Day 19 - On to North Carolina!
Yesterday was a hard day! Lots of hills! Only 50 miles, but OMG. I almost had a couple of times where I got off the bike and pushed! I have not done that yet! The changes I made dropping the front panniers has had an effect too. I didn't really drop much weight. Instead of pushing 100 lbs of bike and gear, I'm only pushing 90! But 10 lbs is 10 lbs. The biggest difference is in the handling characteristics of the bike. With all the weight in back, the front gets a little skittish! Not all that bad, but very different than before. At least I lost some weight. I also had to look at how the bags were balanced. I moved things around hoping that I got more balance out of them. The bike almost knocked me over a couple of times when I was stopped because of the difference in weight from front to back. Because of the balance problem the bike is much more willing to tip over pulling the front out from under me.
HILLS! Lots of them. The hill out of Landrum, SC up to the NC line was hellacious! Steep as hell. I spent a lot of time in my smallest chain ring today. You know that's a lot of hills. I'm hoping that today is a little easier, but it doesn't look like it. And I have about 56 miles to go today! Let's hope my legs can handle it.
I haven't had any rain to deal with yet. Today and tomorrow may change that and I need to be in Mount Airy on Sunday. But it's been warm, some would say HOT. Hopefully, the rain will bring the temps down. They expect them to be afternoon showers, so I guess I better get going!