Thursday October 4, 2012

Siler City NC to Southern Pines NC; 89 km 593m vertical climb

Antique store in Goldstone

We only had a short tour planned for today but we still managed to make it a full day. The first 10 miles were more difficult than usual because the shoulder of the dual carriageway had a rumble strip leaving only 6 to 12 inches of asphalt for us to ride on. This narrow strip of road was covered with all sorts of rubbish, which a couple of hours later caused a problem. We left the highway to take a country road and a short time later I saw that I had left my (new, bought specially for this trip) drinks bottles in the fridge in the motel. I wasn’t prepared to do a 24 mile round trip to fetch them so we continued on our way. There was one historical point of interest on the route so we made a small detour to see the “house in the horseshoe” where loyalists and patriots fought during the war for independence. Shortly after continuing on our way we had to stop again because my rear end (bike, that is) was drifting all over the place because the tyre was nearly flat. I repaired the tube while TimB inspected the tyre and pulled out two pieces of fine wire. I patched the tube and we were soon on our way but a closer inspection in the motel found a second hole that has now also been fixed. We checked into our targeted motel shortly before 3pm and had a couple of hours to ride around historic Southern

House in the Horseshoe

Fields in North Carolina

Pines, that has a more traditional style of shopping street than the modern strip malls. We were able to enjoy a very tasty ice cream, we even found a bike shop where I was able to replace my drink bottles and the owner of the shop directed us to O’Donnell’s just around the corner where we were able to start our process of re-hydration.