Ride pics
 

These are from my 86 mile ride. I started at the Arkansas/Oklahoma border and rode back home.
5am a friend dropped me off.
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Fort Chaffee. Elvis went to boot camp here. We had the cuban rufugees in 1980, and Biloxi Blues was filmed here.
You can tell it started out foggy. The traffic around chaffee was bad as well. No shoulder, fog and road construction.:twitchy:
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Bombing range at the back of Chaffee. The red flag means the range is hot, but I didn't get to see any jets.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...h/100_1734.jpg
My bike finally feels at home. I have a Roubaix.:D
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Subiaco Abbey.
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I stopped by to see an old friend. He was my best friend from 1st - 12th grades. He couldn't handle his parents
getting a divorce. Teenage suicide. He has been dead longer than he was alive and I still miss him. I haven't been
by there in a long time and the cemetery was along the way. I was glad I stopped.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...h/100_1744.jpg
For all you golf fans. About a mile down this road is where Jon Daly lived. I went to school with him.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...h/100_1745.jpg
I have never felt so bad on a ride before in my life and this wasn't that hard of a ride for me. I still am not sure
what was wrong. But within 10 miles of the house I flatted. It was hard to change it and finish the ride. I wanted to
call for a ride real bad but I changed it and went on. I'm glad I did now, but it sucked then.
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/f...h/100_1746.jpg
Thats all I have.

Nice pics. get some rest.

Thanks for the pictures!!!!

How many miles? I have had fog recently and decided it was time to be off of the roads. Too many idiots driving way too fast for the conditions.

86 miles. The longest this year was 115 and I felt good after. Not so this time.
The fog was crazy. They are widening the road outside of Ft. Smith, so for about 5 miles I had fog, a 2 ft drop off where they are digging to put the new road, The orange and white barrels, and bumper to bumper about 6 inches away. Most stressful ride yet.

Sorry, but I don't see "epic failure" in any of this. It looks like a good time in retrospect.

Hey b_young glad you got your fall ride in even though it was not your planned Ft. Smith to Helena ride. Nice pics. I recognize most of them. Nice history lesson along the way. Thanks for the pics and descriptions. I recently did the metric century at Helena in the Tour da Delta. I hit a deer on the way there from Searcy at 5:30AM near Des Arc. Not much damage to car, so keep going to make the ride. Forgot that Helena is built on Crowley's Ridge so I was shocked to see so many hill climbs beginning at mile 30. My longest ride to date.

Congrats on the Delta ride. Sorry for the car and the deer. How are the roads (surface, traffic...) on that side of the state?

Part of the ride was in Mississippi and the roads there were pretty rough with open expansion joints (Not to mention the wind). Some decent shoulders. The ride on the Helena side was ok. Some of the roads near the climb up Crowley's Ridge were smooth, but Hwy 49 and 49 bypass were rough. 49 bypass had some very wide shoulders which was nice since the traffic on that 4 lane was pretty fast. All in all not a bad ride, but will probably not be one of my favorites as I add more tours to my list.