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Started: Oct 16, 2010 7:37:51
Ride Time: 6:16:49
Stopped Time: 1:38:12
Distance: 85.18 miles
Average: 13.56 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 48.52 miles/h
Climb: 2460 feet
Calories: 3799

Today was a slog. I spent much of it on the rough roads that I had been promised. They didn’t so much slow me down as beat me up.

Stopped for a poor approximation of breakfast at a poor approximation of a coffee shop in the town of Washington. Ground onward to my destination of Simmesport. I am staying at a combination motel/convenience store/liquor store/video-rental shop/take-out pizzeria/U-Haul rental agent. I suspect they are equally competent at everything they do. I also suspect they could shut down everything they do but beer and cigarette sales and still clear 90% of what they’re bringing in now. But they sell an incredibly bizarre assortment of junk, including colored contact lenses, hair extensions, glass pipes, and mobile phones.

There’s not much to remark on about the riding itself today, except that after four century days in a row I was feeling kind of tired. Even so, I would have pushed on farther if there were a town worth reaching in a distance I could have achieved today. There wasn’t. But I did make some general observations.

Most notably, Louisiana drivers seem way more patient with cyclists, and more laid-back in general, than what I’m used to. At least that’s what I observed on the back roads I’ve been riding on. In fact, many drivers seem perfectly content to drive at speeds well below the posted speed limit.

It’s also been interesting to note the different patterns of settlement. In the western states, there may be no sign of human habitation between towns, or very little. Here, there’s almost continuous settlement between towns—I doubt I’ve ridden a miles in Louisiana without seeing a house.

Dogs, however, are the same, and I have gotten chased by plenty since entering the state. I had one funny moment yesterday when I saw two small lapdogs sitting in their yard at the edge of the road, just observing my progress. Some vestigial hunting instinct that hadn’t been completely bred out of them must have risen in them and said “Come ON! You need to react to that!”. Each dog gave me a single yap. I laughed. So far I’ve been able to out-sprint every dog that has chased me, but there was a Rottweiler today that got pretty close.

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Started: Oct 15, 2010 7:39:17
Ride Time: 7:48:38
Stopped Time: 1:02:39
Distance: 106.03 miles
Average: 13.58 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 35.89 miles/h
Climb: 2755 feet
Calories: 5294

Started the day with Jerry, my Warm Showers host, fixing me an omelette that wound up powering me through my longest day yet—though not my hardest, not by a longshot. The distance shown above is wrong—more GPS flakeouts. My actual distance was 111 miles.

He also served me some raw goat milk from their goats. Carol had explained to me that it was contact with male goats that made goat milk goaty. She keeps her goats segregated, and so the milk she gets isn’t goaty. That’s what she told me, but I was skeptical. Skepticism: unfounded. The milk really just tasted like milk. A bit richer—I think there was more fat content than I’m used to—but that’s the only difference I noticed.

I got rolling when the sun was out, but not quite shining over the trees, so my first few miles were in shadow and really cold. If I had been smart, I would have stopped and put on my tights (and if I had been smarter, I would have had full-finger gloves, too). I wound up getting a bit of a cramp in my right calf that didn’t work itself out until nearly the end of the day.

The day’s riding was almost featureless once I crossed into Louisiana. A few trees, but mostly flat farmland. I think there’s a lot of rice cultivation here.

Roads varied between exemplary and poor, and just as one road will have very different qualities as it crosses different counties in Texas, so too here as it crosses parishes. On balance, the roads were pretty good. When I stopped for a snack in DeRidder, I got to chatting with someone who asked how many miles I could ride in a day. I told him I could cover 110, but could probably do more with favorable wind and good road surface. He replied “So about 70 in Louisiana.” From what I’ve seen, the roads aren’t that bad.

With nothing to slow me down and nothing to slow down for, I made good time, and in fact was averaging over 16 mph on the last 25-mile stretch between Oberlin and Mamou. In fact, I was feeling fresh enough that I considered pushing on an additional 15 miles to Ville Platte, but decided against it.

So I’m in Mamou, in a curious hotel. The building is pretty nice. The interior was recently redone with quality materials. But my room is just small enough that I can’t open the bathroom door without banging it into the bed, and even weirder, the room has no windows.

After four days back on the road, I’m a little farther than I had planned on being after five. I need to spend some quality time with my maps and re-figure my daily targets.