Stage 11: Trussville, Alabama to Tunica, Mississippi. 282 miles.

The morning of riding started out nicely enough, safe for fighting with rush hour traffic in Birmingham. Made our way in a northwesterly direction, through many small towns including Jasper, Alabama where we just happened to pass by our good friend Carla Gunter on the side of the road. Weather was fairly decent, overcast skies with a few drops but nothing that required a rain suit (which Nikki Hancock and I conveniently decided we wouldn’t need to bring today). Early in the afternoon we found our way into some nice two lane roads across the Mississippi state line and enjoyed some sunshine and moderate temperatures. The sunshine however, didn’t last long and we watched the skies in front of us turn darker and nastier looking.

.

With no rain gear and no other option, we dove head first into the abyss shortly after an emergency checkpoint to receive alternate routing due to flash flooding. Luckily the rain we faced for the last 60 miles of the day wasn’t as torrential as what we faced on Saturday, but it was still pretty intense and we spent a lot of time hunkered down behind the retractable Hanson Sport Shield windshield mounted to the handlebars of the ‘28. Our group managed to stretch our fuel stop to almost 80 miles from the normal 60-65 and coasted into the last fuel station on fumes.

.

.

Tonight’s work regimen was just standard chain adjustments and tightening the front intake valve pocket nut to lock down the intake tower. Tomorrow morning we will cross the Mighty Mississippi River on our way to Arkadelphia, Arkansas.