Day 15: Georgetown to Lexington - NZ lad riding coast-to-coast in the US - CycleBlaze

May 27, 2023

Day 15: Georgetown to Lexington

That sunburn from yesterday is bad. I'm glad I have a long sleep UPF shirt, I'm going to be wearing it for the next week to let my skin rest. We started our day by backtracking up the expressway a little and turned off into a Toyota business park. The GPS kept trying to send me into prohibited areas but eventually we popped out the other side into some more rural roads. 

Traffic was very heavy into the centre of Georgetown but when we turned off we were suddenly surprised by cyclists going past every few minutes. Eventually they started becoming more common and we figured out we had run into a charity race event.

 We asked some cyclists at a red light that lasted over 5 minutes and they said it was the Memorial Weekend Horsey Hundred, an event with 3 different days for different difficulty levels. Unfortunately it didn't go into Lexington so we turned off the route. A few cyclists followed us and then passed us and then pulled over to look at their maps so we probably led them off course accidentally, but we don't really look like racers with our heavy bags on.

As we entered Lexington we turned onto the Legacy Trail. I was surprised how long we stayed on this, almost 8km of pedestrian and cycling paths through parks and the centre of Lexington. We were going to be in by about 12 and check-in isn't usually until 3 but I called ahead and our room was open and they let us come early.

Lots of people were out enjoying the trail for the long weekend. (People not pictured)
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We got to our hotel and we're surprised to find a small but full kitchen in our room. We lined up some dishes to run through because they needed a little bit of an extra run. We made a quick plan for the next few days and I decided to extend the stay at the hotel to include Monday so that I wouldn't have to rush to check out at the same time as Natalie trying to get to the airport.

We had plenty of time to kill so after some rest we went into the centre of Lexington by bus and had our first sit down table service meal since Washington DC. We loaded up on fresh veggies and some good beers. Lexington so far has been the most "normal" US city in our eyes. Feels a lot like New Zealand.

We walked around the block to a bike shop that had a bike box waiting for us and met their little bike shop dog who loved to play tug of war with Natalie.

I bought a double layer of handlebar tape because mine has been falling off for almost a year and it's rapidly getting worse. I won't be able to get them to fit it so let's see when I get round to doing it myself.

We ended up walking the bike box back, which took about 40 minutes. We got to see a lot of Lexington this way, even walking through the University of Kentucky. We really enjoyed what seemed to be Kentucky's version of Castle Street, but it was pretty quiet for a Saturday night since most people are away on summer break.

Carrying the bike box from the city centre to the medical district
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It's good we got to see some of the town today, it's forecast for rain tomorrow and we'll be pretty busy with Natalie flying off on Monday.

Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 777 km (483 miles)

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