Chilly Ride, Warm Welcome

After a very quiet and relaxing evening and subsequent sleep in David’s trailer in the woods, I woke to weather that was significantly different from yesterday. On the upside, the rain had completely moved on. On the downside, a very chilly morning was left in its wake. Very chilly. And the chill lasted all day. I’m admittedly a cold weather wuss, but 11 degrees in Florida is not what I had in mind when I started my journey south. Of course, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fact that my coldest night on last year’s journey was in Florida. And much further south than my current latitude.

The plan for today was another somewhat short ride. Not because I didn’t want to go further but sometimes the location of cities and services dictate the day’s destination. As such, today’s destination was Tallahassee. Slightly less than 90 km away. As I said, I could’ve gone further but that would’ve put me somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Instead, I had Warm Showers hosts waiting for me in Tallahassee.

Overall, today’s ride was pretty easy and uneventful. That said, the second half was a bit more of grind than the first half. Not because the conditions changed but because after two hours on the road the cold started to seep into me. It’s no secret that I function pretty well in hot and humid weather. It’s also no secret that my body tends to struggle in the cold. And 11 degrees with a headwind certainly fits my definition of cold.

The real challenge with cycling in the cold could be described as sweat management. I had multiple layers on to fight the cold but as I pedalled I worked up a sweat. That’s far from ideal. As Les Stroud (aka. Survivorman) says, “You sweat, you die.” Okay, I was never in fatal jeopardy (at least, not that I know of) but the sweaty clothes certainly contributed to my afternoon chills.

In spite of the cold, I still couldn’t help but stop at Wendy’s for a Frosty as I neared Tallahassee. Cold weather, bad. Cold Frosty, good. Always.

With my ice cream fix fulfilled, I made my way to the home of Susan and Kevin, my Warm Showers hosts for the night. Susan was still at work when I arrived but I was warmly welcomed by Kevin and their son Dominic (plus Cooper, the dog). Side note: I’m not exactly sure where it happened but at some point near Tallahassee I crossed back into the Eastern Time Zone – which means for the first time in over five months my watch is actually on time again. Okay, that’s not true. Well, it’s not true of my watch. It is true of my cycling computer, though.

Susan, Kevin, and Dominic (and Cooper) were all great. Very welcoming, friendly, and generous. Hardly a surprise since that’s been my experience with all of the Warm Showers stays I’ve had – of which there have now been 39 hosts spanning 60 nights.

The evening included a great pasta dinner while talking cycling, travel, and such. My hosts have gone on several cycling tours all over the world – I think they said Dominic was only 3.5 on their first tour. Those early tours were not on a tandem bike but on a triple … with Dominic in the middle seat. I’d never seen a triple before. It was pretty interesting. Plus, they carried most of the gear on a trailer so they were certainly carrying a long load.

The remainder of the evening was spent with more conversation and an ongoing game of fetch with Cooper. With the occasional break for belly rubs. Cooper’s. Not mine.

My evening ended with me falling asleep next to their Christmas tree … but not before I finished off another episode of The Walking Dead.

Unrelated to anything, I had to find a new Guestbook for my blog. For reasons that remain unknown, the old Guestbook was being overrun by spam of late. While there had always been a LOT of attempted spam postings, the vast majority of them were automatically filtered out and never actually appeared in the Guestbook. That changed completely a few days ago. Hopefully the new version will solve the problem.

Today’s totals:
Distance travelled: 83.58 km
Ride time: 3:46:02
Average speed: 22.18 km/h
Maximum speed: 46.36 km/h