Practice Tour: St. Augustine

This past weekend i took the new vessel on a one night, 160 mile round trip from Gainesville to St. Augustine. The ride was long for several reasons; i was fatigued from a long ride the previous day, there was a 10mph headwind the whole way and i am still getting used to this bikes speed (SLOW!!) relative to my triathlon bike. Once i finally got to St Augustine though it was quite a relief and i relaxed at a little coffee shop downtown and people watched for a while. I camped at a park on the beach which was really nice until it started raining at 4:30 am. And kept raining… I was slightly anticipating running into some rain but i realized very quickly that i was not prepared at all for the rain. The night before i had called a friend whose parents live in St Augustine and who was on her way back to Miami for school. I got really lucky and she offered to give me a ride back to Gainesville so i could avoid a very uncomfortable 5 hour ride through a steady rain. Now i understand that when on the road i will not be able to magically call on a friend when i need help however the circumstances were that i needed to get back to Gainesville to do work ASAP where as when on tour ill be able to take a lay day anytime i please. Therefore i accepted the ride and learned some very good lessons from this mini excursion:

1. Get proper rain gear!! being wet and cold sucks! Waterproof pants, gloves, helmet cover and shoe covers are needed.

2. Parts of this tour will be lonely. However i am still resolute in doing this solo as being alone puts me outside of my comfort zone and makes me much more determined to meet strangers and chat up locals.

3. This is going to be a wild adventure! The feeling of living out of nothing but a backpack and a bike is exhilarating! Will this be difficult? Yes i think so; will it be worth it? Yes i think so.