Day 17: Rain (and tired legs) stops play

Day 17

Booneville to McKee 32miles

The plan this morning was to get up early, get t Dooleys for breakfast and then head out to Berea and get there early. The first part of this plan was fine – had a great breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup. But even in the time we were sat down the skies got a lot darker.

And then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. For about 4hours! And it wasnt even a bit of light drizzle, this was a full on downpour with driving rain and regular thunder and lightening. At some point we made it back to the campsite to finish packing our things up, but just ended up sat under shelter as the rain continued to fall. I felt a bit like the England cricket team, constantly waiting for the weather to improve. I did try and explain cricket to the other two guys over breakfast, but I think they struggled with the idea of a game lasting 5 days and still not always producing a winner!

Eventually, at around 12:30pm (now about 4hours behind schedule), it eased off and we set off on the road. Did a few up and down hills and were going well until we reached the Lee County line. Which was a bit of a problem as our route didnt take us into Lee County. Turns out we had missed a turn about 3miles back down the road. So had to redo all those up and down hills in the opposite direction. Eventually found our turning, but its noticeable that the Bike Route 76 signs appeared to have dried up.

The route was definitely getting less steep, with the hills being more rolling up and down sections rather than very steep climbs and descents. Definitely easier to ride on as you can often carry your speed from the downhill onto the next upslope.

However for me today, it just wasnt quite working. My legs were feeling pretty tired after a few tough days in the mountains. So I decided to curtail my ride after around 30miles in McKee. Said farewell to Sam and Cory and swapped numbers and blog details. The one good thing about having people go on ahead is that you get all the info about where is good to stop.

Plan tomorrow is to do the rest of the way to Berea and so have another shortish day to hopefully get my legs back. The good thing is that the next map section (starting from Berea) measures the elevation changes in 100s of feet rather than 1,000s!