Epilogue

November 3, 2014

We finished our too short stay at Wensel House in Natchez. Ron, our B&B host shuttled us to the car rental to pick up a Dodge Dart.

Because the tandem was coupled we did not need to worry about the size of the car rental. In this case, the Dodge Dart was fine. Unfortunately I neglected to take pictures of the bike breaking down into three pieces and fitting into the car. Rhona was most concerned that I not lose any small pieces in the grass, something she had been warned by Jay, the Tandems East mechanic to not let me do.

We were easily able to slide the back 2/3 of the tandem in the rear with the backseat folded down. This capacity to transport a tandem in any car is why we spent extra money on the coupled feature.

It turns out there are hotels and an Enterprise Car rental relatively close to the end of the Parkway. When I checked on line, the prices for the hotels were comparable to our B&B but were not located in the historical district. Ron's generous offer to help pick up the rental meant our stay in Natchez had some flavor and was not more expensive or complicate the logistics.

Thoughts on touring the Natchez Trace:

An autumn tour of the Trace proved to be a good way to extend the cycling season, although the weather got much colder a week after we finished. For tandem riders, the terrain was excellent. The National Park facilities were open including water at all of the marked stops along the road. Bicycling the Trace is probably more interesting than driving it in a car. Historical points of interest were nicely spaced and the National Park map had sufficient detail. We wore our map out, it literally fell apart one day before we finished. The entire route was very scenic although portions of the states we traversed were probably not. The trees and shrubs planted along the Parkway as well as the trimmed grass along the road itself resulted in a pretty view the entire way. Compliments to the state governments, the highway engineers and the law enforcement personnel who have managed to educate the public that bicycles belong on the Parkway. It was the rare exception when we were crowded by a vehicle and only once in eight days were we subjected to any rude or abusive comments from people in a vehicle. Of course dogs were not an issue on the Parkway.

When planning for this tour we decided to not try to camp at all, partly because we didn't have time to fully set up the panniers loaded with camping gear. There were not a lot of camping options on this tour. Mike and Chandra needed to average 90 mile days in order to find camping options on the Trace. Our decision to contact Randy Fought at Natheztracetravel.com. (http://natcheztracetravel.com/biking-the-trace.html Phone 800.377.2770) proved to be a winner. He was knowledgeable about the logistics on the route and informed us of options for obtaining lodging separate from the B&B's he handles when possible. The B&B's and the hosts could not have been better. They were used to hosting cyclists and in fact seemed to prefer to host cyclists. It's nice to be welcomed at the end of a day of cycling.

Rhona usually does not like to do repeat rides of our bicycle tours, but I think I could talk her into a South to North Trace ride sometime when the spring flowers are blooming.

Section for bike geeks only!

We installed an Esge two leg kickstand on this tandem, my first kickstand on a bicycle since I was a kid. Boy, were we glad we did. It was nice to pull into historical sites and not have to search for somewhere to lean the bicycle.

After our return home I was able to sort out some of the mechanical issues we experienced with the help of the folks at Tandems East. Shifting problems diminished as the tour progressed. I would like to attribute this to the tinkering and adjustments I made on the tour. But, the shifting was not ever fixed completely until Mel and Jay at Tandems East fine tuned the derailleurs. I tried to watch closely to what they did, but with two of them going at it, I really had difficulty keeping up. When they were finished, the front and rear shifting was crisp and clean. Thinking back on what may have contributed to the problem originally, I suspect the way I connected the cable couplers may have caused the shifting problems. One end of the cable coupler spins on the cable, while the other does not. I fear that when connecting the cables, I may have been twisting the wrong end causing the cable to be twisted, shortening the length of the cables.

The computer problem was an easier fix. I had violated my rule to always replace a battery whenever taking a computer off of a bicycle or moving to a different bicycle. In this instance, after one day the transmitting battery died. When replacing the battery in the dim light I did not notice a piece of metal inside the transmitter sticking out which needed to be bent out so that it made good contact with metal running to the negative pole of the battery. Once I pried this piece out and with a new battery, the computer worked correctly. However, it still was inaccurate when the headlight was in the "strobe" setting. I suspected there was radio interference from the light and was not able to mount the light on the handlebars in a location far enough away from the transmitter. Finally, I gave up and just mounted a Knogg Blinder 4 light, which does not interfere.

The most significant problem and the one that potentially could have prematurely ended the tour was with the White Industries rear hub. This one initially stumped even Mel and Jay. They noticed a slight resistance when the wheel spun on the axle. They had me hold the axle with a pincer grasp and then spun the wheel, but I couldn't feel the resistance. They then had me rest the axle on my index fingers held parallel to the floor. This time, when the wheel was spun I could just sense a subtle tug each time the wheel rotated. That resistance was what was causing the "chain suck" when coasting. After disassembling the hub, Mel noticed (what I'm calling) a spacer or thin washer was missing from the hub. After replacing the part, the hub spun perfectly and when installed on the bike the problem was gone. I was frustrated on the tour to be having problems, some of which I may have caused, but I don't know that I could expect Tandems East to have detected a defective new hub when they built the wheel, especially when it did not create functional problems until the bike had 250 miles on it. I guess the lesson for me is to do longer shakedown rides before going to long tours.

We rode with the front and rear strobe lights on the entire trip. We noticed that some cars were hard to see in shadows from the trees and decided the lights were needed for us to be more visible. Two water bottles each were sufficient to last us between water supplies although we rarely passed up an opportunity to top them off. We liked the Continental Gatorskin 700 x 28 tires that were stock on the new tandem. Compared to the heavy bombproof Schwalbe tires we were used to on our Cannondale, these rolled easily and never flatted. Truthfully, there is so little debris or glass on the Parkway that even lighter duty tires would probably be sufficient for the Parkway. Both tires show significant wear after 500 loaded tandem miles. I suspect I'll be thinking about replacing them at 2,000 miles.

Temperatures ranged from too hot (88 degrees) to too cold (29 degrees) on this tour. Wool was the right fabric. I've become a fan of smartwool shirts that I can wear under a cycling jersey. Fortunately I brought two this time because Rhona wore one of them plus my wool cycling sweater. On sunny days I usually wore some white arm warmers, although much of their value was providing protection from the sun. We both wore cycling sandals all week. On the coldest day, with wool socks I had cold toes and Rhona's were numb. I wore a pair of thin wool gloves under cycling gloves two of the days and they were adequate. Rhona's hands were colder. I didn't notice until later she neglected to bring warm gloves and survived with just her cycling gloves. Evenings I wore a travel shirt and a pair of light weight REI travel pants, which looked absolutely horrible. I need to rethink my "off the bike attire" for future tours.

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