After a 3:15 am wake up Susi took me to the Des Moines airport. There were no issues with checking the bike box and my duffel bag of gear and the plane took off on time at 6:00 am. The flight to Milwaukee only took about an hour and the flight to Atlanta didn't take off until 1:35 pm so I had a considerable layover. This allowed me to charge my iPod nano and listen to some tunes (slept through most of them). The second leg to Atlanta and the last leg to Pensacola were both on time. At the baggage claim in Pensacola the gear bag was on the carousel when I arrived but not the bike box. The carousel finally stopped but still no bike box. I was about to walk to the baggage service office when the carousel started again and out came the box. I wished I'd taken a picture of it before I touched it. All the hand holes were ripped wide open and a third of the bottom was torn open. I had packed two plastic bags of pieces/parts and dropped them in the box. It looked like the bottom got wet in Milwaukee (it rained all day). Anyway, I looked in the box and it appeared nothing was damaged and all the pieces/parts were still there so I dragged it upside down (the top was fine and TSA actually did a great job of re-taping the top after they inspected the box) to the taxi. It was a pretty short ride from the airport to the MainStay Suites where I am staying the night. I had to drag the box upside down to the registration desk then to the room. I unboxed everything, didn't find any damage and everything I'd placed inthe box was still there. I assembled the bike and rode around the parking lot to make sure everything was working correctly. Then I reassembled Al's bike trailer and loaded all my gear. Below is a photo of the equipment I'll be riding the next 11 days to St. Augustine. I'm planning to take off tomorrow morning at 9:00 am and riding to the Microtel in Gulf Shores, AL where the rest of the group is staying tomorrow night. According to Google Maps the route I picked is about 45 miles so I should be there by 3:00 pm. The first 15 miles will be urban riding so that will go slower than the rest. I hope the route I picked works! The guy at the motel desk said there are two bridges that are fairly steep. The Trek 1000 is not geared for much of a hill with the trailer so I may end up walking part of the bridges if I don't have enough "umph" to get to the top. I assume the Microtel will have WI-FI tomorrow night so I'll let you know how it went. Of course I have to ride back over these bridges the next day as we ride from Gulf Shores, AL to Milton, FL.
Fred
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| Fred's Backup Equipment - Trek 1000 pulling a Burley Nomad trailer. |
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