BlueRidge

Day 14

Friday, 8 Jun 2007
Athens, TN to Chattanooga, TN
51.6 miles, 4h02m, 12.7 mph
Elapsed Time: 4h56m, Max speed: 32.5mph
Total Climbing: 1691ft, Max elevation: 933ft
Total mileage: 862.0

There was nothing special to see today. This ride was all about connecting the dots. One dot being in Washington, DC and the other dot being in Chattanooga. I had routes that would take me through the Tennessee countryside, but I eschewed them and adopted a git-r-done approach.

So I just got on US11 and headed south. Sometimes the road had no shoulder, sometimes it had a big shoulder, but it almost always had plenty of traffic. There are two kinds of roads in Tennessee: busy roads, and roads with no traffic at all. The roads with no traffic don't go anywhere. Since I was going somewhere, I had to ride with the traffic.

I got off US11 in Cleveland because it was too dangerous. But then I spent quite a bit of time trying to work my way through town, and there was almost as much traffic on the side streets (at least on the ones that went anywhere). At one point I found a bike path that seemed to head in the right direction, but...

...it went nowhere.

Eventually I got out of Cleveland and back on US11. That took me to the Chattanooga city limits at the unpronounceable crossroads of Ooltewah. Linda and I ate lunch there at a Subway. From there it was a meandering ride through a residential neighborhood on a busy back road and finally to the Marriott at Hamilton Place, which is a big mall area.

Yea!

The ceremonial finish photo at the Marriott parking lot.

After checking in, we loaded the gear in the car and headed to the post office. We boxed up most of my gear and sent it away. Then we headed downtown to Suck Creek Cycle (http://www.suckcreek.com/) where we dumped the bike for shipment back to the Bike Doctor Annapolis http://www.bikedoctor.com/annapolis.htm).

The rest of today is for rest. Tomorrow we tour Chattanooga. Where's the choo-choo at? Woo-hoo!

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