

Back downtown to Hot Corner coffee and an opportunity for me to inspect and patch my damaged tubes. In each of our first three days my rear tire went flat. And each time we were in inclement or cold weather, and after a quick inspection of the tire, put in a new tube and stowed the flat one for patching later. Now I’m finding that all my busted tubes have been damaged too similarly to be coincidence. Finally, Stephanie finds it! A small piece of the radial belt had snapped and poked inwards, popping my tubes with the smallest of intrusions. Its a pleasure to find a simple cause for the problem, and a few patches later I’m ready to stay inflated.

Onward to brunch! The Grit is closed!!! So we zip around looking for something accommodating and find “Clocken” (I think is the name?) for brunch. Stephanie and I both notice that our waiter is very pretty and the food is fantastic! We eat a lot of veggie chili and hummus and (deep-fried!) pita in anticipation of needing energy to exit hilly Athens.

We call Jesse–someone we met the night before. We were at Hot Corner Coffee near the 40-Watt with our bicycles parked outside. Perhaps it is the way they are outfitted, but these touring outfits seem to garner a lot of interest! Almost everyone wants to ask “Where have you been?” and “Where are you going?” and it almost seems as though they are living vicariously through our nomadic adventure. I am happy to share the minutiae of our venture for as long as they care to listen, and I am often treated with their reciprocation and advice. Jesse, also a cyclist, is no exception–he approached us last night and before long we were talking routes. He is interested in riding out of town with us, which we do–an interesting route through a town called Bishop to the Southeast of Athens.

At this point we are on US-129 South wishing instead to be on Colham-Ferry road. So we ask directions of some service station patrons. One of them with a pickup truck offers to drive us out to the road. Stephanie rides in the cab, and I take the bed with the bikes. We are delivered safely to the road we’re looking for but Stephanie is visibly shaken. Apparently, the occupants of the truck, including the driver were pretty strung out on meth(!), but from my point of view it was just a fast-paced ride through some country roads.

But no sooner than they pull away we are met by one of the few other cyclists we see on this trip. Carl is head-to-toe spandex and riding a top-notch Specialized bicycle–and he’s full of great advice and augments our basic AAA map with lines that make the rest of our day some of the best riding we’ve seen yet!

So–Macon is approximately 100 miles from Athens and we didn’t expect to make it, especially for our late start. Rather, we thought that if we put in a full day of riding we might pull ourselves close enough to make for an easy pickup by her sister…but that doesn’t quite work out. We get as far at the TA service center on US-441 just South of I-20 near Madison, GA, about 50 miles shy of Macon, admitting that we don’t need to get to Macon tonight, although it would have been fun. While taking a rest and thinking about our options (and having seen some territory that would make for good stealth-camping), we put out a sign:

And plenty of people take us up on the offer of free conversations! Eventually we’re in a conversation with Jim, one of the TA employees. He’s in his sixties and recently procured a touring cycle but hadn’t yet set out on any long-distance tours, and so was probing us for advice. We share our stories and not long into our conversation he offers, “I’m on until midnight–if you’re still here, I’ll take you to Macon”. :oD And then minutes later he comes back with news that his supervisor will let him leave work around 10 so he can take us sooner!

Stephanie’s family is tickled when on Christmas Eve these two weary travelers are delivered to them by a white-bearded man in a large red sleigh truck. Haha! I try to slip Jim some cash (we accidentally drove pretty far past our intended exit) but he caught me. And unbeknown to myself he slipped it back! I hope he did not find my attempt in any way diminishing to his very kind offer–I just felt bad that he was expending so much fuel on our account and wanted to help.

We arrive at Stephanie’s sister’s and I’m allowed to do some laundry and take a hot shower–my first since Friday morning–and it melts me.