August 10, 1998 - McArthur - Marietta

DISTANCE TRAVELED: 71.40 Miles

TIME: 5 Hours 20 Minutes

AVERAGE SPEED: 17.0 Miles/Hour

TRAVEL CONDITIONS: Hot and humid all day with scattered showers in the morning. We had a small tailwind for the entire trip.

ROAD CONDITIONS: Fairly good roads all day.

TERRAIN/DIFFICULTY LEVEL: Rolling hills all day that became fairly steep in the afternoon. A fairly easy day overall.

DAILY JOURNAL COMMENTS:
I woke up at 9:00 and packed up after eating cherrios for breakfast. I threw everything into the SAG and said goodby to the San Francisco group as I left the High School. The people that I normally ride with had already left and no one else was even close to leaving so I took off by myself at 10:40. Everything was great and I then tried to shift into my largest gear in the back. As soon as I did so, I heard a clicking sound so I got off and spun my wheels. Since I didn’t hear anything, I got back on and it happened again. I couldn’t figure out what it was so the next time, I looked down at my rear derailer and noticed that it was hitting my spokes. At this time I remembered that my bike had been blown over by the wind the day before and had fallen on the derailer. The derailer hanger had bent so I pulled on it with my hand and bent it back to its proper place. Fortunately I was able to guess just where it was supposed to be since otherwise it wouldn’t shift properly. After fixing this, I rode on and met up with one of the San Francisco riders who caught up to me. We rode together for 20 miles and encountered another rider who had just gotten her third flat of the day. This one was caused by a nail one inch long that went all the way through the tire! We continued on and about one mile later we had to go different ways. He continued on 50 and I went onto 33. This was the last that I was to see San Francisco until Washington DC. I rode on and talked to some people along the side of the road who said that one of their friends did 600k in 42 hours with a 4 hour sleep! After talking for a little while, I rode on to a gas station where I bought a Gatorade and Starburst before talking to some local people who were about 18 years old. One of them had just fallen and received 22 stitches a week ago. I told them about Bike-Aid and then rode on and encountered a 2 mile hill that was fairly steep compared to most of the terrain that we had been doing recently. I got to the top expecting to have a great downhill but found that it was a big plateu with steep rolling hills on top.(Picture93) Every time I reached the top of a hill I was hoping for a long downhill but it never came. I arrived at the rowing club at 4:00 and was starving so I ate two cookies since we didn’t have too much else at the time. After eating, we talked to two newspapers and then I took a shower and washed my biking clothes. Matt and I went down to the local store to rent a movie where we got The Wedding Singer with Adam Sandler. I also bought a Powerade, two Charleston Chews, and an ice pop. We walked back and watched The Blues Brothers which was lying around the club while eating our food. After it was over, we had dinner which consisted of pasta with a tomato sauce with chicken that not only filled me up but also tasted very good. As soon as we were done eating we had a group meeting about a few things that had happened during the day. Anthony had decided to switch groups so he ended up going with San Francisco. That was perfectly fine since it had been done before but the only problem was that while he was going around a curve that had slow speed signs, he decided not to slow down. Since this was mixed with sand and wet pavement, he lost control slid onto the shoulder, hit a ditch, flew over the handlebars, flipped 1.5 times in the air, landed, and rolled a few more times before coming to a stop. The result was that he was knocked out for a while and broke his arm in the process. Because of this, San Francisco wanted us to take care of him for the last two weeks since we knew him better than they did and we could support him better. The only problem was that if he was to continue with us he would have to go in the SAG which means that there would always be two people in the SAG leaving room for one person to be picked up in an emergency. We decided to meet again after he got back so we would know exactly what he wanted to do. In addition to this part of the meeting, Jen Cockburn had a soda can thrown at her from a car which fortunately didn’t hit her. Also, another car witnessed it and got the license plate number and followed it to where the people live. After going back to Jen, the person talked to her and then they filed a police report. The officer said that he may even be able to arrest the people since there was a witness! Overall it was a very exciting day. When the meeting was finally over at 10:00, we watched The Wedding Singer which was really funny just like all of his other movies. We watched it until 12:00 and I then worked on my computer. At 12:00 we were still waiting for Anthony to be brought to the club by the San Francisco SAG since they were also in the middle of looking for other lost riders. I went onto the internet and then went to bed around 2:30.

TRIP ROUTE:
Take 50 east to 33. Take 33 north and follow until 550 east. Follow 550 east until Marietta. Go left on rte7 follow until Gilman. Take a right on Gilman and follow to Marietta Rowing and Cycling Club on left.