A Challenging Start

We’re currently in Tallahassee, Florida after biking 280 miles in the past four days from Jacksonville. Tallahassee isn’t quite that far from Jacksonville, but we detoured down to Palatka before starting west due to the way the route and our hosts worked out.

The first three days were called “the hardest start in Bike & Build history.” Typically the routes ease the riders into biking across the country, but because of the way hosting for us worked out this summer we had to ride three 75 mile rides in 95 degree weather Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. They were pretty tough, but now I have more confidence that I can go across the country.

On Saturday we had the wheel dip ceremony before we left Jacksonville where we all dipped our rear wheels in the Atlantic before taking off.

After the wheel dip we started our ride out of Jacksonville. It turned out that our first day was my turn to ride sweep with Will. “Riding sweep” means that you stay behind everyone else and make sure that they make it to the host, helping with any problems along the way. We rode south through St. Augustine and on to Palatka and wound up getting in around 6 p.m.–a little later than we were going for.

The second day we left Palatka for Lake City, traveling north and west. I got a flat tire early on and decided to replace the tire as well as the tube with a folding tire that Brettly had. Later in the route we all ran into more trouble when we were accidentally routed down a four mile stretch of dirt road. In this case the dirt was sand and it was absolutely impossible to ride on. Walking it with a bike was very uncomfortable in the middle of the day with no shade. I walked it for a mile and a half before finally being picked up by someone with a truck who was nice enough to help us out.

      

The third day we biked to Perry. This was our third 70+ mile ride in a row and it was fairly difficult. However, we did stop to play Frisbee in a field. We finally arrived in Perry and stayed at Taylor County Middle School.

Today we rode to Tallahassee. The first half of the ride to Tallahasse was nice because we left earlier and reached lunch before the sun rose over the trees lining the highway. One new obstacle on the way to Tallahassee were rolling hills. The climbs were difficult, but I thought they were at least more interesting than the flatness of the rest of the trip.

Over the past four days we have biked 280 miles. Tomorrow is our second build day. It will be nice to use different muscles for a day. We also had another build day in Jacksonville where we worked with the Jacksonville Beaches Habitat for Humanity.