Chattanooga to Guntersville, Guntersville to Blountsville to Birmingham to Tuscaloosa

My apologies to all who have been following this blog and were waiting for daily reports. Last night's blog was not posted due to a mistake on my part. When a motel room is said to be wired instead of wireless, I took it to mean that we needed to have our own ethernet wire to connect to the Internet. Wrong! It simply means that the ethernet wire is located in the room, and in this case, the desk. So today's posting will be a composite of the past two days.

As many of you know I have been fighting a rather severe cold which has forced me to cut back on the mileage of some of the rides. I can now report that yesterday's ride of almost 70 miles was completed, and today's ride of 40 from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa was also completed. Tomorrow we will ride 90 miles. so the recovery from the cold will be tested.

The only new cycling news is the lambskin seat covering shown here. It has made riding with saddle sores a lot easier!

I almost forgot to mention, the start of the ride from Chattanooga to Guntersville began immediately with a 3 mile climb of up to 11% grade, including several swithbacks. We spent the night in a motel situated on Lake Guntersville, part of the TVA Tennessee River system. Dinner was at a local restaurant whose specialty was catfish and seafood!


On the road from Guntersville to Birmingham we stopped after 20 miles at Bountsville, where we participated in their celebration of the Fall Harvest Festival. Many of the pictures posted here are from that celebration.

We walked around and mingled with the crowd. I managed to find a homemade ice cream vendor and sampled some of his product. Quite delicious, and made with the real components!

We then rode our bikes as a team in their parade, followed by a meal at a local restaurant called "Something Special". The restaurant was closed except for us and few of the local dignitaries. The cuisine was a half peach on lettuce, split peas, macaroni and cheese, beet sauce on rice, and strawberry pie for dessert.

Finally, before departing, we were presented on stage in front of the townsfolk, where each of us spoke briefly about our connection with the Five Points of Life. The mayor read a proclamation declaring the day "Five Points of Life Day" for the town of Blountsville.

Then it was off to Birmingham! Once at Birmingham we had less than half an hour before we were off to a hamburger barbecue put on by Life South. The meal was served at one of their parks, a fantastic facility. One wonders why we do not have such parks in Gainesville? In keeping with the schedule thus far some of us ate too much! But the hamburgers were terrific and well worth their dietary excess.

Today was a day of varying speeds on the bike. Speeds approached 25 miles an hour on the flat, 35 mph on downhills, and 8mph on the climbs. It took us a little over two hours to travel the 40 miles to Tuscaloosa.

We arrived at the campus of the University of Alabama. As we were waiting a local person pulled up in a jeep with his pet dachsund, Moses (seen here in several photos). From there we traveled to a large mall with full police escort (4 motorcycle police with lights flashing and sirens blasting). This is definitely the way to travel through a city. A motorist almost ran over one of the police at an intersection. It seems the driver was talking on a cell phone and never saw the policeman blocking the intersection.

At the Mall we walked around and talked to people, trying to get donors as an effort to support a local blood drive. After spending a couple of hours in the Mall, we had a team photo with Big Al, the elephant mascot for Alabama. Then it was off to the motel for a few hours of rest before we go out to eat again.

Tomorrow promises to be a long day in the saddle, 90 miles to Selma! If everything works out there will a posting tomorrow night. Until then, keep up the good thoughts!