Update #35 - September 21, 2004
Americus, GA - 9,595.7 miles (15,353.1 kms.)

It has been one year to this date since I've last been in Americus. I had originally planned to be here around Aug 18th but I felt that it was needed of me to be in Florida to help out with Hurricanes Charley and Frances. I wished that I could write and say that I had made it all the way here on my own power but I cannot.

Yesterday was not a good day. I did have a good stop in Valdosta, GA. I had stopped at the United Methodist Church for the Sunday night chapel service. Instead of letting me stay in the church for the night, the head pastor offered to get me a room at a motel a few blocks from the church. I got on the road around 8:15 a.m. The ride through Valdosta on U.S. 41 went okay.

The ride to Tifton went okay even though I had a bit of a headwind to deal with. I made it into Tifton around 3:45 p.m. and found my way over to the First United Methodist Church. I was looking forward to visit with Pastor Gerry who was my pastor at the First United Methodist Church in Americus before he got transferred to Tifton. It was a little discouraging for me when I found out that he was out of town till this coming Wednesday. I didn't think that I could make another contact with a minister in Tifton so I decided to at least ride on to Ashburn. Being that it was a much smaller town, I thought that I would have a better chance to connect with a minister there. From Ashburn, it would have been a 52 mile ride to Americus.

I was making pretty good time from Tifton and I thought that I would get into Ashburn between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. It didn't happen this way. Around 5:45 p.m. and about 13 miles out of Ashburn, I started to notice a really strange bumping sensation through my hands. It didn't correspond with the bumpiness of the road shoulder. When I switched over to riding a little to the left of the white line, I noticed that the bumpiness got much worse. I stopped to check it out.

I found a really big bulge in the tread of the tire. Somehow, the intregrity of the tire had been comprimised. I took the took the wheel off the bike to see what was wrong. In about a four inch long section, the wire webbing that gives the tire it's shape and strength had seperated from the inside rubber lining. There wasn't much rubber covering the rest of the wire webbing. I might have bought a defective tire. All, I could think now was $20 down the toilet and no paddle to row with.

There was no way that I could fix the tire and I didn't have a spare 16 inch front tire on the bike. I was lucky to have this tire. The tire was less than 5 days old on the bike. I had bought it in the Daytona Beach, FL area after finding out that the spare tire that I had on the bike had been cut (it possibly happened from the bad encounter with the AmeriCorp guy who was with the Red Cross strikeforce team in Ft. Pierce, FL). I had tried 3 bike shops to get it and this was the only tire my size that the bike shop had.

I was a little concerned when I bought the tire since it was so low-pressure (rated for 45 p.s.i.). Usually, the tires that I use are rated for 85 p.s.i. The last tire that did last for around 5,000 miles was rated for 55 p.s.i. though. The thing that I think caused the tire failure was the really bad roads that I rode along between White Springs, FL and Valdosta, GA. The pavement between Jennings, FL and the Georgia state line was really bad since the pavement was really buckled like an old washboard. It was really bumpy and you had to get almost into the middle of the lane where heavy trucks had worn down a groove before the bumpiness smoothed out. I had to have ridden about six miles of this washboard road. Also in Georgia, there was a rumble strip pretty well the whole width of the shoulder. There was a sort-of smooth patch of pavement about 3 inches wide between the white line and the rumble strip. The white line was rough and it forced you onto the rumble strip. Traffic speeds of 60 m.p.h. didn't allow me to ride to the left of the white line.

All, I could do was to put the wheel together again and either walk to or try and get a ride to Ashburn in the hopes that I could find a payphone and call the friend in Americus who I was going to stay with and see if he could come and get me. I tried hitch-hiking but nobody offered to stop and give me a ride. There must have been about a hundred cars and trucks that had swerved around me. The tire was unsafe to ride on without fear of a blow-out and a possbile crash. The also recourse that I had was to walk and hope that there was a payphone before Ashburn. Right around dusk around 7:30 p.m., the front tube went flat. I didn't have a spare tube on hand. To top it all off, the batteries in my rear flasher and headlight were getting dimmer by the minute.

It was around 9:15 p.m. when I finally found a payphone in the small town of Sycamore (three miles south of Ashburn). I had walked and pushed the bike almost ten miles. I was feeling quite dejected, hungry, and thirsty when I got to Sycamore. It was around 9:35 p.m. when I was finally able to use the payphone because a lady was talking to somebody on the phone and I also had to wait for a freight train to roll pass. My friend arrived around 10:50 p.m. and we made it to his house a little before midnight.

Now, the big thing is to find a new front tire. There are no bike shops within 40 miles of Americus. There used to be a bike shop in Albany and I think that the next biggest city that might have a bike shop is Macon. I'll have to call them and possibly have them order a tire for me. Hopefully, my friend, Richard, could take me and get it on Saturday if I can get one ordered today. I also have to hope that I have the funds on hand to pay for the tire. I really needed to use my money to buy a new pair of tennis shoes since I had to Super-Glue them last week also.

This might have also been a way that the L-RD chose to force me to slow down and take some time off the road. Today is the first day that I haven't done any riding or helped someone through disaster relief in 2 months. My last day off was July 20th in Reno, Ohio along the Ohio River. I had ridden almost 3,000 miles since then.

Thanks do have to go out to the First United Methodist Churches in Titusville, FL and Valdosta, GA; the First Baptist Churches in Harbor Oaks and Palatka, FL; the Ministerial Association in the Flagler Beach - Palm Coast, FL area; and the police department in Flagler Beach, FL who provided me hospitality and a place to stay for the night between Rockledge, FL and Americus, GA. Special prayers go Heavenwards for Rev. David Waller of the First United Methodist Church in Titusville who recently got out of the hospital for heart surgery.

I will possibly be off the road till at least next Monday. I'm looking at possibly riding to the Gulf Coast to see what I can do with the recovery effort after Hurricane Ivan. I'll try and post and update as often as I can if my plans change again.