For a November test ride this year we chose the deep south of the USA, primarily Alabama and Tennessee. It’s a cultural region, defined not by landscape but by history.
It’s autumn and nice and I’ve brought a Swabia XXL with 50:19 gearing.
We are checking out the use of “race gravel” tyres for normal touring. The Schwalbe G-One R, a 700c in 45mm width. It’s a light tyre, but high quality and strong. It’s not the tough-as-nails tyre. But perhaps it is? Expected to be run tubeless but we are running front tubeless and rear with a tube just to see if there are differences. More later on this.
Arriving on Nov 5th, election day, added a twist. Trump signs were everywhere. Just a few days after the election, some counties were putting up signs saying how much their county had voted for Trump. This one, 88%.
Petrol (or gas as they call it) costs AU$1.12 a litre. Australians and Europeans know this is ridiculously cheap. But America is the home of more-is-better. Cheaper gas means more money in your pocket. Here in the South, there are no busses or trains. Leadership turns on gas prices. In the 2016 election, Cambridge Analytica, a Facebook data centre, targeted messages and manipulated people. In this election, Elon Musk has done that.
This was a road trip. There are very few bike paths in these states. The few they have are short too.
You don’t even see other people on bikes in the South. In Northern Tennessee there are some, but from south of Nashville and all through Alabama there are virtually none. It may be why dogs are unchecked. More later on dogs.
The USA is generally good for bike travellers given the quality of the roads, the moderate speeds on them, and the easy availability of accommodation. US Highway motels really work for bike travellers. They are cheap because there are too many. They are from when people drove distances which they now fly. Under and around AU$100 a night. Microwaves but strangely, no jug/kettle. Check in early? No problem.
The culture is unsubtle. Food is tricky but possible. The people, of course, are nice. This was a history lesson.
Flags
The USA is one of those countries into flying their flag a lot. There are not many that do. Turkey is another. In the USA, the flag means different things to different people. That’s the irony of them having so many flags.
Sample counts were done, and we report that in rural Alabama, there are on average 4.5 US flags per kilometre. Beat that!
State flags are also to be seen everywhere whilst in most countries they are not seen at all. In the deep south the confederate flag still flies. Also, MAGA and “ULTRA MAGA” flags as in the image below. The black one with the blue stripe is something to do with police.
Slavery in the Deep South
12.7 million Africans were kidnapped and shipped to the Americas overall. 2 million died on the way. By the mid 1800’s much of the world had rejected slavery but the Deep South held out. Alabama and Tennessee were two of the thirteen confederate states that tried to break away from the US in order to preserve slavery. In 1860, 44% of Alabama’s population, or 435,000 people, were enslaved Africans.
Enslaved people built much of the state’s infrastructure. Local government could either purchase their own slaves at the slave markets or lease them from slave owners.
Prior to the Civil War, nearly every railroad in the American South was built entirely using slave labour.
It was a classic settler society but with slave labour added. Ironically, it is thought that it was slaves joining the Union, that made the ultimate difference in the Civil War.
Slavery was abolished in 1865 through the 13th amendment, but racism persisted through Jim Crow laws that used segregation (different busses, different schools), voting restrictions, interracial marriage restrictions, even different school textbooks for black and white kids, all to entrench and broaden division. White mobs lynched black people. Lynchings were advertised in newspapers and attended, sometimes, by thousands. This continued well into the 20th century.
The Civil Rights Movement began in central Alabama. On the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, 50 miles from Montgomery, freedom marchers setting out for Montgomery, were brutally attacked by the State Police.
Truth-telling is a critical and first part of the path for communities that have suffered as horribly as has happened here. In Montgomery the truth is laid bare in the Legacy Museum and in the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.
They are both must-visit places and are indescribable. Photography is not allowed.
In the Monument Park there are two slave huts. They are not replicas. They are real. 10 or 12 enslaved people slept in each hut.
You also see the homes of the families that owned the slaves. Riding past them you have to wonder if the descendants may feel rather pleased with their lot in life.
The history is extraordinary. Black people were totally subjugated.
Now they are the poor. And the incarcerated.
Seeing what happened to the indigenous people and then to the black people is shocking in part because it’s not what we have been told.
Hollywood commodified slavery and gave us movies like “12 years a slave” that made it look mild. In reality, most enslaved people did back-breaking work and were flogged, even daily, if they didn’t do enough of it.
Hollywood made the invasion and then occupation by Europeans, of native American land, look like self-defence. Resistance to white invasion has been shown as militancy.
American heroes are shown in line with the narrative. It’s the official version. Taught in schools.
Thomas Jefferson is renowned for saying… “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.”
He is not so well known for hypocrisy and racism. But he should be. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 600 enslaved people over his lifetime. He freed only seven enslaved people during his life, including two of his children with his slave Sally Hemings.
Dogs
There is a lot to recommend about this part of the USA for cultural immersion and cycle touring.
But daily dog attacks in Alabama and Tennessee have been hard to take. It’s ok if you are going downhill but that’s often not the case. Typically, the dog owners won’t come out of their houses. When they do, they typically say the (big, aggressive and angry-sounding) dog is “harmless”. One owner told me to “go back to my country”. The dogs in the rural south are even worse than the dogs in Turkey. Dogs in some places are weak and can only go about 28kph. These are faster. Interestingly we are within our rights to “stand our ground” and shoot a dog dead. I pondered mentioning that but decided not to.
As the adrenaline was surging, I could not even get a picture of a dog attacking me. But it happened a few times a day. These dogs may have never seen a human on a bicycle, let alone one with a high-end headlight.
North into Kentucky, the problem faded away.
Churches
There are a lot of churches. On Sunday mornings their carparks are nearly full. They are well attended. Not like in Australia or much of Europe.
So, we wondered what it was that works for churches in the deep south of the USA. Perhaps negro spiritual singing? We listened but didn’t hear it. Or is it what they have to sell/offer? Most of the placards and signs outside the churches are biblical quotes, encouraging us all to be good. But some go further. The most interesting ones we came across seemed to be saying you could put your neighbourliness aside. What’s in it for you?
Church signs are part of how, in the USA, things are in your face. The advertising. The preaching. The warnings. The shouting.
Y’all have a nice day. Hmmm.
eSims
Bike travellers often get short-term Sim cards when they arrive in new countries but these have required removal of your normal sim. On the flight from SYD-DFW an eSim was advertised. Then in the USA, on a YouTube channel, there was another eSim ad.
The reason I checked them out was not just the savings or curiosity. On the fourth day I found myself with no internet connection, way out in the bush. As I navigate using online (google) maps, that was annoying.
That night I got the Holafly eSim which turned out to be (in the USA), the AT&T service. Coverage was 100%. After the number of days I’d purchased ended, I went into my phone settings/connections.sim_manager and reselected my Telstra sim.
Google mapping
Once again we are using google for route planning, mapping one day in advance and resetting the route during the day. Choosing the least dog-infested.
With the availability of good quality, quiet roads it is a breeze. The motels are just off the big highways. The locations are accessible from quiet country roads. Google does, in some countries, send you on a track across a paddock. But the only mistake in this 1,000km was a gated community. Google knew it was a road but didn’t know there was a closed gate.
Road Safety. The deep south is good
It’s never been clearer that Australian speed limits are too high, especially considering road quality. In the USA Deep South, although there is almost no cycling (you ride for days without seeing anyone on a bike) it is quite safe to ride.
You must wonder why? If we knew why one area is safer, we could apply it elsewhere.
Many US states have “Move Over” laws. They were brought in to protect emergency workers, police and road workers. The focus was on vulnerability. It’s in the driver education and seems to be broadly accepted.
A motorist will slow right down until they can move right over into the oncoming lane. I wasn’t passed dangerously at all.
Also, in the USA there is a large ambulance-chasing industry. Thousands of billboards for law firms suggesting if you have suffered in any way, on the roads, you can get money.
Speed limits are more sensible. This is a quiet, wide, fairly straight and flat country road in Tennessee. 45MPH is 72KPH.
This is near our factory in Tasmania. Where that second car is in the distance, there is a blind bend to the left with no warning and no shoulder. To the right is a steep embankment. There is no guard rail. 100KPH is 62.5MPH. It’s such poor design.
Tasmania is a poor state and can’t afford better roads. It’s in debt already. But the speed limits should be set to suit the poorer road condition, and we need Move Over laws. Any emergency worker will agree.
It is so ironic that higher speed limits cause people to think they have to hurry.
Schwalbe G-One R 700 x 45 – one tube and one tubeless
No punctures in 1,000km but the roads are good so that’s not surprising.
If you hit gravel sections, these tyres are easy. Only 45mm wide and with a race tread, these are light to steer. But they are noticeably fast on tar. That’s their best feature.
They are rated to 55psi but with the bigger bag you can have a lower pressure and softer ride. Just increasing the tyre diameter from 40mm to 45mm, increases the tyre volume by 27%.
Bikes on Greyhound
From Dallas in Texas into central Alabama is a bus ride. The bike needs to be in a carton. In an online booking, I added an oversize item. A normal bike carton is a little over the allowable dimensions, but no one seems to care. On the far side of the bus, towards the rear, is another door where fold-up wheelchairs are meant to fit. It’s a great spot for your bike carton.
Timing-wise, this November ride has been good. It fits into our seasons. We have heard, in the US south, that Memphis is good. But India is calling. It is so comfortable to travel in. We are planning a November ride in central Maharashtra. Nagpur to Aurangabad through Yawal Wildlife Reserve and then calling in on the Ellora and Ajanta caves. We’ll need to test something for sure!