TransAm Day #12 Booneville, KY - Berea, KY
TransAm Day #12
June 6, 2018
Booneville, KY - Berea, KY
63 Miles
Ride Time 5:18 Hours
Tour Total Miles 796
I slept reasonably well last night in my hammock at a picnic area behind the Presbyterian Church in Booneville. It was somewhat chilly, and I didn’t get my sleeping bag all comfy until about 15 minutes before it was time to get up. The police came by around 11pm with a bright spotlight to check on us. The nearby street lamp was quieted by my mosquito netting. The half moon was radiant in the middle of the night.
I got up at 5am and were at the Bus Stop Cafe by 6. All the good ol’ boys were in attendance. After our meal, I hit the road. I wore my leg warmers, windbreaker, and down vest to cut the cold early morning air. I still had plenty of steep hills. The only savior is they were short.
Steve G is keeping track of all the lose dogs chasing us. We were up to 17 by 9am. The day’s final count was 22. No bitten panniers today, but I did graze a big black dog’s snout with enough spray for him to pull back. I stopped at the Family Dollar in McKee for Gatorade, where a mangy blue ticked hound dog tried to beg bananas.
The ACA assisted tour fast pack caught up with me around Sandgap. I asked missy, if she had gotten enough beauty sleep last night. She replied yes, and thanked me for sleeping somewhere else. Her partner asked me where I was staying in Berea, and I lied, “Same place as you”. He sneered that ACA had lined up a pig sty for the group tonight, but that he knew people in Berea, and that the fast pack would be staying in much better quarters. “It pays to know people”, he bragged as he passed me.
The last major uphill had horrible road conditions. There was no shoulder, a rumble strip that violently shook my bike if I got stuck in it, and and huge trucks from the local gravel quarry. The payoff was a fantastic downhill through long winding cuts in the side of the mountains. I was leaving the Appalachians. Ahead in the distance I could see flat land.
I started noticing magnolia trees again, just like in the eastern part of Virginia. The smell of honeysuckle was replaced with cut grass and horse manure. Entering Berea it was evident that I had returned to civilization, and was back to sprawl.
I rode ten miles up to Richmond for a pit stop at Mike’s Bike & Hike. Before becoming a bike shop proprietor, Mike had been a sculptor. He runs a tip top shop. Casey figured out why my shifting cables were giving me trouble. My shop in Brooklyn had used galvanized cable instead of stainless, and the weather had corroded my cables. He replaced both cables and housing, and removed a link from my chain. Mike went to work on my brakes, and jury-rigged my faulty right drop-down lever. He also slightly rotated my front bar for a better grip. These guys are fantastic! You’d never find this level of service in New York.
Steve H got his wheel looked at and Steve G had his bike boxed. He is booked on tomorrow’s flight back to Maryland. He’ll be returning to the TransAm next summer to do his next segment. I got to meet Steve H’s lovely wife June who has a fantastic sense of humor. It was sad to see the end of #TeamR2S. Steve H Will hopefully be joining back up with me in a few days.
I stayed in Berea with my friends Libby and Roger, whom I had met at the Hambidge Arts Center last summer. They are both writers, and Libby also practices photography. Both share my passion for bicycle touring. A few years ago Roger rode from Minnesota to Kentucky. What I didn’t know about Roger was that he was a pilot. He offered to take me up into the sky in his Cessna to look at where I had been, and where I was headed. He even let me fly the plane. That’s a box I never figured would be checked. It was fantastic!
When we got back to the airport asked Roger about all these structures I had seen around the area mounted to the top of telephone poles. I thought they were for bats to live. He told me that they were loud sirens in case of bad weather or a leak in the nearby nerve gas depot. He told me there’s enough nerve gas stored here to kill the entire eastern US population. Libby, Roger, and I had a fantastic dinner. Roger and I then sampled a few local Kentucky bourbons.
I got word from my Oregon team that my bike rack has arrived on the west coast.
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