Best. Bike Shop. Ever!
By admin | May 6, 2011
Wednesday, May 4
Chattahoochee, GA to Tallahassee, FL
43 miles according to Google Maps
Look, I really was in Georgia. My campground was about a mile over the border. You can see the change in the street surface at the state line. I think states try to dis each other by having a nicer looking road on their side of the line.
I went right back to Florida in the morning to get back on route, and promptly climbed up the two steepest hills in Florida. I don’t know where those came from!
At lunch, I stopped at Piggly Wiggly. I have always loved macaroni and cheese from the grocery store deli. But they didn’t have any! So I ate fried chicken instead. Mr. McMillan, the gentleman who crashed into me, happened to see me stop, so he came in to apologize to me again. He’s very sweet, and I know he never meant to hurt anyone! I just hope he is looking where he is going!
A little later, I pulled into a gas station and my rack fell off the back of the bike, panniers and all! I wish I had a picture of that, but I was behind a UPS truck that was about to start backing up when it happened. A Pepsi delivery guy helped me carry it out of the way. When I got everything apart, I could see how the slots in the brackets where the bolts go were wrenched open, probably from the accident. If I had some washers, it would hold for at least a little while.
Luckily, the Pepsi delivery truck back gate lift was broken, and when their repair guy showed up, he had washers and better tools. He helped me put it back together and I went on my way.
There were a bunch of bike shops in Tallahassee, but the Bicycle House was right on the Adventure Cycling route. I couldn’t have ended up anyplace better! The owner, Scott, was a former bike racer, and was hoping to one day have a hostel for touring cyclists in addition to the shop, or possibly a series of hostels. His girlfriend, Laura, is a biochem student. Their shop is a non-profit community organization. They fed me dinner, and I zoned out while Scott put new brackets on my rack, tightened up my headset, straightened my brakes, and installed a third odometer. Had I mentioned that the accident killed my new odometer?
Their small, black dog Beauty, ran around underfoot while a steady stream of locals came in to work on their bikes, chat, or think about buying stuff. Jake and another Scott worked on their fixies. Roy came in late to work on his bike, but then wanted to see my pictures from the trip, so I showed him all of them. Laura and Scott have an interesting apartment behind the shop, with bath mats made out of old bike inner tubes and lamps made of other bike parts. They invited me to sleep on their couch, and I was so thankful not to have to go any farther. I was so tired, I even passed up ice cream!
I was pretty crabby about being hit by a car, but being surrounded by great people who love biking made me excited to get back on the road!
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