Today was a travel day, as I drove down to our timeshare vacation place in Holiday Island, Arkansas.

But before I left I made a run to the bike shop to have them look at my derailleur. After rummaging around in the spare parts bin for awhile, Chris came up with a 26-tooth chainring to try in place of my 24, with the hope being that the larger diameter of the chainring would allow it to clear the bottom of my front derailleur.

Turns out that, although it helped, it didn’t quite do the trick. The next step was to lower then derailleur on the post just a smidge. That also helped somewhat, but it still was not enough. There was still one final thing to be done, and that was to manually bend the of the derailleur. This final tweak did the trick. Now the chain was clearing the bottom of the derailleur under most conditions. I took it out for a spin and it worked very well. There were a couple instances when the chain just ticked the metal, but by and large the problem was fixed.

So with my derailleur fixed, I set off for Arkansas. It takes me about five hours to make the trip. The majority of the journey is on four lane highways, which drops to a two-lane highway south of I-44, then to local county roads south of Cassville. When I reached the Mark Twain National Forest, the road turned very steep and winding, especially as it passed through Roaring River State Park, past Table Rock Lake, and on into Arkansas.

In the past, I’d driven these roads many times, but now, as I carried my bike, I saw them with new eyes. There are no shoulders, roards are narrow, sight-lines are short, and the locals drive rather fast. I don’t know if cycling is popular in this part of the state, but I can see that it would be problematic. I wouldn’t really want to ride these roads. The hills would be a challenge, the scenery is magnificent, but It doesn’t feel terribly safe.

Perhaps I’ll feel differently after this week. The routes I’ve mapped out are all on backroads, so I’m hoping that they will be rideable. I’m not worried about this hills so much as I am about the safety factor.

I’ll probably drive the routes before I try riding them, just to get a feel for the roads and traffic.