The day started out a lot warmer and we were soon riding through some more nice Mississippi country side. Lots of pine trees and old pre 1970 trailer houses.
The first part of the day went along pretty well, until my chain broke. Dropped it right in the middle of the road. I saw that I hadn't lost any links, and put it back together. About the time I had it together Jim, Phil and Max showed up. They talked about taking an alternate route through McHenry because it looked shorter and there was apparently food opportunities there.
We elected to do so. After making the off route turn my chain started skipping badly again. This time I shortened the chain and got back on the road.
Max and I are cooking tonight as well, so I'm hoping to make it into camp soon enough to hit the bike shop and still perform my cooking duties. Spaghetti is our choice of meal to cook.
We soon got to McHenry and found a nice place that we had a burger at. It was one of the better burgers on the trip. After leaving McHenry we went south to pick up Old Highway 67 to get back on route.
The road was busy but had a smooth wide bike lane so we went along at a fairly good clip. I missed the turn because the sign showed it as Bethel Road. I stopped just past and check my phone for location and back tracked.
At this point the other guys were just catching up to me. I also noticed a rider coming from the other direction on Bethel Road. It turns out it was John who had made a wrong turn some miles back.
Then we got back on the road. When we hit the point to get back on route I shed the rest of my cold weather gear. The first time in two days. It is getting warmer.
I'm limping along on my chain choosing to shift only with the chain ring. It seems to cause the chain less distress.
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. As it turns out we didn't save any mileage with our off route course, but it did seem like a good option.
We got to camp and I unloaded my bike and then asked the camp hosts if there was a bike shop in town. It turns out that there wasn't but they knew of a shop that might send someone out. Unfortunately, they are closed on mondays so no bike shop for me today.
I then set up my tent and waited for Mitch to arrive so we could do grocery shopping. Shopping was done, food cooked. Thanks to Shelly who offered to make the salad for us. Dinner went off pretty well.
During the afternoon I formulated a plan to go off route to hit the bike shop, which was about 12 miles south of our location. It looks like it will end up being about the same number of miles going by the shop as if we stay on route.
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