Phase 5, Day 1. Louisville-Lexington, KY.

90 miles.  Hot and humid but a good warm up. 

Just don't say "Looeyville"

Fog lifting. 

Another fancy barn for the fancy horses. 

Lots of Distilleries along the crick. 

Great day to begin the last phase. I was hampered a bit all day with Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman" going round-and-round in my head. Aaargh!!

Anyway, so fun to get out and continue the adventure. The day-to-day routine is so well established now that I don't spend time fretting about it in the morning. I just get up, have a coffee, and go. Most critical is to get out of town as early as possible to avoid the traffic. 

Super foggy in Louisville at 6am and didn't take long to find the back country roads but spent about 3 hours riding in and out of thick fog through, what I imagined to be but couldn't see, nice countryside. Eventually the fog burned off, the sun came out, and it was green grass everywhere! Kentucky bluegrass I would guess. 

This is horse country of course, and the countryside is covered with manicured grassy pastures surrounded by miles of wooden fence, sometimes white, sometimes black, covering rolling hills as far as you can ride. I don't know anything about horses but I would think this is a sweet spot if you do.  

When planning these rides I spend a lot of time sitting with maps and Google Street View to find the best routing and the coolest country roads that look quiet and smooth. The planning paid off. It's hard to avoid all the traffic but I did well today. Between Frankfurt and Versailles there was a particularly great 15 mile stretch along McCracken Pike following Glenns Creek. Beautiful riding under the thick canopy of trees. Passed a lot of bourbon distilleries along the creek...some long ago abandoned and some newer massive operations.  All very quiet though. 

Along McCracken Pike I also passed a few neglected rural communities with what appeared to be abandoned houses, but they were not.  Started to notice guys sitting on their collapsing front porches. Did a double take the first time and waved, he waved back. I waved to the all the hillbillies (can we still say that?) and they always waved back. 

At about my midway point today rolled into Frankfurt. Frankfurt is nice. It's the state capital but seems pretty low key to me. I did a quick spin through town and in 3 minutes saw both the old, and new, state buildings. Super quiet downtown, so quiet in fact that I searched and searched for a store to buy some water and struck out, so...this is a first..I had to ask for directions to a convenience store. In the state capital?  Yep. 

Eventually the sun warmed things up to 91 with, I would guess, 80% humidity. Not a problem until you stop moving...then the sweat starts to pour. That Frankfurt water was a good idea.  

Staying in Lexington tonight and got caught on some busy roads. I can avoid the busy roads all day until I get close to the hotel which is always on a busy road. Lexington seems fine and hosts University of Kentucky. University towns usually sport more bike friendly roads but not Lexington. I resorted to riding on the sidewalk for 3 miles at one point. You can get a ticket for that in California but there is no other safe option in Lexington. Visited the last bike shop I will see for the next few days...didn't need anything, just felt like I should visit. 

Tomorrow we (the bike and me) leave the big city, thankfully, and head into rural eastern Kentucky.