Day 32 - Deridder, LA to Ville Platte, LA (Where's the Road?)

Miles Today: 77.77; Total Miles: 2106.8

Today was one of the worst riding days of my trip. The day was nice but the roads were not. I'll tell ya, some of the roads on this route are horrendous. Some are not the fault of the makers of the map though and I guess today's roads would fall into that category. To the best of my recollection the roads weren't too bad until I came to mile 65 and turned on LA 104. At the start of the road was the flag person stopping oncoming traffic to warn them of upcoming road construction. Wow, what a road... The whole road (8 miles worth) was under construction. The first 2 or so miles was split with the opposing lane about 4 inches above my lane with a nice new layer of blacktop. My lane was covered in that sticky tar substance (you know the kind that they lay down prior to laying the blacktop). After that, the road was entirely covered in 6 inches or so of soft dirt. This went for maybe another 4 or so miles. I could not believe my luck. I just gritted my teeth and hoped that I could ride my bike through it. When I got to the other side, the road was then all chopped up in those parallel grooves that they make before they start repairing. I thought my bike was going to fall apart on me. It bounced around sooo much and hit many potholes too.

Ok, that is just making me relive the experience...you get the idea.

Luckily, My bike and I made it to Ville Platte in one piece. I did check it over that night and made sure all of the bolts were secured again (some had loosened during the day).