Right now I am Roanoke. On Saturday I left Kingsport and ran into bicycle issues right away. 30 miles and it was already 11AM. By the time I left it was close to 1. Thank goodness for Chad, at Roswell Bicycle, who walked me through fixing my brakes over the phone. I only made it to Marion which set me back about 30 miles so yesterday's ride was long and very steep, not to mention the fact that I woke up to yet another flat tire.

I passed over my first mountain going into Pulaski. Draper Mountain. It was about a 2 mile climb (14%, ed) and I didn't know what the heck was going on. Up until then the hills were steep but short and I can deal with that. I literally cried as I pushed my body to its limits. Then came the down hill and I screamed at the top of my lungs, "IT WAS WORTH IT!" as I went soaring down the other side. It was quite an adventure.

I also got pulled over for riding on the freeway but the thing was, 11N kind of became 81 and I didn't feel like trying to work my way around it. When the first exit came that said service road, I opted to stay on the main road. All and all I got about 14 miles in. There was a very nice shoulder and the heavy fast moving traffic offered a nice little draft. The only really scary part was when 81N and 75N/S merged and I was forced to cross two lanes of freeway to stay straight on 81. WHOA!