Why make it easy?

Day 19
From North Myrtle Beach SC
To Georgetown SC
Mileage estimated 95
Mileage actual 96 miles
Top speed 22 mph
Riding time 6hrs 34 mins

Just one last picture from Myrtle Beach taken as we got up and set off at 7am.

In my experience, people who lead bike rides regularly never make things easy for the riders. Mike Hutchinson, a great secretary for the Cyclists' Touring Club, who leads a lot of rides at home from Lancaster, can make a 10 mile trip last 60. I didn't attend Route Rap the other night because of Montzuma, the chef at the Italian family buffet, so didn't really know where we were going. Yesterday, during a period of quiet contemplation, I checked Google maps and looked at the route for today. Google maps told me that the distance between the two points was 51 miles and could be reached by a nice gentle ride down the 'prom' with the sea shining away to our left for the duration. Why, then, did the Route map say 95 miles?

Breakfast at 6.30am and load at 7am. Hotel to destination direction is roughly South West. Wind direction, North East and that adds up to a bumper fun day's riding. Wrong. Leave hotel in North Easterly direction INTO WIND and AWAY FROM DESTINATION. Oh. Mike, you'd have loved it!

And that, in a nutshell, is how you turn an easy 51 mile day into a more taxing and testing 96 mile day. Never mind. Why am I here? To ride my bike and see the country, so let's do it.

We had to fight our way through some early morning traffic for about 10 miles then we got onto some country roads passing through our now expected fields of corn, soy, tobacco, cotton and peanuts. One thing I have notice over the past few days is that the corn fields are full of dead corn, overgrown with weeds and seemingly with no effort being made to harvest it. It really does seem to the naked eye to be absolutely scandalous that acres and acres of foodstuffs for both human and animal consumption is left to rot. I wonder if it's another Government subsidy to stop farmers growing other crops? It seems irrational and quite sad.

The cotton, however is getting a bit further on, as promised, the further south we go and I stopped to take a couple of pictures for you today to show how the cotton eventually looks just before it gets picked. The plant is still no higher than two feet off the floor but the buds are opening now and producing what can plainly be seen as cotton ready to be harvested. After I took the photograph, a car pulled up and the driver spoke to us and warned us not to lick our fingers if we had touched the cotton as the plants had been sprayed with some potent poisons to kill the weevils that attack the bolls. We assured him that we had not touched the cotton and took his advice to heart for the future. The open boll in the picture would fit into the palm of your hand.

I also stopped and talked to another farmer about peanut production and if I get to see some growing in the next few days, I will give you an update on that. You see, you will learn something if you stick with me!

We got to the second SAG stop at 60 miles at 11.45am so were making good time. The stop was set up in the car park of the 'Pee Dee Market'. Pee Dee is the name of the region of South Carolina and is named after the native American Indian tribe of the same name; they also gave their name to the Great Pee Dee river which, when we crossed it today, we named the Great Pretty Dirty river as it was a nasty shade of chocolate brown. Anyway, the market. It's a general store in the middle of absolutely nowhere, USA and caters for all sorts of things. It sold food and drink so we decided to stop for lunch as there was nowhere else until our destination. I had some food and a drink and was wandering around the shop area when I saw a glass display cabinet (you can see it on the picture below just above the table and chairs on the left). What you can't see in it are the goods for sale and that. to may astonishment, was ammunition for all sorts of guns, rifles and shotguns; yes, it's a hunting area and hunters use guns, but the ammunition was on open display with a sign on the top of the counter saying, please ring for attention. I asked the man behind the counter if I could buy some and he just asked how much did I want. I just find it quite staggering. I know the vast majority of citizens use their guns responsibly, but the problems that the locals have with gun crime.........

Scott. one of the strongest riders in the group, has been suffering for a couple days since the great Italian Family buffet meal. He did not suffer as badly as I did over the last couple of days and he has been trying to nurse himself through it; I thought he was being just a little too cavalier when he had a couple of John L's mussels at the Irish bar last night and today he really suffered. He started off feeling poorly but still got to the front but then gradually went further and further back until he was actually being caught by my group. I caught up with him on a particularly rough surfaced piece of road and pushed him for about two miles and be battled on when the road got smoother, but today's distance proved too much for him and he had to get the van in to the hotel. He said he felt empty and couldn't ride any further and I fell certain that if the ride the other day had been the same distance and not half of today's I may have ended up in the van myself.

The last 15 miles today were quite tough as we turned back into the wind to get to our destination. It was a little strange getting to a major road junction and seeing a sign saying 'Myrtle Beach 35 miles' and knowing that North MB was only another 10 or so miles further on.

But that's why I ride a bike - because it's enjoyable (though sometimes frustrating!)

All concerns at the moment are on Hurricanes Hannah and Ike which may or may not hit us at any time over the next few days. Weather forecasters are as good over here as at home! We have been told that we will not ride if it is too dangerous, but we are prepared to ride tomorrow. Too right, we are, because we are travelling West and the winds are predicted as North East at 25 - 35 mph and I don't want to miss those!!!!