Last Coca-Cola of the trip. Maybe ever. (Thanks to Barbara for a bunch of these photos!)

Well, that’s it. At a little before noon today, we walked our bikes onto the beach at Anastasia State Park, doused each other in celebratory Coca-Cola, and just like that, our 49-day bike ride became something we did, and not something we’re doing. Maybe tomorrow I will realize it’s over, but I haven’t quite processed it yet.

Tony put together a very special playlist for our short ride into St. Augustine today, including:

• The A-Team Theme
• Eye of the Tiger – Survivor
• Hold On – Wilson Phillips
• We Built This City – Starship
• Kickstart My Heart – Motley Crue
• Blackened – Metallica
• Angelf&#% – The Misfits
• King Of The Road – Roger Miller

We flew down Highway 207 all the way here, and were welcomed by a screaming woman wearing a Big City Mountaineers T-shirt about a block before we were to ride over the Bridge of Lions. Barbara Bain and her daughter Alli had driven down from Jacksonville to greet us and escort us to the beach. We biked a short few miles on A1A and rolled onto sand, took some photos, and turned around and rode to A1A Cycle Works to drop off our bikes for shipment.

Now I’m off my bike. Which means I lived through the bike ride of my life.

Then I ate a 32-ounce jar of mayonnaise to fulfill a fundraising obligation. Graphic 25-minute video forthcoming.

And, as it would turn out, the man who founded Big City Mountaineers, Jim Kern, happens to live in St. Augustine. And he wanted to take us out for dinner. Jim had the idea to take an inner-city teen from Miami on a backpacking trip 21 years ago, and that’s blossomed into an office full of people in Denver (and a few folks in San Leandro, CA, Chicago and Portland) helping about 200 kids this summer. Tony had already taken off for Jacksonville so he could make his early flight tomorrow, but Nick and I had a great time with Jim. The best way to get to the restaurant was via the Intracoastal Waterway, and when you’ve been traveling at 12 mph for a month and a half, a boat ride is a total blast.

We continue to have donations coming in, and will be over $19,000 as soon as we tally the last few donations. And Tony ponies up his matching donation for my heroic mayonnaise eating.

I don’t know what happens from here, but I know tomorrow, I’m sleeping in. And not putting chamois butter on my ass. And not stuffing myself at breakfast. And not putting on a pair of bike shorts. I’ll probably go to a coffee shop in St. Augustine, sit down with a pen and paper, and try to figure out what I really did these past two months.

That's the kind of enthusiasm we're looking for! Where was this guy when we were in west Texas?

Barbara Bain: Doing heroic things for at-risk urban teens since summer 2009.

Our team on King Street in downtown St. Augustine.

Jim showing us a good time in St. Augustine.

-Brendan

Our team photo with Robin this morning. Note that I am taller than Tony.

We rode out of High Springs, Florida, this morning as a team of four, and everyone from Iowa got a flat tire today. First Nick, before we even got out of town, then me, with about 35 miles left, and then Tony, when a screw punched through his rear tire on Highway 20. It was my first flat since just east of Langtry, Texas, and Tony’s first flat since just east of Van Horn, Texas. I’m crossing my fingers for the last 40 miles tomorrow. If I get a flat with less than 2 miles left, I’m walking it in.

We rode nearly half a mile out of our way today to thank a BCM donor, Dean Chance, for his recent donation. Turns out the Southern Tier route goes right by his office in Gainesville, so we stopped and had lunch with him, got a tour of his office and an adjustment for his old pal from chiropractic school, Tony. Then we enjoyed 16 miles of bike path all the way to Hawthorne, and then we took Highway 20 all the way into Palatka. And that was day 48 of 49. Tomorrow, 40 miles will get us to the Atlantic Ocean.

I was reading a blog from some other bike tourers, and Dwight, the guy writing, said something to the effect of, “I can’t wait to get back to my normal life. Wait, what am I talking about? This is my life.”

Today felt like the 50th day in a row we did this. In reality, it was only the 48th day out of the last 52. This has been my life:

Alarm goes off. Hit snooze for five minutes. Get up. Chug 20 ounces of water. Put in contact lenses, brush teeth and apply sunscreen to face and arms.

Walk to hotel breakfast area and begin stuffing face, looking for protein-rich items like scrambled eggs and oatmeal. Eat until full. Get up, get more food, eat until uncomfortable. Grab second cup of coffee, return to hotel room. Look at map for day’s route.

Apply chamois butter to ass. Put on cycling bibs and jersey. Put camera in right jersey pocket, cell phone in middle pocket, mace in right pocket. Pack everything in appropriate stuff sacks and cram into BOB trailer bag, nervous that it won’t all fit. Leave out SLR camera to strap to top of trailer, along with stuff sack containing tire patch stuff, pump, chamois butter, and arm warmers. Look at map for day’s route again and put map in shorts pocket.

Take bike outside, check tires for air, brakes, and chain. Pick up BOB trailer, complain to self about how heavy the goddamn thing is, and set it down behind bike. Hook trailer to rear axle. Start riding.

Stop at first convenience store and grab one 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade, which will be warm by the time I get around to drinking it. Also purchase three Snickers bars, two 99-cent bags of cashews, and two packs of peanut butter cracker sandwiches. Stuff in handlebar bag. Look at route map again. Put on gloves, which smell awful.

Start riding. Talk to Tony, or self. Sing lyrics of songs. Make up other lyrics. Moo at cows. Wave at horses. Check rearview mirror every two minutes for cars. Think about girlfriend, parents, friends. Miss girlfriend, parents, friends, mountains, good coffee.

After 10-15 miles, stop on side of road to pee, straddling bike and hiding behind handlebar bag. Start riding again. Pedal 50 to 90 more miles, worrying about that sore spot on my ass and if it’s going to turn into a saddle sore, and what a saddle sore is. Listen to my bike, try to determine what’s making what noise. Wonder if these tires will make it all the way to St. Augustine, if they need air, if the rear one has a slow leak. Wonder if something is feeling funny through the bottom of my feet and what that might mean — chain, loose chainring bolt, broken cassette, broken pedal.

Think about that person I haven’t thought about since sixth grade, wonder whatever happened to that guy I worked with at that bar, think about what the rest of my summer will be like, what the rest of my life will be like. Remember that it’s only March, and when I get back to Colorado, I’ll still be able to go backcountry skiing.

Steer away from potholes, rumble strips, rocks on the road, broken glass, chunks of wood, roadkill, reflectors on the pavement, the edge of the road. Look at garbage on the side of the road, observe that I’ve been seeing Natural Light cans in the ditch consistently for almost 3,000 miles. Always one shoe in the ditch, never a pair, except for that one time in Louisiana where there were a pair of brown shoes. Reapply sunscreen.

Eat lunch. Drink Coca-Cola. Pedal more. Check watch, mentally calculate how much time we have until sunset, calculate how many miles we have left, try to estimate our time of arrival at our end town for the day. Worry if we have enough time left before sundown. Pedal more. Shake fingers out, wondering if I’ll ever be able to feel anything through my pinky fingers again. Reapply sunscreen. Stretch calves by pushing heel down at bottom of pedal stroke and holding for a couple seconds. While doing that, try to see if the top of my chain is dropping because my freewheel isn’t moving.

Pull into a hotel. While Tony checks in, text Facebook, Twitter, Mom, Dad, Josh, Jayson and Nick our mileage and end town for the day. Get message from Facebook that an error has occurred. Get excited if hotel has coffee in the lobby. Roll bike down to hotel room, unhitch trailer and pull into room. Take off cycling shoes.

Eat dinner, way too much food again, knowing I’ll wake up hungry in the middle of the night regardless. Don’t even think about not ordering dessert. More Coca-Cola.

Return to hotel room, drink water so I’m not dehydrated tomorrow, and so I can sleep. Check map for next day’s destination. Remember what time zone we’re in, call girlfriend, go through photos and write blog entry. Update Facebook page. Set alarm according to next day’s mileage. Sleep. Wake up one hour before alarm is due to go off, worrying about something in next day’s ride — will this or that break on my bike, is our route on heavily trafficked roads, is my heel going to start hurting again, am I going to run out of chamois butter, etc. Fall back into deep sleep just before alarm goes off.

Repeat.

-Brendan

Nick: “Boy, if you were going to pick three guys who look exactly the same as they did in high school …”

I think Nick and I have both gained about 20 pounds, and Tony’s six inches taller and 40 pounds bulkier, but we all pretty much have the same haircuts. Mine being just a general mess. But now, Tony’s a successful entrepreneur, Nick’s traveling all over the globe as an engineer, and I’m working for BCM doing a job no one ever told me existed. This is officially one of those things I never thought I’d be doing with these guys 13 years after I graduated high school, if you would have asked me in 1997.

We have been taking a hatchet to the Adventure Cycling Association route since we detoured to Niceville, only getting back on it for a few miles here and there. Today, we got a nice surprise when we happened upon about 10 miles of bike path next to highway 27 heading into Fort White. We ended up riding about 70 miles today.

We also picked up a fourth person for the last 120 miles into St. Augustine — Robin, who we met at the convenience store in Fort White, and who makes our trip sound like a warmup ride. She’s riding a huge loop around America, starting in Seattle, riding down the west coast, then across to St. Augustine, then up the east coast, then back home across Canada. It sounds like she’ll ride with us as long as she can stand our jokes.

After we had been talking to Robin for a few minutes, a young man approached us and said, “This is going to sound weird, but could I ask you to flex your calves?” Of course we will! He actually felt my calves, and then explained that he was really “into calves,” but couldn’t ride a bike because of his posture. Then it was kind of awkward for a second.

Not nearly as awkward as the exchange I had with the guy outside the CVS pharmacy in Silsbee, Texas, which started after I noticed he had rolled the window of his pickup down and was staring at me.

Me: How you doin?
Guy: Where y’all from?
Me: I’m from Denver, and my buddy’s from Chicago.
Guy: *continues to stare*
Me: Yep, we’re riding our bikes across America.
Guy: *continues to stare*
Me: Yeah, we started in San Diego near the beginning of February.
Guy: *continues to stare*
Me: Yep, it’s a long trip.
Guy: *continues to stare*
Me: All right.

Then I went in the store and he stared at Tony for a couple of minutes, saying nothing, and his wife and daughter came out of the store and they drove off.

So at least the guy groping my calves was friendly. I guess.

We have about an 80-mile day tomorrow, and then a 40-mile day into St. Augustine on Thursday, and then the ride is over. Tony’s going to fly out on Friday morning to catch the University of Northern Iowa-Michigan State game in St. Louis, and I’ll hang out with Nick in St. Augustine for a couple days and try to process this whole thing.

It’s funny, this time next week, I won’t be ending the day checking into a hotel I didn’t pay for, and feeling like I accomplished something because I crossed another chunk of biking off the map of the U.S. I won’t have to fill my water bottles or pack all my stuff into a bag and tie it down to a bike trailer, and I won’t have to put sunscreen on, or chamois butter, and I won’t be wearing a pair of cycling bibs all day, and stuffing myself past full at every meal.

I’m looking forward to that now, but I bet you a million dollars I’ll miss this a couple days after it’s over.

Time for bike tricks!

Only $149.99 at the I-10 truck stop near Madison, Florida. If you like severed heads, I highly recommend it.

Lunch.

Nick: "I'm just blowing people's minds with these slow-moving-vehicle triangles and the Flash Gordon t-shirt."

Free puppies near Beachville, Florida! Which is nowhere near a beach. I got this shot, but I missed the one of Tony getting chased out of the yard by a hostile dachsund.

-Brendan

We have about three inches left to the coast on the Florida map on page 13 of the Rand McNally Midsize Road Atlas. We’re in our fourth time zone, eighth state, 213 donations, $17,967 raised, and we have 210 miles left to ride in three days. We’re also closing in on roughly 300 Snickers bars consumed, I believe.

Today, we added a third alumnus of the Class of 1997 dishwasher/busboys at the Pinicon Restaurant and Lounge in New Hampton, Iowa. World traveler and engineer Nick Kolbet arrived late last night with panniers in tow, and hopped on his bike and rocked out 67 miles today like it was a morning jog. Having Nick along is a little bit more fresh energy for us, and we have basically the same dynamic we had as teenagers. And pretty much the same jokes.

We have been riding some nice roads over the past two days — always a wide, smooth shoulder and courteous drivers. Tony and I are both trying to squeeze some final miles out of our tires — my front one, which has about 2,800 miles on it right now, has a 1/4-inch cut in it that I’m keeping my eye on, and Tony’s rear tire has a similar chunk taken out of it. We all got to enjoy the song coming from my squeaky chain for about 60 miles today, since we rode the entire day in the rain yesterday and picked up about a cup of sand a piece in various locations on our bikes.

Tomorrow, we’re shooting for High Springs, Florida, 80 miles away, and I think we’ll be able to smell St. Augustine from there.

Sign in the fitness room at the Holiday Inn in Tallahassee.

Tony's over-the-helmet shot of Nick and me.

Remember that one time on our tenth RAGBRAI? Yeah, me too.

To: Mick. From: Tony

Greenville, Florida: Where Ray Charles learned to play the piano as a child. And where they have a sweet statue of him.

Getting in a good workout after our ride.

-Brendan

This was the driest time of the day. Then we got dumped on.

I think at the end of any long trip, the newness has worn off and you start unconsciously “enjoying” it less. You don’t take as much time to get your camera out, you shoot fewer photos, spend less time looking at the scenery, talk to local folks a little bit less, take a little more time to raise your hand to wave at passing cars, and you start thinking about the end more and more.

I think getting rained on all day definitely accelerates the start of that process. We rode 50 miles today, and got rained on for about 40 of those miles. We’re both starting to count down those last miles, and the time we spend not riding definitely feels idle — maybe we should have ridden another 30 miles today and tried to make it in a little earlier? I feel a little guilty that I’m not as present for these days, and that I’m spending time in the saddle thinking about mountains, and climbing rope, and seeing my friends in Denver again, and getting back to the BCM office, but I suppose that’s natural.
The good thing about our last four or five days: Our old pal Nick Kolbet is joining us for the last 300 miles to St. Augustine! We’ll ride out of Tallahassee with him Monday morning, and he hasn’t said yet how much of our stuff he wants to carry, but we’re looking forward to having him along. We’re looking at finishing either on Friday, March 26, or possibly Thursday, March 25, if we crush it over the next three days.

Also:

Guy carrying beer and ice outside convenience store, after I thanked him for giving us directions into Tallahassee: “Y’all are better men than I am, riding from f%$&in’ San Diego!”

-Brendan

As we rode through Clarksville, Florida on Highway 20 today, I heard a loud bang on my left. I thought maybe the car that just passed me had run over something, but then I heard another bang. And another one. Turns out it was just a guy standing on the porch of his trailer home, repeatedly firing a rifle into the woods, about 40 feet off the road. We stopped at the convenience store next door and got some chocolate milk. None of the other customers seemed to have noticed.
In a fast 86-mile day with only a couple brief stops, that was the highlight. Actually, the highlight for me was that he didn’t shoot at us.

We took off from Niceville late this morning, my Uncle Tim leading us out of town on Highway 20. Highway 20 is off the Adventure Cycling route, but it was great for us today, with wide shoulders for all but about 10 miles, and for the most part, tolerant drivers. Other than the guy who yelled “Get off the road!” from a passing car. It’s kind of hard to understand what someone is yelling when they’re passing you at 60 mph and you’re going 10 mph, but Tony just gave him a big thumbs-up.

We’re staying in Blountstown, Florida, for the night, and we only have about 350 miles left until St. Augustine. We’re planning on being there by Friday, so today might have been our last day over 80 miles.

I feel like we're not getting closer to the coast as much as we are deeper into the South. This was about the least aggressive pro-Confederate flag bumper sticker I saw at a convenience store today. I bought it, and am not sure what I'm going to do with it. Probably send it to my alpha-dirtbag pal Brian, who's a native Tallahasseean.

That is only a half tree.

-Brendan

Before we started this trip, my pal Mick told me that everyone we talked to along the way would ask 1) Where we were going on our bikes, 2) Where we started, and 3) How far we rode every day. For the most part, he was right. I notice a lot of people, including our waitress at Kwik Burger in Milton this morning, have one more thing to say: I could never do that.

Of course they could. This morning, we met another group of cyclists riding the Southern Tier, and like us and everyone else we’ve met, they didn’t look much like Lance Armstrong. One guy we talked to, who is 500 miles into the 3,100-mile route and has also done the 4,300-mile Northern Tier and the 1,850-mile Pacific Coast route, has an artificial hip and is getting ready to get both knees replaced — I assume after he finishes this tour.

We rode a pretty quick 62 miles today, the last 15 with my Uncle Tim, who is pretty new to cycling, but smoked us all the way to his front door in Niceville. On the four-lane Highway 85 to Niceville, someone in a white truck in the passing lane yelled something and gave us the finger, which is the first time someone has flipped us off the whole trip. I’m not sure if it was something Tim did?

We rode through rolling hills most of the 18 miles south into Niceville, and are thinking of taking an alternate route to Tallahassee on Saturday, after our last rest day here. Either way, we’re under 500 miles from St. Augustine!

6 miles of bike path to start the day!

Brendan and Tim riding into Niceville.

It's a Finn family tradition to pick people up. Thanks for cooperating, Nora.

-Brendan

And with that, we rode into Florida, in the rain. We punched out 53 miles in about 4 1/2 hours today, with minor hills, and tall bridges. We had F-16s fly right over the top of us a couple times near Pensacola.

T.K. at Truly Spokin’ in Milton, Florida, hooked Tony up with a new wheelset and made time to put Tony’s old cassette and tires on them before the store closed this afternoon. I think we are learning on this trip that there are bike shops who like to help people, and bike shops who don’t necessarily like to help people — as was evident when I was calling shops in St. Augustine to see if they would be able to ship our bikes home at the end of our trip.

As T.K. was working on Tony’s bike, we ate at the cafe across the street, and Tony ate two fried chicken dinners, a bowl of chili, and two pieces of fudge pecan pie. I spent the next three hours trying to clean The Dirtiest Bicycle Chain of All Time, and figuring out I have a bit of a stickiness problem with my freewheel, which hopefully I can nurse through the next 515 miles with enough Tri-Flow.

Tomorrow, we are going off the Adventure Cycling Route to Niceville, Florida, to see my Aunt Nora and Uncle Tim. If we can time it right, we should be escorted in the last few miles by Tim, on his road bike. Unless he wants to ride the Team USA with my trailer attached.

New wheels!

This hotel ice bucket is about to be used to clean my chain, which I already cleaned once while it was on my bike. I did clean the ice bucket afterwards.

-Brendan

As we were struggling to get our bikes and trailers on a hotel elevator in Orange Beach today, a couple of 8-year-olds waiting for the elevator eyeballed our stuff for a good minute or so before one of them asked, “You guys traveling or something?”

I said Oh yeah, biking from California to Florida, and they let me get on the elevator first, bicycle in each hand. While I was steering the bikes down the hallway on the second floor, they interrogated Tony about our trip, then helped him get the trailers on the elevator. One of them said to the other one, “We’re doing that someday! I don’t care what you say, we’re doing it!”

That’ll make you smile. And wish you could follow up with him in a few years to see if he was still thinking about it, or any of the dreams he had as an 8-year-old. And if he was, I’d have a chat with him about chamois butter and Snickers bars.

Just after noon today we rolled into Gulf Shores, where college kids were on Spring Break and recovering from their hangovers at the Subway next to the pizza buffet we hit. Tony and I got to talking about spring break, and college, and he said if he could do college over again, he’d do more stuff like this, the bike trip we’re on. Huh. It’s funny, if you took my career bar tab at the OP in Cedar Falls, I probably could have biked across America and back on that money.

And then I almost ran into my college self in the bike lane on Highway 182: A group of six college guys were carting a cooler and a couple beer bongs across the street, and they let us pass and smiled and nodded, and I laughed. Ah, to be young and dumb … wait, we still are, right?

We had hurried into Orange Beach today to head to Infinity Bicycles to get Tony fixed up with a new rear wheel, since he’s now put about 100 miles on the wheel with a broken spoke. Somehow, the guy Tony talked to on the phone yesterday, who said he could fix us up with a wheel that would work with Tony’s Campagnolo cassette, had no wheels for sale at the shop today. Not sure what happened there. Our next hope is to make it 53 miles tomorrow to a bike shop in Milton, Florida, where spokes and a new wheel await.

We had wide shoulders and flat roads almost the entire day today, aside from the 100-foot climb up the Dauphin Island Bridge over the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Then we sagged four miles of the ride on the Mobile Bay Ferry. We rode a mile with a student from Mississippi State University, who said he was here on Spring Break. He was doing laps of our route today on his road bike, and I felt a little jealous of somebody just trying to get in a workout, as I just try to keep my legs from quitting for another 550 miles.

Tomorrow, Florida!

Shrimp boats in Bayou La Batre.

The Dauphin Island Bridge jumps up out there on the left, high enough to let boats underneath it.

Tony on the not-so-huge climb up the bridge.

Boat sag!

One of the natural gas drilling rigs on Mobile Bay.

Orange Beach, Alabama: Incredibly bike-friendly. This is on one of the main 4-lane highways going through town.

-Brendan

Things that happened today:

1) We rode 105 miles.

2) A teenage kid riding a bicycle towards us near Vancleave, Mississippi, gave us a full Nazi salute and yelled “White Power!” As we passed him.

3) I realized we are pretty much back to the same conversation dynamic we used to have when we worked at the Pinicon Restaurant in New Hampton, Iowa, back in high school. However, I believe we are more interesting people than the two meattheads who used to stand on opposite sides of the dishwasher at the Pinicon back in high school, talking about how in the world we were going to get beer that weekend.
4) A man named Ron, wearing coveralls, approached us in the China Buffet in Vancleave, Mississippi, telling us to check out infowars.com and listen to Alex Jones’ radio show. He said he would testify in court that 9-11 was an inside job, and that all television and media are controlled by organized crime. He said he wanted to talk to us because most cyclists are open-minded. He then used the word “raghead” a half-dozen times. He also said he had a friend who was a professional cyclist, who “had all the leotards and everything.” The buffet was probably one of the best in rural Southern Mississippi.

5) After wondering what that popping sensation coming from my pedals was for the past two days, I looked down and realized one of the links on my chain was coming apart. We stopped

6) One of Tony’s spokes broke.

7) One Alabaman thought it would be *awesome* to pull up next to Tony, honk his horn and then aggressively rev the engine of his early ’90s Ford Explorer.

8 ) One other Alabaman in a white pickup towing a contractor’s trailer felt it was appropriate to buzz both of us just north of Grand Bay, Alabama, and get rid of a bunch of diesel smoke as he passed us.

9) The staff of the Waffle House in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, had a nearly complete meltdown. I could not see what was going on, but could hear it. Tony saw the whole thing, and said things like, “Okay, now the younger waitress is in the back crying.” “This is total mayhem.” “The cook just threw something.” From what I could hear, the cook, who is in full view of all the customers, was performing very poorly, but dominating the wait staff, refusing to let them call the manager to come and restore order. Our food exceptionally not awesome. But maybe still better than I could have cooked. But that’s not saying much, Waffle House.

10) We met Shane and Gil, a couple guys headed west on recumbent bikes.

These signs seemed like they appeared out of nowhere near Vancleave, Mississippi.

-Brendan