Thursday, March 17, 2022

Spring Break 2022 Bike Tour Day 5 - Perry to Tallahassee

 We are here unwinding at the very lovely AirBnB where Debra has encamped while we ride bikes. 



 This is a charming little cottage in the back yard of a nice house in the Magnolia Historic District. I think you might call it an "Accessory Dwelling Unit."


The ride today was super nice. 60 miles, all flat, with a tailwind. We made great time. We spent most of the day on the "Old Dixie Highway", which we were on all day yesterday as well. It looks the same as yesterday. Except it's down to two lanes now.


It's a long way between stops on this road. We went over 20 miles of no services whatsoever to get to this place for a badly needed snack break.


It has more shelf space devoted to fishing lures than it does for food for people. Also there are many Trump bumper stickers and other Trump merchandise for sale. And there are zip-loc bags of home made beef jerky next to the cash register. Which I bought. The jerky was absolutely amazing.

We had lunch at Savannah's Southern Buffet at the 40 mile mark. Max is now all in on Southern buffets. Plate after plate piled high with chicken and vegetables. It's amazing to see. He's normally a very picky eater.

The highlight of the ride was the St. Marks Trail, which is a rail trail we rode from lunch to the middle of Tallahassee, about 20 miles. This is one of the nicest trails I've ever ridden. It's smooth, wide, and beautiful. The cross streets have stop signs for the crossing traffic, and the trail traffic has the right of way There are many bathrooms and water sources. This is what all bike trails should be like.

We are past the halfway point. It's Day 5 of 9. And since I have been reunited with my truck (and Debra) for a night, I spend the evening running errands and doing chores.

Max had another flat tire today, this time it was a complete blowout because something took a chunk out of the sidewall on the rear tire. Both the tire and inner tube were destroyed. I always carry a spare tire when touring, and several spare inner tubes, but this left Max with no spare tire and only one spare tube. So the first errand was a trip to the bike shop.


Check it out, they sell recumbents. LOL.

This was a great shop. I got a pair of Gatorskins for Max, 3 new tubes, a fistful of CO2 cartridges, and a high quality set of tire wrenches. This means there will be no more flats. It's like when you bring an umbrella and then it doesn't rain.

The next stop was the laundromat.


Now all our clothes are clean and we are set for the rest of the trip.

Since I had spent all evening running around, and because I had a Zoom call scheduled for 8:00 that Debra didn't know about, she excused me from going to dinner with her relatives. Unfortunately, it turned into another Florida dining disaster, this time from Blaze pizza, who delivered me a cold pizza to the house in front of our AirBnB cottage, well after when it was promised, without the drink I ordered with it.  I called up to complain. They took the charge off my card, and said they would send me another pizza which also never came. I ate the cold pizza out of desperation.

Here is the Strava track.

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