Five years after completing the TransAmerica ride across the US Terry and I are back – this time to tackle the Adventure Cycling Association’s Southern Tier which runs from St Augustine in Florida to San Diego in California. It’s a little shorter than the TransAm – 3041.9 miles compared to 4211.5 and takes in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
When I say we are back, that’s not strictly true. Currently it’s just me. On the day we were due to fly to the States Terry’s partner Liz’s mum passed away and there was nothing Terry could do but cancel his flight, so I flew out alone to St Augustine, via Orlando and Daytona Beach, on February 12th.
Terry was in an impossible position. His priority had to be supporting Liz and dealing with his own grief, but he also felt responsible for upending months of planning and preparation just hours before we were due to start. We decided the best course of action was for me to fly out alone and then, over the coming days we’d make a decision on whether Terry would join me later, or whether I’d attempt a solo crossing.
In my own mind I knew that if Terry was unable to fly out I’d head off on my own, but it was not a decision I looked forward to making. Whereas several hundred people ride the TransAm every year and rarely a day goes past without meeting fellow riders, we knew the Southern Tier would be far less populated by people on two wheels. Besides which I couldn’t imagine riding the route without Terry.
I was also already facing doubts about the heat, having previously suffered heatstroke in Oregon in 2014 and thoughts of cycling across the desert in New Mexico and Arizona had been worrying me since we’d agreed to take on the route the previous year. As I sat in my hotel room, pinging emails back and forth with Terry, I was reminded of the words of Jonathan Hoy, who we’d met on the TransAm, when I mentioned we were heading south:
“The Southern Tier in 2019 would be..hot, humid and full of biting insects and snakes,” he wrote. “I spent a chunk of my life down there. It is a VERY right-orientated and conservative area. Think Trump! EEeeeeeeeekkkk!”
It was clear he wouldn’t be joining us and I began to worry whether his words had been an ill-omen. But the very reasons he’d used to dismiss the Southern Tier were the very ones that had fascinated Terry and I. Well ok, maybe not the biting insects and snakes, but the politics and history of the south were intriguing.
Fortunately, if you’ve got to hang about for a week or so while things work themselves out then Florida is not a bad place to do it. I spent a couple of days in Daytona, taking in a tour of the Daytona Speedway, then cycled up the coast to St Augustine where our ride would start.
It was an inauspicious start. The sixty of so miles heading north took me more than six hours at an average speed of just under eight miles an hour. I arrived at my hotel as daylight was fading, exhausted, only to discover they’d made a mistake with the booking and there was no room at the Inn.
Fortunately the Day’s Inn down the road did have a room free, but then I had another nasty surprise when I went to book some extra nights and discovered that I’d timed my arrival perfectly to coincide with the area’s biggest event of the year – the Daytona 500 race – and my room would cost $300 for just one night.
I spent Valentine’s night alone in my hotel room in St Augustine reflecting on the fact that the last time I’d rode a fully laden touring bike was when Terry and I had arrived in Florence, Oregon, after more than two and a half months on the road.
I was now older five years older and no-where near as fit and without my riding buddy who was facing all manner of issues of his own on the other side of the Atlantic. I was so out of practice I’d nearly fallen off my bike that morning in the hotel car park in Daytona because I’d attached the cleats onto my cycling shoes back to front.
The following day, as I rode around St Augustine to get my whereabouts I got a ticking off from a traffic cop for cycling in the wrong lane. To be honest I was pretty sure it was the officer who had made the mistake, but experience has taught me not to argue with the US authorities, so I apologised politely. Being thrown in jail would just about finish off what was so far proving to be more of a Southern tear than tier.
