Days 9, 10 & 11 (May 10th, 11th, 12th)

Decision Time

Hiya everyone, Virginia has seen storms and torrential rain over the past few days so I’ve taken shelter in a Super 8 hotel.

It’s been lovely TBH, I’ve had a lot of baths, ate a lot of food and made an offline Spotify playlist so I have something to listen to back on the road.

I’ve also had a chance to look at the bigger picture. I was hoping to average 50-60 miles a day and that would afford me a few rest days. That was a plan formulated on my sofa at home and in reality it’s not working. I’ve made it over a decent wedge of the Appalachian mountains which were always going to slow me down but the past week has given me a taster of unforeseen delays like the weather.

I want the journey to be more than me just being strapped to my bike and moving onwards everyday. So far I haven’t deviated from the route and have missed some places I would liked to have visited.

I want to see the sights, meet the people and be able to stop whenever I like and this is more important than churning out the miles everyday.

This means my route is changing a little (Trans America purists look away!). From Radford,  Virginia I’m going to get on a train and take the Cardinal Route to Chicago, from here I will take the Southwest Chief to Lamar, Kansas. Essentially I’m going to bypass 2 states in the middle of the country, cutting miles and giving me more time to see some beautiful places and have a couple of beers along the way.

In the perfect world I would have more than 3 months to cycle but the Visa can’t be extended.

For my own ego I’m still going to hit >2,500 miles which as the crow flies is the width of America. So at dinner parties I can still bang that out, haven’t been to a dinner party  yet but anyway.

As a perfectionist it pains me massively to break the route up with non bicycle travel, but sometimes that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Yours in cycling,

Dan