day 6: greenville to clarksdale, mississippi 83 miles

another hot and flat day riding through the farmlands along the mississippi.  temps were over 100 degrees again today; even 98 in the shade (we take the average of all the bike computer readouts and use that when we all either report home or write up our evening blogs).  more corn and wheat fields and, for the first time...rice paddies.  okay, it's not the best of photos.  very different from the paddies i've seen in japan and china.

the rice paddies of mississippi

rosedale turned out to be much less than my romantic expectations had hoped it might be.  whatever was driving robert johnson to get there 80 years ago wasn't there when we rode through.  what we saw instead was a very quiet, run down town with a smattering of churches, gas stations and a handful of homes.

riding with four others today (doug - retired air force/american airlines pilot from texas; dan - retired exec with mead johnson from indiana; rolly - retired lawyer from iowa; and bill - retired naval officer from colorado) we all kept up a steady pace line, averaging over 15 miles per hour for the last 60 miles of this leg; and that includes slowing or stopping for traffic intersections, water stops and the occasional dog in the road.  to continue a pace line, each rider leads the group, riding for a given period of time (we each took turns pulling one mile at a time) before peeling off to the back of the line as the next rider takes over leading the pack.  we all cycle, no pun intended, up through the line until it's our turn to lead the pack.  when we were really cranking, we were averaging upwards of 17 miles per hour for over half an hour at a clip.

and one last note:  road hazards.  they come in all shapes and sizes.  

i mentioned dogs before.  down here in the south, it's not uncommon in rural areas for dogs to roam freely on properties.  as such, there's always the danger of aggressive dogs trying to chase you down or, worse, attacking cyclists on their local roads.  a couple of days ago, a bunch of us had to deal with five large dogs coming out in the road and getting very aggressive.  this morning, we had to deal with two pit bulls.  sometimes you can outride them; sometimes you have to yell or distract them to avoid attacks.  fortunately this morning, they were all bark and no bite.

other road hazards include all varieties of critters that didn't quite make it across the road in time.  down here, that means lots of dead armadillos and raccoons.  

but the worst are the rough roads themselves.  down in the south, as well as in many parts of the west, country roads aren't fully paved.  in some cases, as was the situation for about three miles this morning, they are just gravel roads.  always tough on cyclists and especially their tires.  but equally as nasty and far more prevalent are roads with just a cursory paving.  the process is known as "chip and seal."  while main highways are fully repaved and smooth, municipalities often take the easy way out when it comes to repaving worn out roads.  that cheaper process, chip and seal, involves coating a road with a petroleum, tar base ("seal") and pouring crushed gravel over it.  eventually the weight of car traffic helps to create a smoother road surface.  in metropolitan areas, the crushed gravel, or "chip," is usually ground very small.  however, out here in rural areas, the chip size can be at least half an inch or more.  driving on those roads with heavy trucks and other farm equipment is no problem.  however, when you ride a bike over that rough a surface for miles at a time, you can feel the fillings in your teeth rattling.