Tag: north carolina

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 31 – 35: Jesup, GA – St Augustine, FL

After setting up a mail drop for St Augustine, I’ve had the unusual task of maintaining a fixed schedule over the last few days. With the post not due to arrive in St A until Friday, it’s been a few days of light spins. Nothing too eventful has happened to be honest, but it does mark the end of stage one of the journey.

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Day 31 – Jesup to Nahunta, GA (28 miles)

Set off late after finishing the previous blog at 5.20pm! Bring on the night riding. It wasn’t a complicated day, just simple cycling on a quiet road with a nice shoulder to ride on. I was passing through Nahunta when Blanche, a local woman who owned the town’s hotel, offered camping space in the hotel grounds. Camping that’s allowed, as always, much more relaxing than being discreet. So it was with surprise at around 3am, getting woken by what sounded like the loudest foghorn ever made. In the morning, the cause became instantaneously obvious:

Day 32 – Nahunta, GA to Callahan, FL (48 miles)

An early start just to get away from that bloody noise. The 301S road totally quiet with huge straight sections that stretched right to the horizon. Plenty of this, and then eventually there was a river. St Mary’s River, which splits the state line. Florida, a new state, and the final state in stage one of the journey.

Pedalled on for a while to finish the day in Callahan, FL. After some very unenthusiastic, and unsuccessful, attempts to scout a spot to camp, I ended up in the most budget (for a reason) motel room. Anyone like bugs? You’da loved it.

Day 33 – Callahan, FL to Jacksonville, FL (22 miles)

Up and out of here, early start. Oh hang on, it’s pouring down. Tropical rain-style. I spent a while repacking the bike bags to make sure all the vitals were in drybags and safe from the rain, and saw a forecast that said there was to be heavy consistent rain all day. Spent the rest of the day getting soaked and attempting to avoid the heaviest of the downpours, with mixed success. Arrived in to Jacksonville in a heavy downpour as the light was disappearing – a very aesthetic nighttime skyline from the riverfront.

Day 34 – Jacksonville to St Augustine, FL (37 miles)

The simplest cycle ride possible. Essentially a straight road from Jacksonville right the way to St Augustine. Not overly visual or stunning roads or anything, but I found it very easy to get in to ‘the zone’ due to this being the last day of the first leg.

I pulled in to St Augustine and was very kindly offered a room at the Quality Inn – don’t worry there’ll be many more stealth camping stories soon enough!

Day 35 – St Augustine

Going to have a peruse of St Augustine today, so other than cycling around town there’s no miles today. So that’s it, the end of the first part of the journey. The first corner. It’s been an incredible experience already, and I’m excited to begin heading west, across the country tomorrow. Ready for a corny photo taken in the wind?

P.s. Just bumped into my first cycle tourers; Marcus and Yulanda from Switzerland who have been on the road for 5 months and head to Argentina on New Years Day for more touring, they’re loving it! More on that in another post. And also, a huge big up to my buddies Isaac and Sarah for sending a parcel rammed full of Campbell’s goodies, happy days – thanks guys!

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 15 & 16: Wilmington, NC to Shallotte, NC to North Myrtle Beach, SC.

Day 15: Wilmington to Shallotte, NC. 38 miles.

There are some days that you know aren’t going to be big mileage days, and this was one of them. Started off late with a sore lower body (and weirdly, thumbs) so upped the cadence and went lightly for a couple of hours to warm up. Nothing too bad, just need to remember to stretch properly after each day and take it easy for the first couple of miles in the mornings.

It was all going well, stopped at a service station to get some late lunch and met three nice folk. Linda the policewoman, Joe and Matt, all keen cyclists who were super-friendly. Hello!

Then darkness came (and for the first time so far, a cold chill in the air), and there was a bit of an incident which involved a combination of  the night, dodgy road & idiotic cycling. One of those very-quick-to-learn-from experiences where you tell yourself “you moron!” repeatedly in quick bursts for about a minute (Everyone does this, right?). The Ocean Hwy 17 has parts with really thin shoulders (if any), and if you’re a cyclist I would advise you avoid this road at night. Sometimes, being loose and unattached about this kind of route, IMO, can be a good thing (obviously not if you’re anywhere remote!) – you end up in places off-the-beaten-track and it’s more authentic. But approaching Shallotte on the Ocean Hwy 17 reinforced that this can be a stupid (and potentially downright dangerous) idea. Choose the safe roads because sketchy roads at night aren’t fun or worth it. I’ll certainly be doing a lot more research about the roads going forward after last night. The ACA maps are great for this, they’re tailored for safe cycling.

Anyway, after walking the bike down the grass by the side of the road for about 3 miles, I ended up in Shallotte and found an awesome stealth camp in, once again, a park behind a church (seems to work well!).

Day 16: Shallotte, NC to North Myrtle Beach (Mileage: 23 miles)

Today’s been another really light day but one that marks a new state and progress. Made it into South Carolina – the state lines are great for morale – more mentally significant compared to town-to-town. It’s been another stunning day with chilled out cycling and a long time hanging out at the ‘Welcome to SC Rest Stop’, which was a gem and features wonderful staff. Writing this post from Little River, whilst charging batteries. Sorry about lack of decent imagery in this post, that’s the reason!  Heading to Myrtle Beach in a sec to find a place to stealth camp so will put those details, along with overall mileage, into the next post.

South Carolina seems like a great area and everyone’s incredibly friendly so far. I’m ‘stoked’ to meet a couple of interesting people (that’s a cheesy clue as I’m near SC’s surfing spots at the moment). Hang ten. It may be a few days until the next post but hopefully it’ll be a good one! The next two or three days will be working down towards Charleston, SC. Will attempt to push for some bigger mile days from there.

It’s been a case of ups and downs in the last couple of days but that was always going to happen and is fun, whether that’s in the moment or in retrospect.

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 11: Ahoskie, NC to Greenville, NC

58 miles today. Late start leaving Ahoskie. Loaded up on Granola bars and soon got in to a rhythm, heading for the North Carolina 11 S route.

Today was the first day of really long straight roads, where you don’t have to do any navigation for basically most of the day. There was a point when I just had to ride down a single straight road for 38 miles. In many ways it’s quite enjoyable as you can turn on the music and audio books and it becomes very simple and almost meditative. ‘We Are Augustines – Rise Ye Sunken Ships’ was the highlight of todays music selection.

Click the images to open the full panoramic.

That state didn’t last too long. Had to do some obligatory mountain biking when, slightly ahead, one lorry was overtaking another. The overtaker pulled out in to the oncoming lane which was clear of cars, just not cyclists. No way was he going to stop the procedure so I promptly diverted to the grassy verge to avoid them.

Mind games have started to kick in too. Here’s one for you to try: How long can you ride whilst balancing on the white line on the side of the road? Oh the thrill! Another one is cat eye slalom. How long is this trip again?!

The ride was really great, passing through Martin County & Pitt County. Through a lot more cotton fields, and swamp land. Over the amazing Roanoke river, too. Via some awesomely aesthetic abandoned houses.

Stealth camped at a football complex 3 miles east of Greenville, near a place called Bradford Creek. Once again, not the stealthiest of spots but it seemed to work, hiding from road-visibility by bivying behind a platform.

Looking forward to riding to Wilmington, NC, arriving on most likely Saturday now. At the time of writing it’s 4pm and I’ve probably cycled about 3 miles today, so it’s not boding well for a big mileage day! It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, so best get some food as everything closes later on today.

Oh, it was a really clear night whilst stealthing-it last night, here’s the sky:

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Adventure Bicycle Travel

Day 10: Norfolk, VA to Ahoskie, NC

Day 10: Norfolk, VA to Ahoskie, NC (Odometer reads: 79 miles – that’s with faffing and getting lost on the way out of Norfolk. Nail it first time and it’s more like 75 miles.)

Didn’t meet any people today for more than a few minutes at a time so it’s more a purely cycling post today.

Started from the budget motel in Norfolk, VA this morning, and begun the urban navigation with the first goal being to get on to the US. Route 13 highway heading South.

Norfolk is home to Norfolk Naval Base, the largest of it’s kind in the world. So cycling out of the city and over the rivers you get to see a variety of ships being built, dismantled, and repaired including a couple of huge aircraft carriers and some other super-serious looking ships.

As for the cycling in the city, it’s tricky to get to the US-13, as you aren’t allowed to go through some of the tunnels and over some of the bridges. Eventually I found this one and was soon on the way. Riding down the other side of this bridge was incredible – top gear, body low, FAST!

Got on the right route shortly thereafter and was greeted with great roads with wide shoulders. Eventually it went past the edge of The Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge (what a name!), which was great. Swampy, wooded, and autumnal. It does a lot for overall motivation when cycling through inspiring places.

And then it finally happened! At a set of traffic lights on the way through downtown Suffolk, the light turned green, I pedalled about a half-stroke and SNAP! That’ll be the first mechanical issue of the trip – snapped chain.

Fixed it eventually (it’s been a while!) and carried on, sure that it would only last another few minutes before breaking again (thankfully it didn’t). The whole endeavour created some incredibly oily hands.

After cycling out of Suffolk, there was a sign that read ‘NC State Line – 16 miles’. That is motivation in sign form. It’s the little things ‘eh? The landscapes from then on were mainly cotton-fields which were unusual on the eye at first.

Other than the snapped chain, it all seemed to line up today. Flat roads, rested body, and the wind. A perfect North Easterly. I’ve read so much about headwinds being awful (wouldn’t know yet). But what isn’t mentioned as much is how great it is to have the wind on your back. It makes for noticeably faster progress.

Staying in a budget motel tonight in Ahoskie, NC, and I’m currently working down to Wilmington (hopefully in 2 days time) and then on to Charleston, SC (where there’s surfing!) a couple of days later than that.

My GPS is tracking the route to the meter, so on a rest day soon I’ll try to pull the data off it and upload a totally accurate route-so-far. For now though a rough Google maps will do. Today’s route: