The Ride

Weigh-in #17 – Up a couple of pounds

Wheel full 70px My internet connectivity at my nightly stops when camping is on and off.  The last couple of nights have been the “off” end of the equation. But I did weigh in on Monday while I was in Myrtle Beach and found that, while the scale measured a few pounds more than the previous week, I was still solidly in the 290s. My feeling is that last week’s weight, while a wondrous thing to behold, might have been helped a bit by a not very accurately zeroed scale.

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Wheel full 70px There’s two weigh-ins left before I get to Key West.  I’ll also do a final “close the record” from there even though it will be a Thursday.  Any predictions as to what my weight will be on November 10th?  I’ll go out on a limb and say 283.8 pounds/128.7 kilograms.

Wheel full 70px We’ll see.

This afternoon’s ride

Wheel full 70px I’ll be riding my last miles in North Carolina this afternoon.  I’m currently just west of Southport after taking the ferry across the mouth of the Cape Fear River and plan to spend the night in North Myrtle Beach.

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Wheel full 70px It’s a beautiful sunny day, much cooler than yesterday.  There’s a little headwind, but it’s about the only thing affecting an otherwise perfect day.

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20 Days

Wheel full 70px That’s what’s left.

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Wheel full 70px Yesterday when I arrived in Jacksonville, North Carolina I had completed nine full weeks of my Halifax, Nova Scotia to Key West, Florida bicycle ride.  When I started out this morning I had three full weeks left before I would reach Key West on November 10th.

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Wheel full 70px Now it’s just 20 days.  That seems like such a short time.  At some point during the day’s ride tomorrow I will go below 1,000 miles/ 1,600 km remaining.  I won’t kid you there- that still seems like a ways.  But I can do that.

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Not all bike maintenance…

…takes place on the bike.

Wheel full 70px I was knocking sand off my shoes the other day when I was getting ready to leave Oregon Inlet campground.  This caught my eye.

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Wheel full 70px I called a bike shop: Island Cycles, down the Outer Banks in Avon, North Carolina.  John, the proprietor, said he was closing early to clean up damage at home left by the recent hurricane, but would leave a replacement screw on his porch if he wasn’t going to be there.

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Wheel full 70px He hadn’t left by the time I arrived, and so I bought three of these.

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Wheel full 70px He installed the screw, made sure all the others were tight, and I was on my way.

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Wheel full 70px I’m heading for Wilmington, North Carolina today. It’ll be my last full day in this great state.

Twelve Hundred Miles to Go

Wheel full 70px I figured up the remaining mileage tonight from atop my picnic table sleeping platform at the Ocracoke National Park Service campground.  I’m 500 miles/800 kilometers south of New York City and about 2,400 miles/3,850 km from my start point in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Mathematically, that means two-thirds of the trip’s mileage is behind me.

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Wheel full 70px I’ve been riding for 61 days- just short of nine weeks- and have thus averaged just under 40 miles/65 km a day.  I plan to arrive in Key West on November 10th, so that leaves 23 days to go.  I’ll need to average a little over 50 miles every remaining day in order to make it.  That’s probably a little less daunting than it looks, though, as pretty much all the trip’s elevation gain- something over 90,000 feet/27,450 meters- is in my rear view mirror.  The tallest hills left on this trip are various coastal bridges. The rest of the ride will average somewhere around 10 feet/three meters above sea level.

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Wheel full 70px After tomorrow’s 20 or so mile/32 km ride from Ocracoke village to Cedar Island, only one short ferry crossing will remain- over the Cape Fear River just south of Wilmington, North Carolina. These ferry rides have been welcome breaks along the way, and I count each of them among the high points of the places I’ve traveled.  They’ve added a whole further connection to the Atlantic Coast for me, and I can not envision this trip without having made them.

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Wheel full 70px Three states remain to be crossed after I leave North Carolina in a couple of days: South Caroline, Georgia and the length of Florida including heading far out into the Gulf of Mexico on the Ocean Highway across the Florida Keys.  Even though the time left- just over three weeks- seems relatively short in light of the months I’ve been on the road already, it is clearly no afterthought or mere winding up.  It remains an epic ride all in itself, and I’m looking forward to accomplishing it.

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