IMG00056.jpg

Sunset over Key West. We've finally completed the 2000 Sweaty Miles.

Changing a flat on 7 Mile Bridge.jpg

The 5th flat of the day. But the fun wasn't over. The pedestrian bridge cuts off half way across the ocean. But there's no sign to tell you that. And why would there be? Who uses a bridge to get to the other side?

So good we had to write about it twice.

"GET IN BUDDY OR WE'RE GONNA DIE!!!" screamed the cabby screetching to
a halt in front of me as I walked across 7 mile bridge.

Today was not a good day. After a brutally hot evening in the tent, we
woke to get an early start. Breakfast was good, finding a replacement
for Charles' shredded tire, courtesy the rt 1 cats eyes, was not. We
found one at a flea market bike shop run out of a uhaul storage unit.
The absurdity of the range of goods here would define the day. Having
saddled up we rode off into the now midday sun, awesome. The ride was
pretty but the road was unforgiving, a fact Charles learned as I
waited 45minutes for a necessary flat change. Fortuately we had
dolphins waiting for us 30 miles down the road, it was 1.30, no
trouble right?

False

A rear flat slowed my progress, and Charles needed more air, I arrived
at the dolphins at 4pm, they close at 4:30, of course. No dolphins
allowed, there was iguana road kill though, nice change from armadillo.

Before we could leave, Charles got a flat tire, requiring my second
tube and air canister. Flat fixed we rolled on, only to discover the
piece of metal pulled from the tire was simply a decoy for the shard
of glass that was really responsible, sneaky.

Finally, we hit the marathon bridge, which had a very nice looking
bike path on the adjacent disused rail bridge. Enter 3" vertical
concrete flake and a jarring flat. The patch kit did not suffice.

Enter the daredevil cabby, called by the sheriffs department.

The only bike shop on big pine key, or the next 20 miles, is closed
tomorrow. Icarus flew too close to the sun and got burned, it seems we
may have come too close to key west.

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Big Pine Key

"Get in the car fast or we're all gonna die!" yelled the cabby. Ed obliged. He had spent two of the seven miles of the Seven Mile Bridge walking his bike, and as the sun set over the Atlantic, the alternative - continuing to walk a bridge out of a place called Marathon - was less appealing.

Before today, we had six flat tires. We nearly tied that mark today, tallying five, including two by Charlie within five minutes of each other; we await the Guiness Book response. The day also saw the following let downs: shredded tire (Charlie), arrival at Dolphin Research Center fifteen minutes too late, and plans to snorkle, the air from which slowly hissed out with each piece of shard metal sucked in like a vacuum by our tires.

Still, there were positives: watching iquanas scamper away from our bikes, watching Ed eat a fountain-sized bowl of beef stroganof, and the prospect of snorkeling tomorrow morning before we finish the final 30 miles to Key West. Before we depart tomorrow, however, Ed needs a new tube, and my bike needs to stop chirping like a nest of newborn robins. I guess it's only fitting that the last 100 miles be particularly sweaty.

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Schwitzing on the radio. Good thing it wasn't tv.

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Welcome to the Keys.jpg

My name is hot dog, and I'd like you to meet my friend, boiled p-nutz

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Key Largo, FL

A late start, coupled with some rain, delayed our departure to the keys.wending through Miami was not for the feignt of heart, but we eventually found ourselves on Old Cutler road, which delivered ourselves from the land of Jiggy while offering tasteful views of some lower Miami communities. We were especially impressed with Coconut Grove where the Crawl for Cancer was in full effect.
After a few more towns begins an 18 mile stretch of marshy hell that leads to the keys. One lane each way, with a shoulder drawn my a three year old and then puked on by every cement truck in America. A sign counts the number of fatalities thus far this year on the highway (5), which warms the soul.

But then, just when things could not be any crappier, joy came in the form of a hotdog stand run by two very cool and gracious women who supplied us with water and peanuts cooked with their own special recipe. We wish them well and want to say thanks again. .

We finally rolled into Key Largo, Charles' back tire in utter disrepair. The worst part is over. Key West, here we come.

Eventful day

Today started early, 0530 early, as we made our way from Lantana to
the radio studio in fort lauderdale. I promptly flatted before we even
left Cal and Joycen's garage where we'd dined majestically the evening
before. This left us with no option other than to create our own sonic
boom in getting to the studio, there was a headwind, we failed. We
also showed up at the wrong address, the jaguar dealership was not
broadcasting. These challenges conidered the radio show was a whistle
stop tour of our wits and story telling abilities, I failed. Geese are
not my forte. Charlie wants nothing more than to swim with dolphins,
which he told the entire country about. Having celebrated our
celebrity at a nearby breakfastry, we began our journey to south
beach. Our projected mileage of 50, rapidly became 77, I have no clue
how. I blame armadilloes.

Though we are staying in south beach, which is both scenic and
bombarding, we write this from he Miami jai-alai stadium, home of the
worlds fastest game. It includes betting, I failed, Chaz won forty
bucks. I'm also hungry, south beach is thankfully bountiful on the
restaurant front. Tomorrow the keys, we fly back to our loved ones on
tuesday, you can prepare the bunting.

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Jai Alai.jpg

Link to todays celebrity appearance

If you missed it, which you shouldn't have, you can listen to our radio cameo at the below link to redeem yourself. In return I shall tell no more stories about geese, they caught me out on that one

http://rcpt.yousendit.com/720532808/003889401a1ae553246b25afad3fdd2b

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Radio Appearance

Here are the details:

Internet stream (you can listen to us live over the internet): http://www.wftlsports.com/

Date/Time: Around 8:30 AM this Friday, July 31

Host: Lesley Visser, http://www.lesleyvisser.com/

We hope you can tune in! We also hope we can make it to the studio on time.

Faces for Radio

Tomorrow morning, Ed and Charlie are honored to be guests of a radio show here in Florida hosted by Lesley Visser. We believe we will be on around 8:30 AM to discuss nuclear disarmament, Michael Jackson, and perhaps biking. Details to follow, including, we hope, internet streaming info.STAY TUNED!

Hobe Sound

The night's are getting hot. Too hot. Charlie hallucinated he was biking (think sleeping dog chasing a rabbit) and Ed spent considerable time stroking an arm that was not his. It was an awkward realization for all involved.

Another day of challenges, starting with a racoon eating Charlie's breakfast, then another strong headwind, then Port St Lucie, bug capital of America (see pic - guns may or may not kill people, but they definitely kill insects).

We'd like to thabk Brian McDaniel, who spent ten minutes on rt. 1 holding up traffic, trying to brainstorm a place for us to crash. Fifteen minutes later he called back with a rec for a great sushi restaurant. ??? www.brianmcdaniel.com

Things you don't ordinarily think, but do on this trip:

- is the bridge loopy?
- why is the only song in my head Hit Me Baby One More Time?
- this place looks classy; I'd like to go to the bathroom here
- can I have soup and a salad?
- the light from the taco bell should keep the gators away
- is there any way you could charge my phone?
- I don't think the beach ranger can see us
- Shell does a very nice breakfast
- we'll take one big bed if it's cheaper

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Taken at Pelican Wildlife Refuge, outside of Sebastian Beach. I presume this is a pelican.

Titusville to Melbourne Beach

Today we faced challenges. First our sleeping abilities in this heat
are wanting, paranoia tends to encroach as well given the playful
collection of critters in these parts. The morning saw us roll in to
Cocoa beach, where we endured temptation at the hands of the Ron Jon
surf shop, the largest in the country if not the world. This writer
got a sweet new cutoff to help display the guns, fitting as we're in
gun show alley. Two signs, side by side on route one today, extolled
the virtues of preserving the lives of unborn children as well as the
usefulness of bearing arms. After Ron Jon, we swam in the now tepid
Atlantic, which doubles as our shower for the week, huzzah!!!

Enter challenge number three. My hair, not especially kempt these
days, decided to sweat salt water into my eyes as I rolled along at
speeds that would see the saint david's sixth grade leaving me in the
dust on their bmx's with the tassels on the handlebars. Long story
short, headwinds are not cool, and at this time of the year, the winds
comes out of the south, both hot and gale force...

Tonight marks our most creative camping achievment - underneath the
Melbourne beach access ramp. Like a glove.

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Sunset over Mosquito Lagoon - Cape Canaveral

Cape Canaveral

Too fast for my shutter finger

Titusville, Fl

We've thus far failed to make the checkout time of every motel we've stayed in, including Flagler Beach's "Topaz."

It should also be noted that, upon Charles' spill in the middle of Farandina, he failed to slap the ground "judo style" as his father has always admonished, and once demonstrated on the streets of New York.

The weather said it felt like 105 today and we couldn't disagree. We also considered buying a snorkle for the humidity, or perhaps some gills. At Daytona we couldn't go as fast as the cars, but wished we were as naked as the spring breakers.

Somewhat by chance, we ventured into a Merit Island wildlife preserve on Cape Canaveral where we saw both manatees and alligators. A friendly fellow named Keith took us to the top of the draw bridge control tower of the Haulover Canal, which gave us a bird's eye view of the Kennedy Space Center and lots of trash. From there we mosied into Titusville, cognizant of keeping up the requisite 13 mph beyond which mosquitos cannot attack. We presume the figure is lower for alligators, but don't wish to collect any empirical data. The only restaurant in town closed at 9, making our 9:01 arrival heartbreaking. Goodnight from Burger King.

Flagler Beach

I'd like to start this post with some shared insight, armadilloes are
probably the single worst animals at crossing the street in the entire
kingdom. They're worse than hedgehogs. We no longer count miles, we
count fallen armadilloes. We hit St. Augustine around lunchtime
(anywhere between 11 and 3) and settled in for a pretty solid pasta
lunch. As we dragged ourselves up from the seats, the afternoon
tempest descended, and we were "forced" to sit out the sheets of rain
in a local billiard hall. Now I'm not one to make excuses or anything,
but Charles has the uncanny knack to hit his shot, then stand directly
in your sight line. If he keeps it up, I shall make an armadillo of
him. Tomorrow we don't know where we'll end up, we may just putz about
until the afternoon storm and feel good about the 100 miles we rode
today whilst drinking a venti java chip frappacino and doing nothing
at all.

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Sitting out the rain - motorcyclists are weenies too

Florida - the sunshine state

Florida - the sunshine state

Fernandina, FL

A flat and a splat was how the day started and finished for Charles. A flat tire at the very beginning of the day, which might have been a terrible ordeal in the Georgia sun had Charlie not expertly changed tires with no assistance necessary at all from Ed, getting back on the road in a hot second.

(Shhhhhhh, Ed is asleep).

The middle of the day was, to quote a local, "long, hot and boring." The Georgia coast is not unlike the photo below labeled Georgia, and while we're on the subject of photos, it should be pointed out that Charlie was hoping he'd be sweatier in the bridge ices before road picture, to create a better juxtaposition. These signs have been taunting us all trip.

Florida, the sunshine state, could not come soon enough, and when it finally did, it promptly began to thunderstorm, so much so that an intimidating band of motorcyclists struck out whooping into the storm from a gas station, only to pull an immediate about face and return to the safety of the awning, where the two of us sat laughing.Pictures to follow. As with all bikers, they proved the nicest guys in the world, despite helmet masks painted with human skulls.

After the storm, we made our way to Ferdinandia Beach, which begins our final leg of the trip, down route A1A. After a relationship with 17 that could best be described as rocky, we hope to have smooth sailing the rest of the way.

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Good to know.

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Georgia. Highway 17: 5, armadillos: 0

Brunswick

We last wrote to you hoping to wait out the heat in one of Savannah's cooler establishments. We waited and we waited. Then, we waited some more. We emerged at the seemingly more merciful hour of five o'clock only to discover that the heat had in fact increased. Not long after, and with the aid of a few Fat Tires, we came to the realization that we were staying in Savannah. Ed proceded to eat four chicken breasts, while Charles treated himself to a bubble bath. We were also happy to discover, on our way to our motel, the redolent squares and streets of Savannah, lined with drooping trees, which populated the Tv show and also our dreams.

Waking up roughly four hours later than we planned, we were very pleasantly surprised to see that the day was overcast. With what sun remained, we biked to Brunswick, just north of florida. We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's been giving us their love and support. Without you guys, the miles would be too sweaty, and the tent just a little too steamy . Stay classy. Next post from Florida!.

Savannah

Here we are in Savannah, quite possibly the hotest city in the world, unaided by the blinding white contrete buildings which line the wide city streets. We've followed our usual m.o.of a large meal followed by a prolonged campout at a local ice cream parlor, in this case Leopold's, home of the famous Tutti Frutti ice cream flavor of which a song was once written of dazzling lyrical complexity. So long as neither of us falls asleep and is banned forever, we plan to wait out the heat here. If I'm not mistaken, Savannah was the title of another majestically cheesy WB soap, and betweeen here and Wilmington, I'm starting to cobble together a sense of Ed's true motivation for this trip. I'm not sure where Seventh Heaven was filmed, but I'll let you know as soon as we pass it.

C'mon Lance, it's sorta about the bike.

RESPECT THE RIDE

Charleston makes for tough riding

1000 sweaty miles

Days 12-14 - charleston and beyond

We haven't blogged since Georgetown, where the dock house tavern was
spectacular. Having sampled their mixed seafood grill (we eat pretty
well) and some refreshments we slept unsoundly in a site far too close
to route 17. In the morning we arose to another plague of insects and
the comforting knowledge that we had pitched our tent atop an ants
nest, tickly. This was par for the course for these few days. In
Myrtle beach - about as classless as every other place we've visited
with beach in it's name - we sat out the midday heat in a starbucks.
Upon returning to the bikes, this author got a nasty surprise as his
front tire was flat. This made pulling a across the road a slippery
and downhill affair, one which drew incredulous blabberings from a
ponderous man wearing a tshirt in the pool opposite.

Our charleston rest day was necessary on many fronts. The indigo inn
put us up in fine southern splendour and barely batted an eyelid at
the two vagrants who rolled in requesting a room. Having washed,
shaved (just ed) and generally become respectable, ed went and bought
boxers. They felt fantastic. The next day saw some lazy tour watching
for inspiration and a welcoming ice cream at kilwins, just off the
market. We left charleston reluctantly this morning after the tour
ended, and write this from a laundromat outside Beaufort. We cooked
dinner on the front step, interesting looks abundant. Tomorrow we roll
through Savannah looking forward to our next milestone of entering
Florida. The last 1000miles have been great, the upcoming miles can
only get hotter.

Things we've learned in the last 1000 miles:
- sleveless jerseys are spectacular
- body glide is good
- rain is bad
- biking with the mouth open collects insects like underneath the bed
- the Atlantic coast is very long
- charlie needs to wash his swim suit
- a ring, a string, and a hook will entertain for hours
- beverages and cycling may work for Floyd Landis, they tend to cut
our daily goals in half
- people in the south are really nice

Stay well, stay air conditioned.

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Day 13 and 14 - Finally South Carolina

After putzing around the Innkeeper for far too long, we failed to make our goal yesterday of Myrtle Beach. Doing so would have required riding at night, which we had tried the night before and had me singing nursery rhymes to myself.

So we stayed in a small town a few miles north and grabbed some meat at the Food Lion, where I was on cloud 9 after an 80 year old man paid my legs a nice compliment. Ed and I continue to horrify each other with what a trip like this makes one do. He's eaten every Mike and Ike on the eastern seaboard and I ordered two full dinners at a nearby ihop.

Our goal for tonight is Georgetown, a town north of Charleston, where we plan to take our next rest day. Overall, we're just glad to be on to a new state, though I must say, North Carolina has a lot going for it.

Day 13 and 14 - Finally South Carolina

After putzing around the Innkeeper for far too long, we failed to make our goal yesterday of Myrtle Beach. Doing so would have required riding at night, which we had tried the night before and had me singing nursery rhymes to myself.

So we stayed in a small town a few miles north and grabbed some meat at the Food Lion, where I was on cloud 9 after an 80 year old man paid my legs a nice compliment. Ed and I continue to horrify each other with what a trip like this makes one do. He's eaten every Mike and Ike on the eastern seaboard and I ordered two full dinners at a nearby ihop.

Our goal for tonight is Georgetown, a town north of Charleston, where we plan to take our next rest day. Overall, we're just glad to be on to a new state, though I must say, North Carolina has a lot going for it.

Day 12 - Wilmington

Today was a day of highs and lows. A high - I biked my first century (100 miles). 97 to be exact, but I'm rounding up and no one can stop me.

But the riding was utterly brutal. We faced a headwind from start to finish. Riding in a headwind is like trying to run in a swimming pool. There were times when the the wind was so strong, and every outburst of energy met with such vigorous resistance, that it was hard not to ascribe some kind of sinister persona to old man wind. Still, we pushed on to Wilmington, former home of Dawson's Creek and current home to One Tree Hill. in fact, I'm punting over to Ed's bedroom window right now in hopes of chatting about philosophy and whatever else is on his silly mind.

To clarify the confusion: we were kicked out of the ice cream parlor because we look/smell like vagrants and one of us may have fallen asleep on the front step, impeding customer access and buttressing the vagrant "argument."

Others have been nicer. Something about our story and appearance prompted a local produce vendor to donate 4 bottled waters and more peaches than we could count to our cause today. Then there was the dimunitive mother of 3 who pulled me halfway down atlantic beach. Thanks to all!

We decided to do the world a favor and get a motel room for the laundry and showers.

Yesterday we got kicked out of an ice cream store

Days 10 and 11 (we think)

We have a new favourite establishment, it's called the ruddy duck and
it sits just the on other side of a magnificent looping bridge into
morehead city, north Carolina. The reason we are currenty so content
begins around 9pm yesterday evening. After cooking dinner on the beach
at ocracoke we began to make our camping arrangements in the dunes.
Charles went up first and as I passed him on my way up, extolled the
virtues of our site. Upon finding his gear, I began to settle and
become one with nature, but apparently nature did not like this idea
and promptly set about smiting us. A mosquito plague of biblical
proportions rose out of the dunes and the fun truly began. Each of us
scurried around trying to gather all our gear and wipe the blanket of
bugs from our skin. I grabbed my bags and high-tailed it for the
beach, not much better. Having transported my gear I realised that
Charles had disappeared. Visions of him lying face first in the dunes
with a cloud of Mosquitos hovering above his lifeless, now bloodless,
frame. As I waited for my fallen comrade, I discovered that no method
of mosquito evasion is successful. Then I heard the screams, like
Romeo and Juliet we had both assumed the worst about the other, and
were waiting on opposite sides of the same dune. Having scurried from
the beach with our tails between our legs we set about finding a
campsite in town. Of course, the only tent berth left at 930 at night
was in what felt like the set of Beverly hills hillbilly. My narrative
abilities fail to capture the sterotype, but let it be known thant the
curses were freely flowing, aggressive metal bellowing, and crab legs
being tossed wontonly onto the floor. A famoly of four, the dirtiest
mouths I've encountered and using death metal to lull their slumbers
meant It took a lot of benadryl to get to sleep.

The morning began groggily and with death metal still playing. We
caught the ferry and finally got a good 2.5hours rest, only to be
greeted with a 25mph headwind in exactly the direction we wished to
travel. Forty downtrodden miles and three more unfriendly bridges
brought us to the ruddy duck, which I assure you, is the finest
establishment we've come across yet.

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What It's Like

At the risk of sounding whiny, I thought I'd take a moment to describe what it's really like biking 2000 miles in the middle of July.

My hands ache constantly. A road bike keeps you pitched forward, I guess because it makes you a more aggressive peddler. As a result, however, my hands support much of the weight of my upper body, all the time. The only thing which mitigates the pain, and I stress mitigates, is to readjust my grip on the handlebars. My hands hurt so much that I essentially spend 6 hours a day playing paddy-cake with my bike.

A good bicyclist will also keep his body propped up with his back muscles, specifically his lats. Not strong enough to do this, I ride hunched over, head nearly dangling, not unlike the panting character atop this blog. To raise up my head and upper torso (it's occasionally nice to see the road ahead), I pull upward using my neck and traps, both of which have simply thrown in the towel at various points on the trip.

With every thrust of my leg, my feet burn in my shoes, and either my left or right butt cheek pounds into my saddle, and every once in a while, my feet slip off the peddles entirely, sending my entire body crashing downward onto a region of the body I'll call the Neitherlands. The pain sears.

I'd avoid this prostate bodyslam by staying clipped into my peddles were it not for the left knee tendonitis the peddles seem to have engendered. There are times when I must throw the left leg behind me and one-legged peddle my sorry rear for countless country miles.

The 25 pounds of cargo have started to wear my bike down, especially on the back wheel where my strained, ever-loosening spokes rub against one another with a click I hear with every rotation of the wheel. The only time I don't hear the bike groan is when my own groaning drones it out.

Ed, by contrast, appears to have biked out of the womb. His pace is crisp and consistent. There are times when I stay behind him and benefit from his taking the wind away, until I am felled by something off the ever-spinning affliction wheel (see above), or else from a pothole on the road which I failed to see around his barn-sized back.

We bike from mid-morning to early evening, breaking for lunch, restroom stops, and sporadic sobbing. It's hot as the dog's bollocks. Despite spf 70 sunblock, I sport multiple tan lines, suntoos, and other flights of bodily chiaroscuro about which people snicker, and understandably so.

But once the bikes have parked for the night, the fun doesn't stop. I was lucky enough to buy a defective sleeping mat, which deflates roughly 2 hours after I inflate it. I mark the night in such intervals, as I am time and again reacquainted with every stony contour of our earth. Not to be outdone, my sleeping bag zipper has broken, transforming my bag into a sleeping blanket, and a scandalous one at that. I generally wake up splayed out on a public beach like the victim of a strange crime. Unable to successfully dry my clothes, I am forced to sleep as God once intended. This compounds the problem with my sleeping blanket, for me and for all early beach-goers.

The morning arrived, I groan, stretch out my knee, apply a new coat of sunblock over yesterday's layer of dirt, dried sweat, blood, mucus, and insect bite puss, do the same for Ed's splotchy-haired back, and prepare to crank out a few more of the 2000 sweaty miles.

Mornings in Rodanthe

Nights in Rodanthe

Having rolled in from Corolla around four in the afternoon we began to
scope out campsites. The good thing about rodanthe is that they have
a very long, very nice one all along the eastern side of town. Having
chosen our spot we caught kareoke night at a local watering hole.
Things are getting just a little more country. I spent the rest of my
night in rodanthe staring into charles' face as he woke me with his
nightly grizzling. Richard Gere, Diane Lane, you've got nothing on us.

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Things you don't want to see on a bike tour

Day 8 - North Carolina beach

Michael Jackson spoke to us, and hooked us up with a shuttle to take us across the Chesapeak Bay Bridge.To our dismay, our driver was not named Prince. The bridge is 15 miles long and is one of the seven wonders of the world, in addition to the Great Wall of China and Charlie's sunburn.

We then rode through Virginia Beach before entering False Cape State Park. In addition to the cape being false, so was the alleged bike path. Halfway through, the gravel gave way to sand, commencing a 15 mile wallow down the beaches of North Carolina. We sludged well into the night, accompanied only by the occasional wild horse. Mick Jagger was no where to be found. Dinner was what we had left, peanut butter, gnutella, sport beans and an ounce of water. We write this from the first town we've seen in almost a full day, with no desire to leave.

Day 7

Today was probably the most challenging day so far. After struggling
to move from our rather comfortable spot on chincoteague, we again
tackled the causeway. Oh the causeway. Miserable and still replete
with dead birds. After the causeway came the fabled headwind we've
come to expect, though somehow, in these parts no matter which way you
pedal, it's into the wind. As well as the headwind, mother nature, or
whatever sadistic deity you subscribe to, threw in a thundershower and
some absurd humidity. Neither were speed inducing. Somewhere in
amongst the supernatural games that were being played with our
emotions, charles strained his knee. Also not speed inducing. This
prompted the last 20 miles of our eighty to be punctured with shouts
of frustration and pleas of "how much further?". The response was
often not factual. All in all, today was character building.

The Chesapeake bay bridge does not allow bikes. Apparently there is
only one man to help us across, All of our hopes are pinned on that
one man, Michael jackson. We must pray that he wants to be starting
something.

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Key West, Florida - 1231miles

Day 6 - Chincoteague

A much needed day off, mostly for Ed. (I suggested a big push to Florida). Instead we've spent most of the day gently rubbing Burt's Bees all over each other's backs.

The water is getting mercifully warmer as we push south. The beach in Chincoteague is very nice and we even found time to do some much needed laundry using a beach shower - one of the many actions we've done which has elicited perplexed looks and aggressive questions from surrounding toddlers. A simple "why?" comes to mind from a Fronteir Land youth upon telling him about our trip as a whole. (I told him I'd get back to him)

Plans tonight to repatronize the Crab Shack, whose calimari last night receives rave reviews. Then more Burt's Bees and perhaps a tickle fight.

Yesterday our intrepid adventurers learned that they are totally
incapable of applying sunblock to their own backs. While Charlie has
something of an alphabet soup going on, ed is sporting some exciting
new colours on his lower back.

The day started slowly as Charlie was feeling under the weather/really
wanted the full breakfast at frontier land. Our pedals took us through
the eastern maryland and Virginia farmlands, Areas that looked like
new England but smelled like wales. There also appeared to be and
endless stream of chickens being ferried to and from Virginia. Our
final obstacle was the causeway to chincoteague, which was replete
with numerous dead gulls, a strength sapping headwind and some
puncture inducing rocks. We write this on our rest day after an
evening on the dock. Happy weekend to all, we will certainly be making
the most of it.

IMG00024.jpg

Charlie's back wants to know, Why?

IMG00023.jpg

Ed hearts Virginia with the first flat tire of the trip.

Beauty, redefined

Day 4 - Assateague (sort of)

Charlie's Randy Travis cut-off has gone from ironic to cool. Greetings from a Maryland trailer park called Fronteir Land. We had intended to camp in Asateague, but it was full.
We will have to save the bridge to the park, which looks like the arch in Saint Louis, for tomorrow.

We've discovered that every state on the eastern seaboard has an Ocean City. We started in Jersey's and ended in Maryland's. After biking 80 miles, it's unnerving to hear that, at least nominally, you've gone nowhere.

Short ride to Chincoteague tomorrow, but not before the Fronteir Land water park. Oh no. Not before the water park.

Ed forgot boxer shorts.

Thoughts on New Jersey

We write this to you on the ferry to delaware and it seemed only fair
to share some of our insights with you in the form of a poem

We began on route thirty five
Which I assure you is only meant to drive
We went down the jersey shore, the spice boys we adore
We went to Atlantic city
There were mullets, maybe fifty
Said hello to the boss, who left us wanting more, but we must ride on
to the Delaware shore.

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We are in Joisey.jpg

Goodbye New Jersey; goodbye Nicky Knuckles.

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Day 3

"Your hair takes its grease well" said Ed and I almost blushed. 200 miles and not one shower, not quite the golden ratio.

Today we cruised to Atlantic City with some of the best riding on the trip. But one thing about a tour like this is that you could be on a road that is bike friendly and then all of a sudden NOT SO BIKE FRIENDLY. We made it through the rough parts by hitching and then walking up a bridge.

As cars continue to whiz by I can't help but think, with a mix of jealousy and appreciation, of how easy a car makes it to scale hills that make a novice biker like me mutter angry verbiage under my breath. What a light tap of the foot can do!

Ed has a sixth sense for picking out incredible camp sights. I'm currently on top a life guard throne on a beach in Ocean City, staring at the full moon while Atlantic City roars to my north. The tide is strong and is trying to drone me to sleep (as is the Benadril). (Mom, I'm fine, and please stop calling yourself Mum. Seriously it's ridiculous).

Hope you are all well.

Day 2 - sea bright to cedar creek - ~60 miles

The day began with replacing charles' snake-like front wheel thanks to
the peddler bike shop, good men. We then made our selves one with all
the other classy dudes on the jersey shore boardwalk. We may have
smelled bad, their cologne smelled worse. We left with a burning
desire to get matching tribal armband tattoos. After offending the
other patron at ray's diner, we received our comuppance with a
headwind stronger than the stream of hot air eminating from Bono's
mouth.

Jersey shore headwind 1 - Ed and Charlie 0

Images of seagulls trying to take offin a gale come to mind.

Day 1 - NYC - Sea Bright, NJ 68miles

The day began with an inauspicous start and a broken rack before even
leaving manhattan. Staten island was made just a little longer by
having to wait on a goose crossing and then finding ourselves with no
way off, except Thomas' pickup. We walked, we sailed and from time to
tome rode a bicycle. We also learned that bike racks are not to be
trusted as one attacked charles' bike, severely bending the front
wheel and forcing us to a bikeshop, from where we now write our first
post.

Lessons learned from the day
- bike racks suck
- leatherman's are sharp (ed may need a stitch or two)
- riding hurts your ass. What does not kill it makes it stronger
- route35 in jersey will kill you
- we need a map

The key to endurance is radioactivity.jp

We depart at 9am tomorrow!

Sweaty Stats

The average person sweats an average of 0.5 liters/hour while simply walking around, going about his (or her) merry way.

Add strenuous exercise on a hot summer day, a person sweats about 1.5 liters/hour.

If we bike 90 miles/day at an average speed of 15 miles/hour, this means we can plan to sweat 9 liters/day.

Over the course of a 2000 mile trip, that's roughly 200 liters of sweat!

Famous People Sweating

Prelude to Perspiration

Welcome to 2000 Sweaty Miles.

Over the next month, two men will bike 2000 miles (sweaty miles) from New York to Florida.

Biking nearly 100 miles a day, these men are bound to have any number of thoughts about life, love, and chaffing, which will be fodder for their blog posts.

Occasionally, they will stop to take a poorly framed picture.