Kiki Bikes Across America

Tuesday, June 9th: Berea, KY to Lincoln Homestead State Park, KY

We headed out from staying at Brittany and John’s (our couchsurfer hosts) around 8am or so…and made a stop at Walmart on the way out of town. I wanted to pick up a 6 foot by 8 foot tarp just in case because we’d heard about potential rain this week. So far, no sight of the rain and I’m hoping it stays that way.

We set our goals higher and planned to aim for a 70-75 mile day which in reality was 76 miles. The terrain was luckily a lot better than the past days – less hilly and more small rolling hills. The day was really hot though – super hot. I don’t have a clue how hot it was, but it felt really hot and we didn’t get going on the bikes until about 9am or so and finished by reaching our destination at 6:30pm or so.

We didn’t really take many breaks at all today – just a few short breaks but nothing more than 5, maybe 10 minute breaks and we stopped for about an hour or a little more for lunch (after 45 miles) at this diner on the corner of Hwy 33 in Burgin, KY. The first 45 miles or so went really fast, I thought – the terrain wasn’t bad and the roads were fairly smooth for the most part. The last 30 miles were a little sluggish, but also not horribly bad either. We were all a bit drained from the heat, I think, but we refueled at this general store in Rose Hill to buy more powerade and that lasted us the last 20 miles or so.

After arriving to the park, we were greeted by some other cyclists who said we could join them and camp with them under the pavilion. They started from Yorktown as well but one day later, May 27th and they’re aiming to get to Florence, Oregon by August 1st or so. It’s three guys: Jay (18), Ben (18), and Sam (16) [http://www.transam09.blogspot.com] and two are brothers; one is a cousin. They’re all pretty ambitious and hope to average 70 miles/day throughout the trip…however, they have dropped a lot of weight and are only carrying 2 panniers each as opposed to our load of 4 panniers or more per person.

Just after we were greeted by the other cyclists, George and Chris bumped bags on the road pedaling back up the hill towards the pavilion. Chris went down on the road and landed hard on his wrist and unfortunately it isn’t feeling so great – he’s not sure if he may have fractured or broken something, so depending on how he feels tomorrow, he may bike or hitch a ride to Springfield or another town/city nearby that would have the facilities to do an x-ray. Hopefully it’ll feel better and he won’t have to do that though. But we’ll see in the morning.

Just about 8:30 or so, another cyclist showed up on a recumbent bike – he’s biking from Athens, GA to Springfield, Illinois solo. He and the three guys apparently met yesterday in Berea where they camped behind a church.

Anyway, so we’re camping out at this pavilion in Lincoln Homestead State Park – and we set up tents underneath so we don’t have to worry about packing up wet tents from the dew in the morning.

GPS Stats:
75.7 miles
35.1 max speed
10.7 avg speed
7:05 moving time

Computer Stats:
76.88 miles
35.5 max speed
10.9 avg speed
7:01:37 moving time

Snake count: 0
Dog chases: 2