Whew, what a day!
After thirteen days of nearly perfect weather, we finally got a tough weather day. Today we were to point the wheels south, ride to the coast, then along the coast to Galveston. A stiff south wind met us from the very beginning of the day.
We also encountered a few bridges. The first major bridge was in Bridge City (clever Texans). Even from far away it looked intimidating, and as I got closer I realized that this bridge didn't have a shoulder.
Look closely, Jake is the tiny dot about half way up.
Somehow, I got lucky and practically had a police escort over this bridge. A cruiser stopped behind the pickup in the above picture to make sure everything was OK. As I rode by, I joked with the officer, "man that's a tall one". During the early parts of the climb, the traffic was almost all in the left lane, presumably because of the officer at the base of the bridge. When I got higher on the bridge, more and more cars were passing me in my lane. After I crested the top and began my descent, the right lane traffic disappeared again. The nice cop had cruised down behind me with his lights on, and passed me right at the bottom of the bridge.
Then, the day got tough. We passed a monster refinery and joined onto highway 73.
Shortly after this, we passed a sign saying "Road Construction 20 Miles" and began riding on a miserably bumpy road. Every joint in my body was screaming as I rolled along at 12 mph. Luckily, this only lasted 6 or 7 of the 20 miles. The road improved, but riding continued to be slow.
We reached the turn to officially head to Galveston, and stopped for lunch after 50 miles.
The next 20 miles were dead into the wind, with absolutely nothing to block it. All we could do is find a small gear, and ride as comfortably as we could. No point in fighting it. For me, this speed was about 9-10 mph. Jake was a little slower, and fell behind.
Wind is sometimes difficult to capture in a picture.
I crossed over the intracoastal waterway, and finally reached the coast again.
After waiting at a gas station for a little while, I decided to press on, knowing that there was only one road to Galveston and Jake would get there eventually. About 10 miles down the road, Jake sent a message letting me know that his knee was sore and his legs were shot so he got a campground. I should have waited for Jake, but at this point, I didn't really want to backtrack. He rode super strong for 14 days, and was right by my side for all of it. The fact that he could do all with almost no warm up (I had been riding in Florida for 3 weeks) is proof of how tough he is.
Anyways, I rode on to the end of the Bolivar peninsula and took the ferry to Galveston.
Finally in Galveston, it was almost dark and the winds had picked up even more. I checked into a hotel, and began resting.
Friday to rest, Saturday to rest. Race on Sunday.
What a fantastic 1100 miles in 14 days.
Day 37 - 103.18 Miles
Trip to Date - 2055.73 miles
Coast to Coast - 1109.28 miles
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