Trace done

Mark it down as done.

Avery and I completed our ride on the Natchez Trace last week. We pedaled up from Natchez to Tupelo. We hauled ourselves and all our stuff up under our own power. One day – Wednesday – was perfect in every respect on the tandem. Each of the other five days had various degrees of difficulty.

I’ll have more in store, but for now, two notes only.

You’ll note on the home page of the blog links to the short videos Avery and I made each day of the ride. We made ourselves laugh.

Second, a few numbers from the ride:

735 photos shot

328 miles pedaled

37 hours, 2 minutes spent in the saddle-ish

6 days of pedaling

51, 66, 8, 71, 83, 48 daily miles logged Sunday through Friday, respectively

12,225 feet of elevation gained, or 2.3 miles on the week

21 cyclists encountered on the Trace (6 more cyclists seen on the Tanglefoot Trail)

7 days in a row I ate grits for breakfast

7 days in a row Avery ate bacon at breakfast

1 pair of cleats failed (1 pair of replacement cleats hauled along and swapped in)

16,750 calories burned, according to the spurious calculations of my cycling app

36.5 mph, top speed recorded

145,735 Blackeyed susans passed

0 mechanical failures, including zero flat tires