Day 48. Down day in Greenville, NC

 A day off in Greenville, NC to explore James' home town, rest and maintain our bikes. In Angela's case we had to tackle a creaking sound coming from her right peddle.  It actually had started back before she left the ride in central Kentucky. She took it to a bike shop in Indiana and they replaced a shifter cable and turned off the indexing of the rear derailleur but the creaking sound continued. If you're not a bike geek, you might want to skip to the next picture. 🙁 

I had a similar issue on my road bike in the past and the creaking sound ended up coming from my bike shoe. I tried tightening the clips, greasing them, etc. and it wasn't until I got a new pair of shoes that it went away. So we tried lubricating  Angela'a SPD clips, changing them, even having her try my shoes or borrow a new pair of pedals from James. In the end, after trying what I could do myself the local bike shop that James rides with replaced the bottom bracket pedal bearings (where the pedal crank attaches to the frame). A bit disappointed that Angela's REI Randonee bike  which is less than a year old and had less than 3,000 miles on it needs new bearings but the bike technician wasn't too surprised. In any case, $95 and 6 hours later we had the problem solved!!

 I found this BikeMS Carolinas brochure at the bike store. They have their event in September. Don't forget to support mine on June 25-26th after I return home from this trip by clicking on http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Scotts_MS150_page

I'm almost half way to my goal of $5,000!

 

Tweaking and inspecting our bikes on James' deck today, nothing as major or difficult as Angela's bike. Both mine and John's bikes are holding up well including the tires and chains. I also went around and tightened up some loose nuts, unfortunately I missed the nut on the left in this picture.  😀

 While Angela subjected herself to a 90 minute massage (including her stomach 😱 ) us boys had lunch at one of James' favorite places in Greenville, Christy's Euro Pub. We had tried to have dinner there the night before but it was too packed. Lunch time today was a very comfortable crowd and eating on the patio was perfect.

James cooked us an excellent shrimp boil for dinner with potatoes, corn, sausage and of course shrimp. Wendy and her lovely daughter Olivia joined us. John took care of the appetiters with his personal trademark and now famous salami, cheese, and apple slices on a hard brown cracker plus hummus and pita chips. We also had margaritas on the rocks. 🍸

Thanks to James for his hospitality and support touring through parts of Virginia and North Carolina as well as the tour of Greenville and Eastern N. Carolina University today. It's a great town and college and was an enjoyable and productive day off.  Tomorrow we get back on our bikes and head east towards the Arlantic and the Outer Banks. Just three more days of riding and the cross country cycling part of our adventure will be over!👍