A tale of 2 rides and a walk

February 6, 2022

Gulfport bike ride

Another very cold overnight - I could see my breath this morning! Of course we ran out of propane at about that time. Thank goodness we have 2 tanks.

But the sunrise was glorious over the ocean. I walked over toward the beach and took many pictures before my fingers got too cold.

While we waited for it to warm up, we watched the Olympics and Don did the laundry. By 1 pm, it was finally over 50 degrees and we decided to do a ride on Garfield.

We walked the bike across the busy highway in front of the park and then headed east on the sidewalk that ran along the beach. Not the best route as there was occasional sand and broken up concrete to contend with, but it was scenic along the water.

Lots more people were out playing in the sand and wading in the water (which I imagine was quite cold!). There was a breeze coming off of the Gulf which kept the temperature from climbing much higher. At least the sun was out today.

We passed Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis' home and presidential library. One of these days we'll have to visit this place as it looks interesting.

When we reached a spit of land that had a lighthouse at the tip, we rode out to the end to see what we could see. Several folks were fishing with the herons were hanging around close by, waiting for a handout.

As we got back on the bike to continue our ride, I noticed that my pedals felt weird. We got off so Don could investigate the problem. He found that my entire bottom bracket and crank arms were really loose. Uh oh! That wasn't good and not fixable here. Don said he had a tool in his tool box that could maybe repair this, but we had to walk back to camp which was over a mile away.

I didn't really want to walk that far as I knew it would stress my feet, but didn't have much of a choice. So off we went, trudging down the sidewalk. Sigh............

It was after 2 when we got home but I really wanted to get some kind of ride in, so Don offered to set up my bike for me. We take the pedals off of both bikes when we travel so they don't gouge up the bench seats.

I got ready to go and by 2:30 was out on the beach route again, this time heading west. My hopes were to get in a 20 mile ride, but that didn't quite happen as I had started too late in the day and I'm really not that fast of a rider.

Although it was still chilly out, I enjoyed biking along the boardwalk next to the beach. At times it was just a narrow, crumbling, sand filled sidewalk while other sections had nice wide concrete. Sure wish Biloxi and Gulfport would take better care of this bike route as the highway next to me didn't have a bike lane.

Despite the cold wind, lots of people were out including a group of Mennonites playing a game of volleyball. The women were wearing the usual long dresses with white bonnets but were still managing to move around on the sand.

There were quite a few grand coastal homes through here, some of which had probably been destroyed by past hurricanes, then rebuilt. But you'd better like stairs or have an elevator as many of these are built up on tall pilings!

I rode all the way to the Gulfport Marina and out to the end of the pier before turning around. As it was getting late, I didn't linger too long looking at all of the nice boats. Instead I turned around and headed back to the park.

This time I tried to push my speed when I had good pavement and managed to arrive home right at 5 pm as the sun was starting to set. Just in time for dinner!

Don had worked on the tandem while I was gone and said that the problem had been that my bottom bracket rings had worked loose. He thought he had fixed them as they are Phil Woods rings and not easily found at bike shops. We'll find out soon enough when we're in Gainesville as we hope to do some riding there.

This is Beauvoir - Jefferson Davis' home. I loved the tall green gate/doors. He purchased this property in 1879 and wrote his memoirs here. Its' name means "beautiful view" which it does have looking over the Gulf.

This an example of a particularly bad section of sidewalk along the beach.

This Great Blue Heron was waiting for a handout from fishermen at our turn-around spot.

There are lots of these elevated restrooms on the beach.

These high water marks from previous hurricanes give you an idea of how bad one of these storm surges can be. We're always surprised to see lots of homes and businesses along the coast. Doesn't seem safe to me!

On my own ride, I rode toward the cranes at the Gulfport Marina.

Lots of beautiful sail boats moored at the marina. Don would have loved this section of my ride.

A Double-breasted Cormorant. We'll be seeing a similar looking bird in southern Florida - the Anhinga. Cormorants have a hooked bill as you can see here while Anhingas have a pointed bill.

Despite it being chilly and a bit windy, these Mennonites were enjoying playing volleyball in the sand. I saw from their van that they were a Mennonite Disaster Relief group.

Today's ride: 19 miles (31 km)
Total: 1,461 miles (2,351 km)

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