Day 18 - May 8

Motor Car
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After returning to the hotel last night - around 10:00pm - I needed to find some wheels - preferably 4 wheels - for a sprint across the midwest.  Yes, Tour de Fletch does include motor-powered conveyance and fast lanes.  This part of the tour is for those that find the pace of the bicycle painfully slow.  At the beginning of the Tour, I knew I had 30 days to spend getting from Charlottesville to Bozeman.  Why 30 days?  2 reasons.  One, my good friend and co-worker Doug Hammell was getting married to Stacey Kniepkamp on May 20.  I've worked with Doug at North Star Consulting Group for 5 years now - and we have become close friends.  He and Stacey have become a part of our family.  So, missing this wedding was a non-starter.  Secondly, 30 days was the limit to Brigitte's mental capacity.  Single parenting for 30 days was as much as she could agree to.  There just isn't enough caffeine or alcohol in the State of Montana to get you beyond 30 days without incurring a vacation at Warms Springs (our equivalent of the Bull Street resort in South Carolina).

Here we go!
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Charlottesville to Bozeman is 3000 miles if you follow the TransAmerica Bike Trail.  Do the math.  3000 miles in 30 days - that's 100 miles a day - on a bike.  Well, I wasn't sure what I was capable of.  But, I knew it wasn't likely to be near 100.  My plan from the beginning was to ride as far as I could from Virginia in about 2 weeks - assess my situation - then rent a car and blast across the midwest.  My apologies to the folks from Kansas.  Being a southern boy at heart - I wanted to ride across Virginia and Kentucky.  And, having converted over to a mountain man - I wanted to make sure that I rode the stretch from Colorado to Montana.  So, that's where I'm at.  I've rented a Chevy Grand Am - here at the airport near Carbondale - and I'm riding like mad down I-70 for two days headed for Fort Collins, CO.  At that point, I think I can make it home with 9 days of bike time remaining.  Fort Collins was the closest place to the bike route that I could return a rental car.  So, I've loaded up the bike and the Nomad in the Gram Am - trailer in trunk- bike in car.  I'm heading from Carbondale north 100 miles to St. Louis.  In St. Louis I'll pick up I-70 to Denver - the bulk of the road trip.  In Denver I'll head north on I-25 to Fort Collins.  Talk to you in a couple of days.  I should be able to get Internet access at the Colorado State University library tomorrow evening.  Or wherever/whenever I can.  I hope to start biking again on Wednesday morning.  Take care.

Yes, Tour de Fletch does include motor-powered conveyance and fast lanes.