Mobile, AL to Gautier, MS

44.9 mi / 12.5 mph / 783 ft. climbing
Home: Magnolia Inn

Day 7

Somewhere in Florida, I noticed that Rett’s rear wheel had a bit of play in it, wobbling from side to side a tiny amount if I grabbed the tire with my fingers. This suggested an issue with the hub, and while it would be relatively easy to tighten the bearings and remove the play, it seemed unlikely that the bearing adjustment had actually loosened, and more likely that there was a degradation of some sort internal to the bearings. Some reading suggested that a bit of play isn’t the worst thing in the world, so I decided the risk of opening up the hub and making things unrepairable was greater than letting us roll on to Mobile as-is, where I would have the time and ability to take Rett’s bike out-of-commission for multiple days.

A few days before we reached Mobile, her bike began making a rhythmic noise whenever she was pedaling in the 2nd-smallest rear cog. The play under my fingers didn’t feel worse than before, but it seemed possible that pedaling with the chain pulling in that particular spot was wobbling the wheel around the hub. So I gave her the old doctor-joke advice: “if it makes a noise in that gear, don’t use that gear!” While this understandably frustrated her when we had a tailwind, she followed doctor’s orders, and we made it to Mobile with the wheel still spinning.

Opening up the hub (Shimano Deore XT FH-M756-A) confirmed my worry that “adjustment” wasn’t the problem. One of the cones was quite pitted; the other was smooth but perhaps grooved. The problem is that it’s impossible to replace a hub without replacing/rebuilding the entire wheel. A bigger problem is that, after building our wheels and having zero issues with them, I don’t really trust a wheel I’d get from someone else. But a week in Mobile gives me no opportunity to rebuild a wheel.

Luckily, the cups in the hub shell (the only parts of the bearing that are inextricably built into the wheel) didn’t have any obvious visual damage, so I decided to order a new hub of the same model, take the new cones and balls (and quick-release skewer), and install them into the old hub shell. The new hub finally arrived yesterday, so today I did the work of the parts-swap and adjustment. I was able to get it spinning fine with no play, but will this be a solution that will last for another 20,000 miles, or will it take only 500 miles for invisible wear on the old cups grind down the rest of the parts right back to where they were? Who knows! At least I feel better about it for the time being.

Dad also was a huge help, bringing down soldering tools and connectors to repair the connection to my front dynamo hub, and my dyno-powered taillight. The taillight had been disconnected for months, but isn’t really an issue since I use a much-brighter battery-powered taillight during all of our riding anyway. The complete lack of dynamo power is only a few weeks old, and theoretically a much bigger issue, since I haven’t been able to charge my phone or light my headlight. We actually have done a couple instances of rare night riding, but Rett riding in front has obviated that issue, and the fact that nearly every campsite in Florida has electric power has meant that I haven’t had a need to use my bike to charge my phone. But we’re no longer in Florida, so this was the perfect time to solve these nagging issues!

To Gautier

Mom and Dad are taking further inspiration from our Southern travels, and heading off to Savannah before returning North. It’s a super-long drive for them (especially with charging and a time-change), so goodbye was limited to quick hugs and waves just after we got up. Luckily we have treats and working bikes to remember them by!

Our day was much shorter (though still an above-average mileage for us these days), so we set out near checkout time, into what felt very much like a ride through Portland, Oregon. The overnight rain had stopped, but the gray skies remained, along with the green trees and wooden houses, bringing the Pacific Northwest to the Gulf Coast.

Thanks Mobile, you were a fun town to spend a week in!

Heading southwest, we had a long stretch through the built-up surroundings of Mobile. The best option seemed to be shoulderless roads roughly paralleling I-10, and thankfully the drivers on them were uniformly excellent, always giving us plenty of space when passing. Along Halls Mills Road, we passed an oddly-large number of electrical businesses. I guess the area must just have a light-industrial zoning that clusters them all here?

Gray day leaving Mobile.

Ok, here there was a shoulder, but made useless by the rumble strips. But even here, drivers were good (where in other places with this setup, it would feel like “you have a shoulder there, get you ass in it, and I’m going to take my space right up to the white line!”)

We collected ingredients at Walmart to make our own lunch, but by the time lunchtime rolled around, we had been dampened by light showers, and a steady wind in the chilly, sunless 48℉ air made the prospect of sitting outside sound terribly uncomfortable, so we took shelter inside an Arby’s instead.

Then we crossed into Mississippi, state #29 of our nomadacy!

Mississippi had perhaps the largest state sign we’ve photographed ourselves under. Many of the stickers are bike-related, as we’re now on the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route.

Pleasantly, the shoulder of US-90 became this huge lane just after the Mississippi border. And traffic was very light for such a wide highway.

During our earlier stop at Walmart, my brain had idly been thinking how much more “mainstream” Walmart has become over the last 10-20 years. It’s become such a standard grocery store for people of all economic classes (including us!) that the old website laughing at the “People of Walmart” doesn’t even make sense anymore.

But then we made a stop at a second Walmart (a rarity for us in one day!), and it was as if the corporation had evicted all those “People of Walmart” from those other stores and deported them here to this store in Mississippi! I know that of the 50 US states, Mississippi ranks at or near the bottom on measures of education, GDP/capita, poverty, and obesity, but I didn’t expect all of that to be presented so obviously within our first hour in the state!

The broad Pascagoula river delta presented us with a big bridge and an exposed causeway to cross, and that allowed the biting north wind to come flowing unobstructed into our right sides. The good shoulder still meant that getting blown into traffic wasn’t a concern, but the wind was strong enough that we needed to take the brim off Rett’s helmet to keep her neck from getting yanked off.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even colder than today, and even though we just had a week off the bikes, our $55 motel in Gaultier was surprisingly decent, so we decided that it made the most sense to make tomorrow the “off day” in our 4-ride jump from Mobile to New Orleans.

The skyscrapers of Downtown Pascagoula? No, apparently these are “jackup rigs”, vessels that float out to sea, lower their four “legs” to the seafloor, and then jack themselves up out of the water to become an oil-drilling platform.

Streaks across the Pascagoula River make visible the wind that was slashing us.