Friday, July 28, 2017

I Got Wet

Day 55 - 7/28/17 - Elizabethtown, KY to Springfield, KY - 54 Miles

Average Speed - Nothing to sneeze at

Lodging - Springfield Inn

Today it misted, drizzled and rained on me pretty much from start to finish.  It was a pleasant change to be wet from precipitation instead of wet from perspiration.

After a wonderful night at Ralph and Pam's home, I was back on the road at 7:30 AM.  About 10 miles into the ride, I reached down to shift to my granny gear and nothing happened.  My front derailleur was completely frozen.  No up...no down...it was stuck solidly on the middle chain ring.  Knowing the hills that awaited me, I knew this was bad.  Scanning the map for bike shops, I realized that there weren't any in my foreseeable future, I knew this was bad.  The first town I came to, I stopped at an auto store and bought some WD-40.  I sprayed the derailleur down liberally and tried working it by hand, it barely moved, I knew this was bad.  I finally gave up and started riding again giving the lubricant time to do its magic.

Just outside the town of Loretto, I came across this eerie site.

There were dozens of the huge black buildings on each side of the road.  Was this some kind of secret military facility?  Negative.

These are storage warehouses for barrels of Maker's Mark bourbon.  Just think, in these buildings, with each passing day and year, millions of gallons of bourbon is slowly aging and becoming smooth.

As I neared the town of Springfield, the rain really started in earnest and so...being wet and dealing with a stuck derailleur, I decided to get a motel.  I've been riding 70ish mile days for a while now and I was glad to be stopping at 53.

After getting all settled in my room, I spent a couple hours working on freeing up my derailleur.  I'm happy to report that I got it working again.

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