Meredith Bikes and Builds: Flat Tires and Central Time (Dunlap, TN)

We crossed over into Central Standard Time this afternoon, somewhere along Hwy 11 in Tennessee. We were hoping for a big blue stripe across the road, through the trees and so on, but sadly, real life is more mundane. We’ve decided to take advantage of the time change to push our daily schedule back by an hour, waking at 5am and cutting the lights at 9:30 to avoid more late afternoon heat. By “we” I mean “the group,” because I mostly just cringed and went along…

Today was definitely an adventure. Liz and I were sweeps, which means that we rode at the back of the group and stopped with anyone having trouble or flat tires. And there were a lot of flat tires, about fifteen among the whole group. Kim won the prize with five flats, Mike with four. The culprit was probably all the glass and gravel along Tennessee highways, but everyone stayed in pretty good spirits despite the trouble. We had some help along the way, though; an Officer Kinsley stopped at least three times to check on us and “keep the rednecks from throwing beer bottles at us.” He was pretty funny and really sarcastic, but very nice too. He’s right about the rednecks, actually; we’ve had some bad encounters with drivers, and sometimes it’s difficult to figure out which are friendly and unfriendly when they honk at us, which happens a lot. In the worst cases, we’ve had drivers yell curses, throw cigarettes, and even stop, get out of their cars and confront us about being on the road. There are a lot of really polite drivers, too, who politely get out of the way or let us cross lanes, and it’s a shame that a few bad ones have to ruin the bunch.

The 74 miles today were hilly, but the worst part was only three miles of 6% grade which was rewarded by four miles of steep downhill with a gorgeous view of the valley and someone hang gliding over it, so it wasn’t too bad at all. We’re staying in Dunlap, TN, at the Sequatchie County Rescue Squad center, a base for volunteers who assist with water and mountain rescues and missing persons searches. The folks we met here are really nice, and they arranged for dinner donated from Sonic (yumm). CVH’s mom and sister also visited and brought us fruit and veggies, which I’m sure completely made up for all the greasy food I’ve eaten today (thanks, VonHedemans!).