We left the friendly town of Henderson this morning at 7:30 and headed east towards Rocky Mount. The first 10 -15 mies consisted of navigating thru morning traffic while peddling thru the historic parts of Henderson. We continued a slow pace until we hit the first rest stop about 20 miles out. We stopped there to check tires, top off bottles and take a bio break.
As we were about to leave out another guy from Boone, NC rolled by. He rode with us a while the day before. We lined up and chased him down to form a 3 man paceline. The three of us (Howard, Peter, Myself) worked together for the next 25 miles. We bypassed the 2nd rest stop and decided to stop at the 3rd in the Medoc State Park. While sitting there another guy named Brian from Charlotte rode in solo. I had met him the day prior after the ride. We asked Brian to ride with us and he certainly did.
The four of us mashed the peddles and picked up the pace considerably. We pretty much hammered away for the next 40 miles until we reached the Rocky Mount sports complex where the finish line and Cycle NC campground awaited at 11:30. I looked down to check our time and average and was pleased to see we managed 19.9 mph. To bad the first 20 miles was a much slower pace.
Sorry for not having any photos today. Honestly, there wasn’t much to see other than fast smooth roads strolling thru the country.
I plan to ride a recovery ride from Rocky Mount to Plymouth tomorrow. Hopefully, I can shoot some photos along the way.
Four days of riding down, 3 more to go. My body is certainly feeling the miles. The quads are sore, my sit bones are aching and my neck and shoulders are tense from pacelining. Hopefully after I pop a few aspirin this morning, things will feel better and we can keep riding.
Finney