It was a pleasure leaving Athens along a designated bike lane, but all too soon it had petered out and I found myself once again sharing the road with cars. My ride west to Atlanta led me through a landscape on the edge of suburban development. Almost every intersection was marked with signs for new houses: “From the 130s! Crystalwood Lakes Starting in the 160s! Golfing Community, 130s to 450s!” Often the signs were posted one on top of another. A constant line of cement trucks rolled past me, lumbering east from Atlanta. The two lane roads I traveled upon had [View Full Entry]

---

---

Having procrastinated almost as much as possible today, I’m finally sitting down to write a belated blog (If I had procrastinated as much as possible, I’d still be procrastinating and not writing these words.) I’ve covered almost 400 miles in the last 5 days: 60 miles from Asheville to Brevard, North Carolina, another 60 to Greer, South Carolina, 126 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, 85 miles to Augusta, Georgia, and 55 miles yesterday to Athens Georgia. Even given a month of riding and conditioning, the past week has still been a hard one. Long days in the saddle and almost as [View Full Entry]

---

---

I thought that my ride from Hickory to Black Mountain, North Carolina would have been my hardest day, but I was mistaken. A ride along the Blue Ridge Parkway thousands of feet above seal level was much more of a challenge. After a rest day in Asheville, I headed out of town along the parkway before cutting east and down into the valley to Brevard. Looking at my maps, I had seen two possible routes, one along the parkway, and the other through the valley floor. Since the parkway looked to be the smaller road, I chose it over the busier, [View Full Entry]

---

---

I left Hickory, North Carolina as early as I could manage after a late night spent speaking to the small Quaker worship group, catching up with my girlfriend and parents by phone and planning out my route to Black Mountain for the next day. I estimated that I had a seventy or eighty mile day ahead of me. There were two direct routes from Hickory to Black Mountain, and one was inaccessible to me as it was the interstate. Most people along my ride have been surprised to learn that bicycles are not allowed on interstates. Perhaps it is only cyclists, [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a ninety mile ride into Davidson the day before, and with an imminent journey up into the Smokey Mountains, I had no desire to push myself on my ride into Charlotte, North Carolina. Looking at my maps, I guessed that I had little more than thirty miles to ride, although I was not entirely confident in my distance gauging since I had so drastically underestimated my trip the day before. I had spent a good portion of the morning resting, reading “Sports Illustrated,” acquainting myself with my hosts’ dog and icing my knees before my ride. Around noon I finally [View Full Entry]

---

---

I hadn’t been planning on a 90 mile day, but that’s what happens when the roads aren’t marked. Prior to arriving in Greensboro, North Carolina, I had been enjoying the North Carolina state bike routes. While planning my daily ride, I would try to take the marked biked routes as much as possible. They would meander along the back roads, providing a respite from honking horns and belching tailpipes. Looking at my road maps in the morning, I saw that I could take sate bike route 2 for a third of my journey to Davidson, North Carolina. But within my first [View Full Entry]

---

---

Alright, so I didn’t bike to Chapel Hill. When my girlfriend Jennifer unexpectedly came into town for the weekend, I changed my plans and decided to load my bike on the back of her car and hitch a ride for the fifteen miles from Durham to Chapel Hill. Even after a day of rest my knees and thighs were still killing me, so I figured another day off of the bike couldn’t hurt, especially with the mountains of North Carolina looming ahead of me on my way up to Asheville. We arrived at the Chapel Hill Meeting in tome for their [View Full Entry]

---

---

I began my ride from Raleigh to Durham with the anticipation of seeing my girlfiriend Jennifer for the first time since I had let her home in northern Virginia nearly three weeks ago at the beginning of my trip. Jennifer had surprised me the night before during our hone conversation by mentioning that her schedule was free enough for her to drive down to Durham to see me for the weekend. Since I was not scheduled to speak to any meetings until Sunday, I was able to arrange my schedule to spend some time with her and her dog. Part of [View Full Entry]

---

---

Every once in a while you meet someone who inspires you through their simple act of living. Today I had the blessing to meet two such persons- Mary and Dick Leuba, my hosts in Raleigh, North Carolina. My ride through downtown Raleigh was predictably frustrating and circuitous as I tried to navigate through an unknown city center at rush hour. After two fire trucks and an ambulance had passed me on narrow one-way streets, a tour of the inner-city expressway and a desperate search for the next exit, I finally found myself riding up to a bungalow replete with solar panels [View Full Entry]

---

---

I'd like to think that I'll get this journal uploaded onto my blog before I hit the road tomorrow, but I just don't know if that's going to happen. I feel exhausted, and the week isn't even half over yet. Last night I checked into a motel in Clinton, NC with walls that probably met code 50 years ago, but I could hear every single one of my neighbor's tuberculoid coughing attacks throughout the night. Since he couldn't sleep, I gguess he figured that he'd watch TV while he was at it. After an 85 mile day in the cold, rain [View Full Entry]

---

---