Kill Devil Hills, NC to Ocracoke Island, NC - 80 miles+

Riding with the Big Dogs.  The Big Dogs are a half dozen riders who go out fast, ride in a pace line, and are the first ones to the hotel, usually arriving between 1:00 and 2:00.  In addition to being strong cyclists, they ride in a pace line most of the time. A pace line is when cyclists ride in single file so the lead rider breaks the wind and the others get the benefit of riding in the leader's slip stream.  They alternate leaders about every mile.  I generally don't like to ride in a pace line because, unless you are the leader, you spend most of your time staring at the back tire of the bike in front of you so you don't have an accident if that rider slows quickly.  They tend to travel between 15 and 25 mph with one to two feet between the riders' tires.  The group I ride with, which we have come to call the Pedigrees, take our time, taking pictures, stopping for bathroom breaks and enjoying leisurely lunches.  But today, we were forced to ride with the Big Dogs.  That was because, as a result of our amended route due to Hurricane Irene, we needed to ride 80 miles in just over five hours to arrive at our ferry by noon.  Because of the distance and time constraints our 25 riders were divided into two groups.  Half the riders were instructed to ride in the vans to the snack stop, about 35 miles out, then ride to the ferry.  The rest of us were free to try to cover the 80 miles in five hours, if we could.  If not, we too would have to jump in the vans.  The only way to cover the distance was to ride in a pace line.  So the Pedigrees followed the Big Dogs most of the day, taking advantage of their slipstream.  For the first half of the tour from Portland I averaged 14.4 mph, today I averaged 17.5 and made the ferry easily.  Fortunately, the weather was good and we had no flats.  It was a great ride on a good road with little traffic.  We also saw several cotton fields along the way, and canals with warnings about alligators; but we didn't see any.  We then boarded the ferry for the 2.5 hour ride across Pamlico Sound to Ocracoke Island.  One of the deck hands told us Pamlico Sound is the second largest sound in the US; the largest is Puget Sound.  Had we been able to follow the original route to Cape Hatteras, the ferry ride would have been 40 minutes.  We have our second rest day tomorrow on this lovely, though small island.