USA-Ride Diary

We are now into and almost out of Illinois. Crossed the Ohio river on the ferry yesterday into the imaginatively named Cave in Rock, which to our surprise was a community based around a cave in a rock. We met a lady called Cindy in the cave who is now in remission from multiple cancers. After talking to her, she epitomised the reason behind us making this journey across the country. Today we have found some little Ozarks, warming us up for the Parent Ozarks over the next few days or so. We feel blessed to have had one day which was relatively flat (yesterday), out of the 15 so far! We spent the last few days sleeping at fire stations in typically wild west 18th century towns, complete with rocking chair and horse and carriages.  The weather has been a little bit cooler, providing some relief, but still far hotter than any of us are used to. As we have become familiar with having a thunderstorm each day, the last few have not disappointed, delivering them without fail. Onwards and Westwards to Missouri tomorrow…

Today we have enjoyed a much shorter day to Springfield, Kentucky, (following the 105 miles hilly ride yesterday) partly as a rest day, and also to match up with the change over of the support car. Owen was particularly disappointed to see normal people when we arrived - there are no yellow people and certainly no Duff beer. We arrived here pretty early after going through constant rolling hills along route 152. Yesterday was very fun…dodging dogs as they charged from the properties we passed, and exiting the foothills of the mountains. We were over 800 miles in to the ride before we had our first puncture..a blow out right before the end of the day. Still - we stopped off in a park in Harrodsburg, and spent the late hours playing volleyball with a local side.
Prior to arriving though, we encountered a very sensible road-workman. He very kindly turned his ‘STOP’ sign around and showed us ‘GO’ so we didn’t have to wait there in the heat of the mid-day sun. What a lovely act we thought, until we rounded a corner and were faced with a whole line of traffic coming head on in the other direction! Hmm…I guess its the thought that counts (or perhaps the lack of it!).
We appear to have cracked the system of eating over here - find anywhere which offers buffets or all you can eat, and we are slowly putting them out of business as we move across the US!  We will make a point of specifiying where we are from now, because as Adi said, the US is a pretty big place, and small towns don’t help people locate us too well!! Fingers crossed those people back in England get some of our sunshine pretty soon - it sounds very wet over there.
Owen and Ben have been lucky enough to see plenty of tortoises walking along the road…unfortunately when Liz saw them, they were definitely not walking! Neither were the snakes (who weren’t walking even before they were run over) cats, raccoons, possums, skunks and deer which we have passed also. The quiet country lanes provide an abundance of wildlife! We passed a cafe on the Kentucky border called the ‘Road Kill Kafe’…perhaps its how they maintain business?
Paul and Paul have been off in search for Springfield Elementary School…but they’re pretty smart here - they call it something else! 

We are now in Booneville, Kentucky, and thankfully out of Virginia. Although given the hills, it is somewhat hard to tell the difference! Kentucky has been more of an ’adventure’ to date. Chased by lots of dogs, more dogs, trucks, bigger trucks, another dog and four huge thunderstorms. And still there are hills!! Although Liz has cracked the dog problem and finds engaging them in conversation the easiest way to deter them from biting, while Ben just barks and growls back. Owen’s water-bottle cannon technique is proving strong too. Not much else to say about Kentucky just yet…we will update more pictures and info when we have something to report.   

Independance Day, setting off from Buchanan to Radford. Having spoken to an incredibly enthusiastic guy who was ‘one of the originals’ we were expecting a flat ride after the mountains yesterday. Clearly the age had dulled his memory, and the very flat ride involved 4600 feet of climbing. Whats a mountain range between friends?! We were very pleased to reach the end of the first stage, with only one dog bite on route. Thankfully it was just the foot, so not too much meat missing. Keeping an eye out for some rabid signs…
Arrived at possibly the most hospitable family in the US. Dr Lee and his wife have supplied us with food, drink, and awesome company. I hope the previous thousand cyclists fortunate enough to stay over here have left with the Missouri mountains behind them, and not still to come!!! The ride from here on sounds very daunting as we discuss it with more people who have completed the route. The areas we were hoping to be flat are apparantly going to require the ‘granny chain!’ So the fun begins tomorrow…

We have arrived in the USA and are currently in to the first day of the ride. We started pretty early this morning to try and miss most of the heat of mid-day, but it has still been pretty warm. Headed out for a campsite about 85 miles in from the coast later this evening. All the bikes and people made it over in one piece so we were very much relieved! Plenty of pictures and videos made already, so when we have more chance we will get those uploaded on to here. 
Back to the saddle for us now though - there’s still quite some way to go yet….  

          Starting the final week in England before the ride and the nerves are starting to show a little. Finding a few inconvenient points about the bike, such as the large bulge in the side of my tyre, but that will soon be sorted out with the new parts and maintenance checks tomorrow. So we took the long ride down in to Cornwall over the weekend; headed down in the terrible wind and rain of Friday with no improvements at all on Saturday! The journey down inlcluded three punctures, and plenty of time in the rain, pumping merrily in an attempt to warm up. The hoped for views of Dartmoor were not to be, and the very warm looking sheep received much more verbal abuse than was perhaps necessary. In hindsight I don’t hold them responsible for the rain. I am extremely thankful to Ange for the help in sorting the blown tyre in Exeter, and allowing our mistake to take over her day off. One more reason why the A30 is not a favourite place of mine! It was a really unpleasant ride on the whole. I would like to say that being greeted with a hot shower and a fantastic roast meal at the end helped the negative feeling pass and made me want to do it again, but I’ll be honest and say that nothing would have made me want to get back on the bike again. Riding back up to Taunton was much more pleasant…wall to wall sunshine and a reasonable tail wind meant more smiling than grimacing. Although arriving home it was found that Holly also had another puncture, so it wasn’t the greatest day to be an inner tube. Five days to go…   

Nine days until departure and it feels like it is approaching faster and faster! Trying to get all the last minute things organised by the end of this week, so the run in to the time we leave is as panic free as possible. :-) Had a couple of really good rides in the last few days. A surprisingly hilly, but fast ride from Buckland St Mary out to Charlton Horethorne and back in great sunshine. There was the perfect end to the ride with a ready cooked BBQ as soon as we arrived.
Bikes are all booked in for the final checks…hopefully they will then make it through the flight in good condition. Heading down to Rilla Mill (Cornwall) tomorrow on the bikes, taking in some nice sights over Dartmoor. All votes were against using the A30 this time! 

In to the month of June and just under three weeks until departure date. Thank you to everyone who has sent good luck messages. We appreciate them a lot! Training is now happening every day - getting used to being on the bike for days at a time. Owen has unfortunately injured his foot, requiring seven stitches to hold it together!! Hoping this wont hamper training too much and will be recovered in time before starting off in Virginia. A few minor aesthetic adjustments to the bikes before heading over - Im sure these will make all the difference to performance. Some much longer and demanding rides down in to Cornwall coming up in the next couple weeks, fingers crossed some more awesome riding conditions. Still no punctures! (Hope that isn’t tempting fate!).  

       Hello. Today we took in some major climbs of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Also some fantastic downhills! We started out nice and early from the infamous ‘Cookie Lady’s’ house in Afton and headed further West on our journey. The heat has stepped up another gear today and is really making it thirsty work. The last couple days (sorry for not making daily updates - we rarely end up in places with computers) have been through rolling Virginia back roads. The scenery has been pretty much what one would expect - large plantations, rolling fields, houses miles and miles apart (thank goodness I’m not a paper boy over here) and pretty isolated. We’ve had more than our fair share of abuse from car drivers…one guy who we were riding with today even got hit by one as it drove past.  But as for the cycling, we are making good ground in these early stages. Several people have been sending us messages which has been fantastic and really lifts our spirits when in front of us are more hills! So thank you very much for them.
Paul and Paul are also making good progress in the vehicle. It has been super having them with us, and a major help too. They keep cropping up at just the right moment!
So tomorrow we are headed for the end of Stage one (as per the route detailed on this site). Fingers crossed by Saturday morning we will be starting out on stage two with some more stories and events to tell you about. We will do our best to get some of the pictures up on here soon - we are very limited to where we can manage to do it. Happy days to all.  

We are only four weeks away from departure now and starting to get a little nervous about getting over there and starting. We now also have the digital maps of the USA and have uploaded our route, including all the climbs we will be facing! Hopefully we will upload these on to the site as we make our way across. We have been really increasing the training of late, getting out on the bikes every day for several hours. It has been fantastic getting out in to the countryside and visiting all the little villages which are seldom visited whilst in the car. We are also very grateful to those people who have sponsored us through the justgiving link - it makes such a difference to the charities and so ‘thank you’ from all three of us. There has been an element of amusement within the riding too - the use of a tandem bike has seen some of the riding take on a different ethos! We are very grateful to have our own bikes for the ride. Four weeks and counting…