Leaving Bay St Louis just after sunrise we made great time on Highway 90 towards New Orleans. The front wheel, with one broken spoke, behaved impeccably and we cruised through the bayou to Louisiana, our fourth State on this tour.

An early lunch at a gas station allowed us to refuel with some fried chicken. Susan is not really a fried chicken person but she is married to a fried chicken person and, as they say, ‘caring is sharing’. I might have just made that saying up but it says it all – its not every guy that would share his fried chicken!

We soon hit the suburbs of New Orleans with busy traffic and no hard shoulder. The inner city of New Orleans, however, is quite pleasant with cycle lanes throughout the city. The locals are actually quite pleasant to cyclists. So far, on our tour, our brief passage through Alabama was the tops for cycling in terms of considerate motorists. Louisiana is good but we have a long way to go before we can pass judgment. Florida, however, was pretty pants and Marianna, Florida, you can hang your heads in cycle shame.

55 miles later we arrived at our hotel.

Now the balloons were not for us. Coincidentally, our arrival was the same day as the official opening day of this hotel and Susan found out there was a bit of a drinks reception with canapés at 4pm and guests were invited. To be honest, I think the bellboy just invited her but I’m the guy that shares his fried chicken and so she looks after me and I got an invite too. So listen guys if you want the secret to a happy caring relationship the answer is fried chicken. I know its hard to share that greasy spicy tasty morsel of food but if you do just watch the face of the woman you care about light up.

So after getting the bike folded and stored in our room we put on our best slightly smelly clothes and really pretty smelly training shoes and went to our canapé party. But that’s a story for the next blog as it’s now 3 days later and there’s still too many bars with beer, music and food calling for me. What a wonderful city.

As the New Orleans motto says ‘laissez les bon temps rouler’ (let the good times roll).

So good we named it thrice.

Ps. we tried the selfie ‘together’ picture but we couldn’t see the picture on the phone in the sunlight and the sweat was running into our eyes and the flies were biting.

We left Pensacola as soon as we had finished our early morning breakfast in McDonalds and headed along Highway 292 towards Gulf Shores. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and by mid morning the traffic was heavy with locals heading for the beach. No hard shoulder meant it was a fraught cycle with so many trucks giving us little room to manoeuvre.

Just to clarify for people in the UK when I say ‘truck’ I refer to those vehicles with a flat bed at the rear, with 5 litre engines and oversized tyres. They’re everywhere – it’s the macho kind of thing to drive to go to Walmart and the shops. If I lived here I would obviously have one too and because it’s a macho kind of thing, my truck would be something like this 😃

Of course, I would always give cyclists their three feet minimum space just like the sign says:

We did have a break in our cycle along the busy highway as we suffered our third puncture of the tour. Now I know what you’re thinking – why didn’t he mention the other two. Well you see I had been banging on about the heat, I had been banging on and on about the spokes and I didn’t want to start on about the punctures. Just in case it put you off trying a cycling holiday like this for yourselves.

We had cycled 13,000 km across Canada and Australia with one single rear wheel puncture and today we had our third since leaving St Augustine.

Susan had a great idea though – why don’t we just pump it up again and go. Now I really don’t understand women’s logic at times but I was on the side of a busy road and didn’t feel like changing a tyre so I blew up the tyre and we cycled.

Of course, it started deflating within a mile, the steering went and I struggled to keep the bike straight. Women’s bl**dy logic I thought!

That’s when I saw heaven or at least ‘almost’ heaven – the golden m

Now I still don’t understand women’s logic but who can argue that there’s no better place to fix a puncture than with a strawberry smoothy by your side! Some people may even say this is a picture of two smoothies. 😂

Thankfully, the traffic subsided by late morning and we had a relatively pleasant cycle along the coast to Gulf Shores.  It was only 35 miles today and we had enough time to have a wander around a nearby Walmart to buy (in order of volume) beer, fried chicken, cakes and water. The diet of a cyclist.

Next day was another short cycle – 23 miles to Dauphin Island. It was too hot to go much further. Did I mention the heat? 😎 Maybe I did but did I mention that this is the last week of summer and we are having record temperatures. Today the heat index was 115f or 46c. It felt hotter to be honest.

We had take a 40 minute ferry to the island and the nice guy selling the tickets meant well when he told us there was no shelter from the sun on the boat.  Susan was polite and didn’t mention we sat out in it for 7 hours most days. I mean you kind of wonder how he thought I got a sunburnt face that looks like it’s been deep fried with the chips!

The ferry journey was pleasant enough even although I felt it was cheating – we were travelling west and not peddling.  Susan has no such morals and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  My demeanour picked up, however, when I mean a couple of cops from Indiana on Harleys.

We swapped cop stories.  I heard about the time he disarmed a man with a sawn off shotgun loaded with deer shot.  I told him about the performance management report I developed (sorry Iain and David I took full credit).  He told me about the time he arrested a Kung fu ninja who pepper sprayed him and tried to go for his gun. I told him about a couple of national policing policies I implemented.  Yes national!  I could tell I was impressing him as he could barely comprehend what I was telling him.  Honestly, it was like two old cops telling their war stories and we could have been there all day.

That night we stayed at the friendly but relatively ramshackle Harbour House Inn on Dauphin Island and ate outstanding prawn tacos at JTs Sunset Grill. As we ate Susan stared over the bay at the road causeway and the hump bridge we would have to cross in the morning.  I reassured her it would be easy but I could see the foreboding look on her face.

The following morning after a breakfast of biscuits and grits we were delayed by a heavy thunderstorm.  Before I continue I should explain that ‘biscuits’ are scones and grits are some corn pasta type thing that tastes as good/bad as it sounds.

Back to the bridge – as we cycled across the road causeway the sky was menacing.

It was even worse ahead:

Now I know what you’re thinking – what on earth is Susan concerned about that little 9% gradient hump in the distance.  I was more concerned about the potential rain and lightning and being exposed on the road.  It’s okay for those people in their trucks acting as faraday cages (I’m sure you all know what a faraday cage is).  Cop stories, science, this blog has it all.

Well after two short days cycling I was feeling strong today and thought we would get a good run at this hill.  We peddled and peddled and gathered up speed. We were flying along. Absolutely flying.  Then Susan shouted from the back ‘can we slow down please’. What? What? I shouted over the sound of the rushing wind.  ‘I had a dream last night I was catapulted over the edge’ she shouted back with anxiety in her voice.

Now let me explain. Every night before we go to bed we take a multi vitamin with minerals (good for old people) and two ibuprofen with sleep enhancer.  That’s just when we’re cycling of course!  I don’t know if we actually need the sleep enhancer but we do need the ibuprofen and it’s only for a few months.  The sleep enhancer bit though gives us lots of dreams and this night Susan dreamt of landing in the water and, as we raced along, the dream was becoming too real.

I wasn’t intending to slow down, of course, but the wind was taken out our sails because I found I couldn’t pedal fast whilst laughing.  So we struggled up the hill and at the top Susan agreed it wasn’t so bad after all.  Well the climb might have not been so bad but I certainly wasn’t wasting a 9% downhill on the other side 😀.

It was a short downhill and we only reached 40mph and just to show how considerate a person I am steered away from the edge.  I didn’t want to turn Susan’s drug fuelled dream into a prophecy!

That said I got my just deserts on our descent – our fourth puncture.  If it had happened three hundred yards earlier guess what would have likely happened – yup Susan may have been catapulted over the edge!

We can now fix a puncture in record time and we were soon cycling west away from the impending storms.  60 miles later we reached Ocean Springs.

Today, after another 35 miles along the Gulf Coast we are in Bay St Louis and that’s striking distance of New Orleans.  Oh did I mention another front spoke went today? Probably not because I’m bored of banging on about spokes.

So tomorrow it’s 55 miles with a broken spoke.  Last time at DeFuniak Springs we did 80 miles on a broken front spoke to Milton so it should be okay. But then again life doesn’t always work out as logically as it should. Does it?

Where the skies are so blue

Leaving Marianna we set off at 7am for DeFuniak Springs, continuing our journey along Florida’s panhandle country.

We start at sunrise to get the benefit of it being only 86F although, with the humidity, the ‘feels like’ temperature is about 107F. Still it feels bliss compared to later in the day.

60 miles and 1500 feet of ascent later we arrived at our motel knackered and deflated – another front wheel spoke had gone! We had been standing off bike taking on some refreshment when it went. Big lardy me wasn’t even sitting on the bike! I think its just a case of all the spokes having reached the end of their life with the hardship of our three tours. Unfortunately, we don’t want to stop for another 2-3 days to get the wheel properly rebuilt.

All was not lost, however, as we had purchased two spare spokes for the front wheel in Tallahassee when it was rebalanced. Susan ordered in some beers and pizza to the motel room and I set to replacing the spoke. You won’t believe it when I say I threaded in the new spoke and it was the wrong bloody size! The Great Bicycle Shop in Tallahassee are you listening – you’re not so great, you’re not so good, you’re not even blinking acceptable! Not even beer and pizza could cheer me up – thats how bad it was.

DeFuniak doesn’t have a bicycle shop and our only option was to head to the next town of Milton and hope the front wheel held up. Only 61 miles.

Susan, the cunning person that she is, started hiding my pizza and drinking more than her fair share of the beer trying to keep my weight down for the following day. She feared for the front wheel when I sat on the bike. I had the Panhandle Blues.

We started cycling before the sun was up and, thankfully, the first 30 miles were relatively flat and we made good time. After 40 miles with no further spokes down we were in good spirits. Happy smiley people.

21 miles later we reached Milton and went to our third bike shop in America where they replaced the spoke but with one of inferior quality – it’s all they had. We are now in Pensacola where we visited our fourth bike shop and now have 6 quality front wheel spoke replacements. Just in case. If the situation doesn’t improve before Austin, Texas, we will have the front wheel rebuilt from scratch.

Let’s leave the spoke crisis for the time being. Here’s Susan at one of our multiple stops at a local garage for fluid. These garages are our lifeline as we’re drinking 2 litres an hour and that’s actually not nearly enough.

Susan’s still not taking the heat too well and the last couple of cycles have been particularly tough. I’ve got to try and judge when to stop as she will just keep on going. When we stop I can tell she’s suffering whenever she sits on the ground. I take pictures of her suffering, of course, as a historical record of the cycle but I’m not allowed to post them. It’s not pretty but then neither am I standing there soaked through looking like I’ve wet myself. Not a pretty couple.

We are now in Pensacola, Florida, and tomorrow we will cross into Alabama. The roads in Florida have been relatively fine though the traffic can at times be busy. We expected that – it’s not big open Canada or the deserts of Australia.

Visibility is important on American roads. As well as our usual rear flag we have three rear lights and two front lights. One of the rear lights has radar and is linked to the GPS that sits in front of me. I get a radar notification that a truck (they all have big trucks here) is approaching and the rear light flashes faster. Great piece of kit. If our rear light was human it would have had a nervous breakdown with the standard of driving here.

Nearly all States have a mandatory 3 foot clearance for cyclists – its the law. Unfortunately, I think a significant minority have mixed up their feet with inches. Also in their defence it must be hard to judge feet and inches when you are on your phone. It’s unbelievable!

Pensacola is a nice seaside town on the Gulf of Mexico. Known as the ‘ City of Five Flags” due to the 5 governments that have ruled it – Spain, France, Great Britain, USA and the Confederate States of America. Susan and I are staying for two nights at a lovely AirBnB. We have the whole house to ourselves.

That’s my beer balcony where I try to consume as much beer as I’m sweating out. You wont believe me when I say my beer drinking can’t keep up.

To finish, here are some local boys having a local ‘hoedown’ in Pensacola singing one of Susan’s favourite songs.

And finally finally, after 485 miles, here’s our ‘where’s the wallies’ now place map:

You may never wish to cycle across America but then you may never get to Caryville, Worm Fiddlin’ Capital of the World. You just know you’re missing out.

Don’t know what it is? Well cycle to Caryville or maybe just use YouTube.

Leaving Tallahassee we had a short cycle of 25 miles to Quincy. Experience tells us it takes ages to cycle out a city and so we never try for a long distance.

This day was just right and we were able to have a leisurely strawberry milkshake for lunch. To date the quality order of milkshakes is Dairy Queen, Burger King, McDonalds then pre packed garage milkshakes. Hopefully, we can improve on this list with an artisan shake that costs a fortune and if its got Gucci or or Versace on the cup then it has my vote. I’m such a ‘label’ type guy.

We stayed over at the Allison House Inn which was built in 1843 and once the home of General Allison, who became Governor of Florida in 1842. It made a great change from the usual motel chains. We were in the Governor’s room and Susan was on edge the whole time as I generally leave an oil stain scum around all the white bathroom porcelain in each motel we visit.

Throughout the day the odd bit of running maintenance covers me in oil and it kind of scums up the sink when I wash my hands. In the last motel I even managed to get a black tide mark around the toilet! Susan went bananas but it serves her right for not supervising me and chatting on Facebook. You see I cleaned the bike chain with tissues and flushed them. It made sense at the time but I wont be doing that again 🙂

I couldn’t get the toilet bowl cleaned properly and using toothpaste didn’t help. Toothpaste is an abrasive and works on porcelain teeth – can you see my thinking with a toilet? Anyway it didn’t work that well and Susan was lucky she wasn’t on Facebook again or I may have used her toothbrush.

So I was on my best behaviour at the Allison Inn and we ate in the splendour of the dining room. The owner chap, John, drove Susan to the local Mexican and we had a carry out on his mahogany table.

Quincy has also been known for decades as ‘the Coca Cola town’. Early in last century, Mark Munro, president of the Quincy bank, thought that the Coca Cola Company was well managed and people would always find a nickel for a cold drink. He purchased stock and urged family, friends and bank customers to save and invest in Coca Cola. Many local families became financially secure following his advice.

Leaving Quincy we cycled 44 miles to Marianna. It was 105 Fahrenheit on the bike and Susan continues to suffer. One time I’m going to turn around and she will have vanished – melted onto the road. We try to manage it with lots of hydration but we are really exposed sitting on the bike for hours at a time.

I’m okay though I can’t feel my toes. The cleats and the pedals and the sitting position combine to give me numb toes. I’m going to try extra cardboard in my shoes tomorrow. I’m used to it on these long cycles and quite confident feeling will return around about March next year.

Today we cycled past prisoners working on the road.

The best you’re going to get is a photo of sign because I wasn’t brave enough to take a picture of the felons. There was a felon with a stop/go sign at the beginning of the contra flow and he let us through.

We cycled through a short contra flow and, perhaps half a mile later came to the felon who was supposed to control stop/go at the other side. Susan was incredulous – ‘what’s the point in him stoping traffic away out here?

I, of course, being a master of deduction, immediately deduced he was escaping! Every time the guards looked away he would move another 50 yards down the road. He was still doing his job stopping cars half a mile down the road and waiting until he was far enough away to make a run for it. Good luck you ingenious felon!

We’re now in another cheap motel and its looks like fast food for dinner again. Last week we had McDonalds twice in a row for our evening dinner. Now I like a golden M as much as anybody else but two nights running?

I think the choice tonight is something from the garage next to us or another burger place called Hardee’s. If we can be bothered walking half a mile we can go to Taco Bell but who on earth would walk half a mile to Taco Bell’s? The great thing about America though is that all garages sell cold beer and if I drink enough I will eat anything.

Thankfully, each day takes us further from the east coast of America and hurricane Florence. We are, however, cycling to the low lying gulf area around New Orleans and see daily reports of other potential hurricanes. All we can do is keep on cycling and be lucky.

I must go now. I think Susan’s back on Facebook and that means she’s not paying attention to me. I can go and wash my hands! 🙂

341 miles down.

After 4 nights broken down in Palatka we eventually headed to Gainesville.

If you ever find yourself driving through Palatka then please keep driving. There were some memorable moments, of course, like the chap sitting in front of us on the Gainesville bus telling the driver that six passengers at $2 a time meant it wasn’t worth ‘robbin’ him. I was quite relaxed as I had already heard him inform his pal that he really couldn’t do more time in jail for ‘robbin’.

His pal was an interesting character. He had stories of being thrown out the house when he was aged 5, being in the Vietnam war, and being dishonourably discharged. As he said ‘I just like shooting my mouth off’. He took a particular liking to Susan. There’s me sitting on edge ready to spring into action and she’s chatting away like its a coffee morning to ‘robbin’ guy and ‘shooting the mouth’ guy.

‘Shootin the mouth’ guy mentioned he was writing a biography of Bass Reeves. Now I happened to know who he was talking about – probably saved me from being robbed and shot.

Bass Reeves was the Black Lone Ranger. Born a slave, Bass became a deputy U.S. Marshal and was said to have arrested 3,000 felons and shot and killed 14 outlaws. He was a master of disguise and worked with a Native American tracker. Sound familiar? Look him up because he is arguably the greatest lawman of the West.

Sitting on the bus with ‘robbin’ man and ‘shootin the mouth’ man I was wishing it was good old Bass sitting beside me rather than Susan! To keep the story short I’m not going to mention the other passengers including the guy who was going to Gainesville to get injected with something, the woman who had to keep moving seats because she couldn’t be within 3 feet of anyone, the ex marine who pretended to be blind and then the big guy with the biggest eyes. You may think I’m exaggerating. Honestly, he had the biggest eyes ever. Ever!

So back to cycling. It was a relatively uneventful cycle to Gainesville (56 miles), Live Oak (70 miles), Monticello (66 miles) and Tallahassee (25 miles). We are struggling in the heat. We’ve endured Australian desert heat but give credit to Florida heat because when you add the humidity factor it’s unbearable.

Temperatures are in the 90s (I’m sorry we don’t do Celsius here) and the humidity makes it hotter and factor in a fully laden tandem and its like cycling on Mercury. We are both burnt and blistered as sun cream just runs off.

Susan struggles in this extreme heat and heatstroke is a real issue. I’ve found an ice cold strawberry milkshake works wonders for her. I drink a lot (water!) and leave a slug like trail of sweat wherever I go. So I’m always cool – in a slug like trail kind of way!

On the road to Monticello we met Martin – the first touring cyclist we have met in America.

Martin has previously cycled from the west coast to New Orleans and now he is doing the Jacksonville to New Orleans leg of the trans America journey. He was maybe going to stop in Tallahassee but after meeting Susan and I he may just go all the way through to New Orleans. There you go Martin – the goal is now in black and white 🙂

I’ve mentioned how unbearably hot it is but all you travellers to Florida will know that the late afternoon brings thunderstorms. So far we have missed them all including hurricane Gordon that was ahead of us and hurricane Florence that’s behind us.

I know that we will get caught eventually but in the meantime, here’s Susan sitting in the sun and the rain falling just over the horizon.

We’re now in Tallahassee which is the Florida State capital and was chosen because its halfway between St Augustine and Pensacola. It’s in the county of Leon which is named after the good old Ponce de Leon of course!

We will spend two nights in Tallahassee because you will never guess what happened – a bloody spoke went! Cycling along, 8 miles from Tallahassee and ‘bang’ another spoke down! This time it was the front wheel.

Now to be honest it was a bit of a relief and Susan and I can start talking to each other again. When seven spokes went on the rear wheel we had a bit of a domestic issue. Let me put it this way. Susan sits over the rear wheel and seven spokes went down. I sit over the front wheel and no spokes were down. Well I know what you’re thinking and nobody has to say the obvious. The facts kind of speak for themselves.

Now that the front wheel spoke has gone we now know its nothing to do with weight of either person. It’s just wear and tear. I can stop hiding the chocolate bars.

So an extra day in Tallahassee to get the spoke repaired and the wheel tuned. The bike shop was great in doing the work quickly and it allows me to catch up on my beer intake.

Another picture of Susan in front of our Monticello motel. Oh it was a rubbish motel but after Australia all U.S. motels are fantastic.

I’m sorry all the pictures are of Susan. It’s so hot just now I only wear a pair of speedo trunks and cycling shoes. I really cant publish that!

From Tallahassee we head west along the Florida Panhandle and our next rest day will be in Pensacola.

So far 273 miles down. A lot more to go.