castlerobber
Zen MBB Master
A few comments from the crew's perspective:
--There are precious few flat, straight stretches on the Natchez Trace, and most of those are less than half a mile long. You're almost always either in a curve, on a hill, or both at once. This makes leapfrogging your rider to let traffic pass difficult, especially at night. The shoulders are wide enough to pull over safely through Tennessee and Alabama, less so in parts of Mississippi.
--It's nerve-wracking to watch your rider flying down hills at 40+ mph, or even riding at 20-22 mph in the dark.
--The Colbert Ferry detour would have been hard for the cyclists to ride safely. We went from the Trace to narrow farm roads, to 16 miles on a four-lane highway with a 65 mph speed limit, to another 16 miles on a 55 mph two-lane highway with practically no shoulders, to more back roads, back to the Trace.
--Tupelo isn't fun to pass through at Friday-night rush hour in the dark. Major balancing act between protecting your rider and not impeding traffic.
--Robbie and I left the route at Saltillo to put gas in the van and pick up some carbonated caffeine. We weren't quite sure how we were going to find Larry again (and neither was he). We approached it like a word problem in junior-high math class: If we left our rider at milepost xx, he's averaging a mile every 3 minutes, we're off the route for 36-37 minutes, and our exit/entry point is near mp (x+12), he's probably passed that mp and we should head south. We found him within a mile.
--We stopped in one of those few flats somewhere in central Mississippi at about 2 a.m. No light pollution, crescent moon, perfectly clear, low humidity. The stars were breathtaking. ♪♫ "When I gaze into the night skies, and see the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars suspended in space..."♫♪
--That last stretch of the Trace from mp #88 is the least interesting part, especially in the pre-dawn darkness. No sights to see, no historical markers, very few intersections with other roads or highways, and worst of all--no bathrooms for 50 miles. No all-night convenience stores anywhere near the Trace in that rural area, either.
--There are precious few flat, straight stretches on the Natchez Trace, and most of those are less than half a mile long. You're almost always either in a curve, on a hill, or both at once. This makes leapfrogging your rider to let traffic pass difficult, especially at night. The shoulders are wide enough to pull over safely through Tennessee and Alabama, less so in parts of Mississippi.
--It's nerve-wracking to watch your rider flying down hills at 40+ mph, or even riding at 20-22 mph in the dark.
--The Colbert Ferry detour would have been hard for the cyclists to ride safely. We went from the Trace to narrow farm roads, to 16 miles on a four-lane highway with a 65 mph speed limit, to another 16 miles on a 55 mph two-lane highway with practically no shoulders, to more back roads, back to the Trace.
--Tupelo isn't fun to pass through at Friday-night rush hour in the dark. Major balancing act between protecting your rider and not impeding traffic.
--Robbie and I left the route at Saltillo to put gas in the van and pick up some carbonated caffeine. We weren't quite sure how we were going to find Larry again (and neither was he). We approached it like a word problem in junior-high math class: If we left our rider at milepost xx, he's averaging a mile every 3 minutes, we're off the route for 36-37 minutes, and our exit/entry point is near mp (x+12), he's probably passed that mp and we should head south. We found him within a mile.
--We stopped in one of those few flats somewhere in central Mississippi at about 2 a.m. No light pollution, crescent moon, perfectly clear, low humidity. The stars were breathtaking. ♪♫ "When I gaze into the night skies, and see the work of Your fingers, the moon and stars suspended in space..."♫♪
--That last stretch of the Trace from mp #88 is the least interesting part, especially in the pre-dawn darkness. No sights to see, no historical markers, very few intersections with other roads or highways, and worst of all--no bathrooms for 50 miles. No all-night convenience stores anywhere near the Trace in that rural area, either.
