The "Slow Me" Tour: A St. Charles Walkabout 9/30/16

A nice rest day. We slept in, then had a leisurely hotel breakfast (a pretty good one, just not a sumptuous one). We took a nice long walk, starting along Main Street, a ten-block Nationally Registered Historic District with brick-lined streets, original buildings, and antique gas lights from the 19^th century. We also checked out the local bike shop and confirmed we can get good air* there in the morning, and then made a quick stop at the visitor center. After touring the historic district, we went in search of a convenience store for a few items for our trip back towards Clinton. We ended up at Dollar General, where Rob purchased his obligatory Dr. Pepper and Diane her Monster Moca Loca Java – energy drinks. Both will be used on our next 50 mile day. Other cyclist provisions included two candy bars, cheese sticks and a can of Beanee Weenee (original style). We are now set to ride!

We’ve now settled back in the hotel, Diane and Rob

*For those who are new to our cycling blog, when we say a place with good air this connotes someplace where they have a good air hose with enough pressure to fill our high pressure bike tires (up to 120 psi on our road bikes). This is not as much an issue with our gravel bikes with their 60 psi wide profile tires – but I have tried to use the stationary bike pumps found at the trail head stations --two of which proved to be in disrepair resulting in me having less air in my tire after trying to use the pumps. This led to me using my trusty hand-pump. No tragedy but still a bummer. Rob