Click here for Garmin daily ride data Click here for Summary Data sheet (This is cool if you like lots of data! It may take a few seconds to load but you can hit play and time compress our ride. ) DAILY REPORT: Weather -- well the storm blew thru last night so we had clear sunny skies this morning. Temps in the mid 80's later today. Looks like good biking weather!!
We loaded up the trailer
and were off after a few more pictures and some handshakes. Skip drove us out to Bardstown and we started our ride from there. The first 10 miles or so really sucked....the traffic was high, no shoulders, but mostly they were doing road work and had stripped off the top 2-3 in of pavement so it was very rough and uneven. Once we turned off that road life was good! We just had a great time biking today! There were a few steep climbs but all n all it was gentle rolling hills surrounded w/ horse farms, cattle ranches, corn, tobacco fields, etc. There were numerous barns in different forms of repair that added to the uniqueness of the farms. Interestingly most of the barns are painted black where as the rest of the country paints them red or white. We were all in high spirits. Adventure Cycling had really done their homework when they selected these roads. Minimal traffic, great scenery, and nice roads. Now we did have to travel on quite a few small different roads, so the Navigator (John) had to stay on his toes to make sure we didn't miss the next road. John did well and we never did get lost.
We arrived in Berea at 1830. We are staying at the Historic Boone Tavern Hotel. They just finished a major remodeling/renovation. the place looks spectacular. They worked with the Berea college and designed this to be a "green" hotel. They actually had done some pretty neat things like there is a master switch that turns off all the power in the room to minimize wasted energy, every room has a fan so you don't have to run the AC as much, special non petroleum based soaps, etc. It just has a great atmosphere! And the management provided our rooms which made it all the nicer. Thank you very much!! After we took showers and
got settled in we went out for a drive to check out the town. This is a place
where you really could ha When we got back to the hotel, I took a quick look at the trailer hitch. It had started making some loud squeaking noises. I cleaned the ball and hitch, a little Teflon lubricant and problem solved. Well tomorrow we are off to Hazard. Berea is known to be the gateway to the Appalachians so we a looking forward to seeing some major hills. Fortunately we are now in pretty good shape after four weeks of riding. And then Hazard is know for its coal; so we'll need to be careful of the coal trucks. Thanks for joining us.....ride safely and keep the wind to your back!! The Riding4Hope Team (David, John, James & Skip) Signing out 8/3/09; 0150
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