Day 11 – Berea, KY to Bardstown, KY

Day 11 – Bruce has been a monster the past 11 days and took the day off feeling under the weather (see what I did there) and as I woke up and went down to breakfast and walked outside to see what the day had in store – it looked like a scene from Carnivale. Once I got on the road – it rained for the first 10 miles – then it cleared up pretty well. But not before some drama. Somewhere in miles 1-5 I made a wrong turn which put me about 7 miles south of the intended route which may explain what you are about to read.

Wild Pack of Family Dogs

Listen to this Modest Mouse song while you read this 🙂 So we’ve talked a bit about dogs already. Here in Kentucky – many people have dogs to protect their property. Turns out a few have a pack of them to keep cyclists from passing. After about 8 miles in where I had just dropped off my rain gear in my dad’s car, i approached a small uphill and saw a white dog sitting in the road. He started coming toward me, so I yelled stop. He then barked once, and literally 4 other various size dogs appeared. At this time – it was time to turn around. Luckily, Art was not far behind. At this point, 5 dogs were heading quickly towards me as I was retreating. Now I’m like – WTF… how am I going to get by. So I get in the car, hold the bike out the window, and have to freaking driving by the dogs. While we are driving by the property, we find a few more dogs chained up, meaner looking than the others, as well as the other dogs are literally like 2 feet from the car and the bike. We had to continue until we were out of site and only then could I get out of the car and continue the journey.

The rest of the morning was mostly an uneventful rolling hill marathon up to Danville. I stopped at a hunting store and got an 89 cent gatorade, and had some fried chicken for lunch. Continuing on route US150/KY52 the wind had really picked up. I’m talking like 15-25mph winds. I muscled on for another 15 miles to the point that 2 trucks came within about 2 feet of me – while I was 2 feet from the right side of a 12 foot shoulder w/warning bumps. :/ At that point the ridiculousness of things got the better of me and I caught a ride into Bardstown. So about 43 miles today, half of it into a pretty strong headwind.

Tomorrow is a pretty quick 52 mile day then another day of rest before we finish out the last of Kentucky over the weekend.