Lads on tour… on bikes. Holmes, Dowds & Reid cycle across the USA.

Day 18 – Rough River Dam, KY

Ate in the fancy place with the v v comfortable chairs. I cycled back afterwards in the pitch black, Cal and Dowds got a lift from a divorcee.

Day 17 – Bardstown, KY

Dowds lost speedo, got to breakfast and went for a walk. I ate massive breakfast. Reidy – knackered.

Sacked it off and did a whisky distillery tour – Maker’s Mark.

Day 16 – Lincoln Homestead State Park

Dowds goes to Danville

Day 15 – Berea, KY

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 14 – Booneville, KY

Met two guys going other way. Stayed at the church place. Massive thunderstorm.

Day 7 – 3 Brits in a military town on Independence Day

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 6 – Hills, Hangovers and Cookies (27 miles)

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 5 – Charlottesville or bust (102 miles)

(No write-up was posted for this day.)

Day 4 – The Disadvantages and Advantages of Laziness (58 miles)

Disadvantage: waking up late when the sun is at it’s highest, most ridiculously scorching hot position and starting a 60 mile ride as trees, people, road surfaces and the whole world seems to begin to melt around us. Add in a slight hangover and you can probably guess this wasn’t so much a bike ride as a dehydrated crawl through Satan’s arse. We vowed never to leave so late again.

Advantage: arrived in Ashland, the point where we meet up with the Transamerica Trail which takes us across the USA, at around 4pm. Tired and thirsty, we couldn’t be bothered cycling the extra 3 miles or so to the (overpriced) campground, so after an all-you-can-eat buffet at Ponderosa’s we hunted around for a cheap motel. After checking out a few places we finally settled on one for $43.50 with a pool, close proximity to a gas station and a disturbingly high police presence. On a completely unrelated note, not at all relevant to the price we paid, if anyone asks, we are not three adults, we are in fact two Old Age Pensioners. We didn’t lie but the front desk clerk may have cut us a deal out of pity. It’s around this point we’ve realised that “sending in the Reidy” is the best thing to do in these situations – people just love to take care of him and mother him. If Callum had been captured as a POW in WW2, Adolf and Eva would have sent him on his way with a shower, some clean clothes and a packed lunch before they knew what was happening. That boy has powers.

Day 3 The Millionairre of Tappahannock

What a day! First decent nights sleep in the tents. Slept in until 8am! That feels like a lie in out here!

We packed up  and left at about 9.30 after some breakfast.

The ride was going pretty well. We had a couple of drinks stops. I’ve found that most american drinks come in a 1 Litre size which fits perfectly into the empty cage I now have after losing a bottle yesterday somewhere!

The pace was ok but pretty inconsistent. We rode straight past the campsite we were supposed to stay at in Naylors beach. Before we noticed we were on a mile-long motorway bridge that cyclists have been killed on before! NOT COOL!

Myself and Chris just cycled as fast as possible across it and when we got to the other side, looked back to see where Callum was, we couldn’t actually see hime but we could see a half mile tailback behind a truck. As this queue got closer to us we saw it was caused by Callum. The bridge was about a mile long and by the time he got to where we stopped he said he was gripping so hard that his hands were hurting. I guess thats a by-product of having a phobia of bridges!

After the bridge we didn’t know where to go to stay. The next place on our map was 45 miles and we were not in any mood for doing that!

Callum decided that he didn’t want to cycle around a town looking for somewhere to stay so we stopped at an antiques store to ask for directions. The owner, Donald Mayhew, was a very kind gentleman. After thinking of local campgrounds, or the lack of, he offered us to camp in his farm and use his bathroom facilities. We felt like this was too much so we asked him if there were any cheap motels around. The lady in the shop said that she knew of a place near where she used to work and that she would claim we were her cousins from UK visiting for a day. She phoned ahead and sorted us out a room. Donald then decided that he would not let us pay for the Motel. Despite our best efforts to stop him he told us he was a millionairre and insisted on driving Chris down to the motel to pay for our room.

After checking into the motel we had a quick dip in the pool and took a walk to Wal-mart for some essentials. It was very hot and quite a bit further than the 5 minute walked we were promised by the lady on reception!

On our way out of Wal-mart we were stopped by some young ladies telling us that we were hot! Callum being Callum he took down their numbers and added them to his phone as USA SLUTS!

As we left Wal-mart, Donald Mayhew pulled up and offered us a lift, good timing or stalking? Im not sure.

They took us out for a beer and we met their friend Mike. A group of very nice people!

As we were leaving Donalds car Chris spotted an XL Trojan Condom in his car door! What a Player! and BIG one at that!

Callum continued to text the girls throughout the day and invited them to our motel room on the condition that they took us out in their convertible. They didn’t turn up until 11pm when me and Cal were asleep. We went out in the convertible blasting out Britney spears. We went to get some beer and sangria like stuff! We came back to the motel and started to get quite drunk. The girls were amazed at our accents and but ran off as soon as Callum got naked to go skinny dipping! Probably a good thing as we found out that they were actually 16 and 18! WOOPS!

We got to bed pretty late but have quite an easy day tomorrow so we can have a lie in and start riding a bit later.