Tour de Lakes 2000

 

Tour de Lakes 2000
4th year
a fully loaded bicycle tour

3/28/00
Tour de Lakes is 6 weeks away.
Are your going?
Are you ready?

It will be a short trip this year, only 4 days ,3 nights, est. 300+ miles, May 12-15.
It will be a fun trip, after day 3 you will never want to go home!

You must be a current member of either the Carolina Tarwheels or North Carolina Bicycle Club and have signed their respective release / waiver of liability statement to participate in this tour. There is no registration fee for this tour and we only want a few good cyclist. This is a fully loaded tour with tent camping each night and eating at camp site, food prepared by you!

It is unsettled as to where we will start. Possibilities are: we may start from Jerry Allen’s in north Durham or may start from Blue Jay Point north Wake CT, or may start from Jack Powell’s/Ed Downing’s house south Raleigh. I will work out details after we know who is going. People in Chapel Hill/Durham may want to leave from there and meet Raleigh people on the road or at HYCO Lake. If we start from Jack’s/Ed’s house, it is at least 90 miles day 4 from Kerr Dam to Jacks' via Knightdale / Auburn( we do not have to ride through Raleigh); 70miles to Jerry’s.

The tentative plan is to go:
day 1 Your base (start point) to HYCO Lake, NC,
day 2 HYCO to Stanuton River Park, VA
day 3 Staunton river Park to North Bend Park @ Kerr Dam,VA
day 4 North Bend to your base.

This tour is a vacation for some, an AoMM training ride for some, and a training tour for others before they go to France this summer. These mean dogs will be pushing their pace. So, if you are a newcomer to TdL, please try hard to be fit. You should log a minimum of 500 miles(1000 preferred) before departure and have test ridden your touring bike loaded for 50 miles. We are self supported and what we carry is all we have and each other, that is why you need to be fit, it behooves you to keep up and not get dropped, unless you have your personal riding buddy with you to go your speed. The Core Group will have an avg. rolling pace of 13.-14 mph. avg.( this is fast for loaded touring). We expect to be on the road about 7 hour each day including our stops, from point to point.

We wake up 6 AM each morning and leave camp by 9AM, each day. (After 9 AM, there is 10 hr. available light this time of year)

We will have maps and queue sheets. Plus, General Jerry, Captain Jack and Oh Melo Ed are familiar with the territory and can point the way, (we never get lost, just bewildered).

Distance will be about 75+ miles per day. But you should have your condition sufficient to do a century , if necessary. Because, you never know when a culvert may be being replaced by DOT or rain cause high water or even a bridge will be out completely, thus a detour is always very possible.

The cost of camp sites will be divided by the number of cyclist each day. We will optimize the number of sites to the number of cyclist to the groups advantage.

We will share a bag of ice at camp each day, if ice is available, and whatever we can find to melt it.

There will be no Laundromat stop this year, wear 1 and bring 3 set of clothes, or wash by hand. No roughing it please.

There is a local convenient store at end of day 1. We stop at Food Lion for food day 2 at South Boston VA, stop for food @ Food Lion day 3 at Chase City VA. There is also a country grocery store at Dam at end of Day 3.

If you do not have a light weight stove, it is possible you may be able to share with another cyclist. This has to be worked out before departure and you will be expected to help haul camp fuel. We will attempt to match up people, one stove serves three people well.

You must have your own tent and sleep set, also you haul it so keep it light.

We will try to carry and share an emergency tarp, you may be ask to haul it one day (6 lb). We will carry one set of tools and share as needed.

You must carry two tubes, patch kit, air, boot, spare tire optional.

 

Please reply by April 22 ,if you plan to go.
Questions, e-mail jdpowell.com@juno.com

Jack Powell
Tour Director


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