May 25, 2019
Day 31 Exmore, VA
The adventure continues
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We had a relaxing evening and slept well in Susan and Steve's guest apartment. After breakfast, Susan and Steve rode the first few miles with us, then split off the continue their ride while we continued to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel.
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We had arranged a shuttle at the bridge and the driver arrived right on time in a van. We loaded the bike in and Kerry decided it would be safest to lay it down because there was no way to secure it standing up.
We couldn't ride in the van, but had to wait for another driver with a truck. It was a nice ride across and it gave us our only view of the Atlantic Ocean today. We're up to 21 days out of the 31 we've been traveling with at least one view of the ocean.
We got across and unloaded the bike. The driver was very interested in our trip and Kerry gave him one of our cards.
We were about to find out that the bike was damaged in this shuttle process, but since I whined about yesterday's tough ride, I'll let Kerry tell that story.
Our ride up the Virginia Eastern Shore was very nice. The area we rode through was all farms - we saw miles and miles of potato fields, some corn and wheat, and then huge tomato farms.
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This is the last crop we saw today. Kerry thinks maybe it's hops.
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A very expensive shuttle ride
I don't know if 2 days constitutes a string, but we've recently had a run of bad luck. Yesterday, we got led astray by our GPS, but at least that didn't cost us anything but time and a few tick bites.
Today was much more expensive. As we were unloading the bike from the shuttle van, we noticed that the back wheel wouldn't roll. It didn't take long to realize that the problem was, when we put the bike in the van, we had to tilt the tiller as far forward as it would go to have enough clearance to load the bike. When we were unloading, the pedals got caught in all the cables and that locked the pedals up, hence the wheel wouldn't roll backwards. I got the pedal out of the cables and thought everything was OK - until we started out and I noticed that the rear brake would not release. We pedaled over to the nearby Visitors Center where we removed the panniers so I could check things out. After a few minutes I determined that when the pedals got tangled in the cables, it put a big kink in the rear brake cable housing. I loosened the cable clamps and finagled with the housing to straighten it out. I got it straight enough that the brake releases , its not quite right, but it will work well enough until we can find a bike shop and get a new housing and cable - just a minor expense at this point - probably $20-$30. It was then that I noticed that the wire for the rear taillight had pulled out of the headlight - no problem - its a spade plug - so I just plugged it back in. However, when I spun the front wheel to activate the dynamo and check out the taillight- BIG PROBLEM . Not only did the taillight not work, the headlight didn't work either. It appears that the pedals/cable mess also caught the headlight and jerked it back and has damaged the wiring in the headlight which is a sealed unit. Now we're out about $150 for a new headlight. But it gets better.
As we were leaving the Visitor Center, we heard something fall and I asked Jeanna what it was. She said she thought I knocked over a traffic cone leaving the parking lot. I looked in my mirror and saw that all the cones were upright, but our right-side rear pannier was laying on the ground. My bad, in my rush to get rolling, I didn't verify that the panniers were locked in place. It wasn't until we got to the motel and unpacked that Jeanna noticed her Surface Pro 4 did not survive the fall in the pannier unscathed. The top corner of her computer is crushed and there are cracks in the screen. It still works, but for how long we don't know.
In summing up, here's the total for the shuttle across the bridge:
$18.00 - Bridge Toll
$20.00 - Tip for 2 drivers (Didn't have anything smaller)
$30.00 - Brake Cable and Housing
$150.00 - Headlight
$1,000 - Surface Pro Computer
Total $1,218.00
But hey, the ride through the country today was priceless!! -Kerry
Today's ride: 59 miles (95 km)
Total: 1,203 miles (1,936 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 6 |
4 years ago
That's good to hear. We had a screen protector and I foolishly pulled it off thinking that was what was cracked. No such luck. I put the protector back on, but am afraid the try and squeeze the bubbles out for fear of doing more damage. End result is that Jeanna now has a hardware version of the old "Bubbles" screen saver :-)
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