The night before was crazy. While riding with Piper a rainstorm was brewing and we were right on the edge of it. We finished the days miles but could not get the campsite up in time. It poured! We stayed in a small motel. I like showers and being dry.
This morning led me back to the quiet road I had been on. Finley was excited to ride so we let him loose.
As I said in the first video, the day was going to be a bit shorter with about 75 miles remaining. My legs were doing pretty well. The longest ride that I had been a part of was 5 days so adding about 160 miles in 2 days was all new territory for me.
This part of the road reminded me of Minnesota!
As a cyclist the small dump trucks (seen in the background) are terrible. They always drive so fast and seem to get way to close and they always have gravel flying off them.
Made it to Wilmington!
The last 18 miles was pretty incredible. Wilmington is incredible. Lots and lots of cars though.
Obviously not the greatest video but I was trying to drive responsibly, get up a hill and basically survive all at the same time. I survived!
Then it happened!
What a way to end a bike trip! The beach and the Atlantic Ocean was absolutely beautiful! The bike part of the trip was complete. At this point we had raised about $3500 towards our $12,000 goal and the mulla would keep rolling in over the next couple of weeks. This last several posts have been so much about scenery and biking but all this is done for a purpose. Riding for the Center in Santiago, Dominican Republic.
Day 6, this is the longest ride I had ever been on!. Things had been going so well. The state of North Carolina started out so mountainous and had flattened out so much since then. If you watch all these videos you will hear me say "day 5" over and over again. After riding so long you forget days and times...
Zoom in on that last picture. That is a HUGE spider which greeted us as I was being dropped off.
It is never ideal to be on a highway this huge. With my map leading me for .3 miles on this ride, 1.8 miles on that rode and .63 miles on the other road I would never really know what I was getting myself into! Fortunately this wasn't the case very often and this larger rode was not one I was on very long either.
Much to my surprise you can race your horse at many places in North Carolina. I learned something.
Kind of a blurry picture but that is what encouragement looked like for me over the ride. A black mini-van full of cheering people. It is amazing how far encouraging words can push someone.
Trying to balance the right food and drink is very difficult on a tour and I have much to learn. Once you are out in the heat it is so difficult to drink water and eat. NUUN energy is amazing and when it has a bit of caffeine in it it is all the better.
Toward the end of the day with the end in sight we were able to get the boys out on their bikes. They had been wanting to ride for the Dominican the whole time but none of the roads were conducive to making this happen.
It was a great experience seeing and hearing their excitement throughout the trip. I hope they are able to join us on the rides in the coming years.
Below is one of my favorite videos.
You can see in the last map that my GPS glitched out but I believe that the stats are accurate.
102.3 miles... a very good day.
Day 5, the legs were getting pretty tired... but the flatter ground was making things go so much better and more easily.
The roads were narrow with minimal traffic. It was beautiful!
The video is a bit loud as I had a bunch of change in my trough bag. The small hills added some change of scenery and some speed for the day.
From the middle of nowhere. A middle of the day update.
No one ever takes video of the climb... maybe next time I will.
This area was reminding me of home. I had no idea that North Carolina raised so much corn.
I got to meet up with these goofs/cheer leaders for lunch at Bojangles. That place has amazing biscuits!
The first several days had been so cool. As I went further east I got further away from the trees and shade. Nothing like baking out in the wind and sun.
It was pretty awesome having Sharon and the boys cruse by ever so often.
The day was another success. This was becoming the longest bike ride I had ever done. #irideforthedominican
Alas, the days are ticking by. After staying in a tent 5 nights in a row we were going to be getting to Charlotte and staying with Sharon's parents! It was going to be a good day.
As I traveled the roads got more and more flat.
Welcome to Hollis, North Carolina...
Here's a video of a ride down a hill.
I found some cows.... they made me happy!
This town was Lincolnton. I was pretty tired so I took a break by the courthouse and ate a granola bar. The small communities I drove through were awesome. Southern towns have a very unique layout.
Holy cow?! Those horns were crazy!
Ahh yes, a bike lane. Bike lanes are awesome for cyclists, helpful for motorists and ridiculously expensive for taxpayers! This is a whole other discussion!!! Anyway, as I approached the Charlotte area I got to ride on two really short bike lanes. They were so short I questioned why they had spent the money to even try? This lane lasted long enough for me to pull out my camera and take this shot.
This was a massive, and I mean MASSIVE indoor "flower farm." I suppose it was a greenhouse but I have not seen a greenhouse this big before in my life.
Driving north of Charlotte was crazy. I never actually cycled in Charlotte but came north through Huntersville. This was an area where the sag wagon helped a lot. The traffic was crazy and on the North Carolina DOT traffic flow map the road I went through on could see between 25 and 50,000 cars a day! Sharon came behind me with the van and helped encourage people to use the other lane as they passed me. It would have been an awesome blog video but I lacked the right mount for the GoPro (something that affected the whole trip!). All that to say I have no video or pictures of the chaos. God was kind and I made it through unscathed. It was such a relief to get out of all the traffic I actually felt energized and knocked out an extra 10 miles for the day. While the traffic was crazy the drivers were kind. The next driving chaos would come when I rode into Wilmington... that was bad.
The weather was beautiful but as soon as I left the mountains it got HOT HOT HOT!
That took a while to blend off... lol.
Mountains- Check
Charlotte area: Check
Wilmington: ...
Day 4 stats
Average Speed- 15.5
Maximum Speed- 40.7
