"Being soaked alone is cold. Being
soaked with your best friend is an adventure."
Emily Wing Smith
While Mark Rougeux and I are friends, we are far from best friends, yet I still felt this quote was an appropriate one for the day. While I would like to hold all rides close and remember them at will, there have just been too many. But the conditions make this ride one I know that we both will remember, a shared moment in time that is ours and ours alone. No, it is not the most epic or challenging ride I have done in my time, but it is the most challenging in some ways than I have done for quite awhile. I become soft. What might have been a demanding, wet, windy, miserable solo century, particularly as I have no training goal at this time, becomes rather fun when the day and the joys and challenges are shared.
Due to persistent neck pain, Mark recently switched to riding a recumbent and is getting ready to attempt his first 200K on such a bike. So he asked if I was interested in riding a century this week-end. Now riding a century with Mark on an upright bike is rather a study in pain and masochism for me. He is much stronger and attempting to keep up is an exercise in frustration and futility that leaves my muscles weak and aching. But hey, since he just recently started riding his new bike and I have always heard it uses different muscles, I say yes. Stupid me. All day he is my rabbit. As the week-end approaches, however, the weather prediction is for rain, lots of rain. I e-mail him Friday morning and say it is supposed to rain all day, some of the rain quite heavy, so we need to cancel. Then the prediction changes on the evening news. That combines with my guilt over being such a weenie, so I e-mail and say let's ride. He agrees. As I tell him, I have been wet before. I don't believe either of us realized how much it would rain.
Due to persistent neck pain, Mark recently switched to riding a recumbent and is getting ready to attempt his first 200K on such a bike. So he asked if I was interested in riding a century this week-end. Now riding a century with Mark on an upright bike is rather a study in pain and masochism for me. He is much stronger and attempting to keep up is an exercise in frustration and futility that leaves my muscles weak and aching. But hey, since he just recently started riding his new bike and I have always heard it uses different muscles, I say yes. Stupid me. All day he is my rabbit. As the week-end approaches, however, the weather prediction is for rain, lots of rain. I e-mail him Friday morning and say it is supposed to rain all day, some of the rain quite heavy, so we need to cancel. Then the prediction changes on the evening news. That combines with my guilt over being such a weenie, so I e-mail and say let's ride. He agrees. As I tell him, I have been wet before. I don't believe either of us realized how much it would rain.
Around 4:00 a.m. the sound of rain wakens me from a sound slumber, but I roll over knowing that our start time is still three hours away. When I do get out of bed, I listen to the weather person who says there will be periods of dry throughout the day and maybe even a few rays of sunshine. The wind is supposed to be rather strong, but they predict it will get warmer, maybe even up to 80 degrees. They lied about everything but the wind.
It never gets above 62 degrees per the Garmin and the rain ceases for only a span of about 10 minutes. And as the day progresses, the wind smacks us in the face impeding and slowing our progress. Don't get me wrong. I have ridden in colder rains and for more miles, but I was younger and stronger then. Still, oddly enough, I find myself enjoying it and remembering why I have liked rain rides in the past. A haze hangs over the green fields and everything looks fresh and almost spring like until you look at the road and see the occasional red leaf or yellow leaf that has been blown to the ground by the increasingly strong wind. Persimmons dot the road leaving stains. Seeds show in the scat that occasionally sits on the country roads. I see my first fallen walnut of the year. Smells are different in a rain, stronger and more potent somehow. We pass the covered bridge at Sheilds which is not yet completed, but looks really beautiful with the improvements they have made. I am so glad the effort is being made to preserve this part of our history. I realize as we ride that since I designed this route, three country stores that I have stopped at on this ride at various times are now closed. I wonder about the lunch stop and if it will still be open. Last time I passed this way it was not. Riding in rural areas becomes more problematic as the small stores I treasure can no longer afford to keep their doors open.
It never gets above 62 degrees per the Garmin and the rain ceases for only a span of about 10 minutes. And as the day progresses, the wind smacks us in the face impeding and slowing our progress. Don't get me wrong. I have ridden in colder rains and for more miles, but I was younger and stronger then. Still, oddly enough, I find myself enjoying it and remembering why I have liked rain rides in the past. A haze hangs over the green fields and everything looks fresh and almost spring like until you look at the road and see the occasional red leaf or yellow leaf that has been blown to the ground by the increasingly strong wind. Persimmons dot the road leaving stains. Seeds show in the scat that occasionally sits on the country roads. I see my first fallen walnut of the year. Smells are different in a rain, stronger and more potent somehow. We pass the covered bridge at Sheilds which is not yet completed, but looks really beautiful with the improvements they have made. I am so glad the effort is being made to preserve this part of our history. I realize as we ride that since I designed this route, three country stores that I have stopped at on this ride at various times are now closed. I wonder about the lunch stop and if it will still be open. Last time I passed this way it was not. Riding in rural areas becomes more problematic as the small stores I treasure can no longer afford to keep their doors open.
At the first store stop, we shelter outside under the eaves. Both of us have Showers Pass rain jackets, yet I feel cold only when we stop. Mark later tells me he is on the verge of shivering throughout the ride. I wonder at the difference because usually I am the one on rides who gets cold easily unless I am prepared. I suppose it is because the cuffs aren't keeping the water from running down Mark's arms due to the different hand position on the recumbent whereas my hand angle on the bars does not allow water to run in. I say a prayer of thanks that I brought the jacket. With hearing it might reach 80, I was not sure I wanted to carry it. I would have been wrapped in trash bags without it. Throughout the ride I remember various cold, wet centuries and brevets I have done. At times I curse myself for being a stupid fool. I could be inside, curled up with a book. Since I am now retired, I could ride a century during the week after the rain passes out of the area. And I go from cursing my stupidity to being supremely glad that we are riding throughout the ride.
I remember a century with Steve Rice where by the time we were on the road returning to the start, the road had lightly flooded despite there not being a creek or waterway anywhere nearby. The water was just running from one corn field into another and we had to ride through. I remember the brevet with Bill and Steve where it rained and nowhere near 62 degrees warm and I thought we might freeze out there. I remember my first solo century in the rain after a club ride when the club ride was canceled, the century that earned me my Mad Dog name.
The lunch stop is open and we have a good albeit expensive lunch. I feel badly for the server a we leave puddles on the floor and on our seats. Mark has no cell service, but I have a different provider and am able to pull up radar. It is obvious that we will complete the ride in rain and so we head out. As it has all day, the rain varies from being a light, pleasant drizzle to a heavier downpour that stings and bites. But I realize I feel alive in a way I have not recently. During the stop, we laugh at the skin on our hands which is wrinkled as it used to be when I was small and spent the day swimming. Again I am thankful as I know the stop at Story would have been longer. I am enjoying myself, but I also dream of home and warmth and comfort. I worry about the puddles we leave in the store, and then I think of the rainy rides to Hanover where they had to get the mop out and the woman working gave us plastic sandwich gloves to put under our gloves for cold hands and fingers. My daughter came to sag out three people that day who were too cold and wet to finish. It is a ride that everyone who showed up to ride remembers. Mark finds a way using plastic gloves he has with him to keep the rain out, but he remains cold for the rest of the ride. We both express our appreciation of and anticipation of hot water at the end of the ride.
When we get to Brownstown, we find the road we need to travel is closed. Luckily, we are able to skirt around the closure as it truly is closed and there was absolutely no road or what was a 103 mile route might have become a 200K. Then, however, my rear cable breaks while in the smallest rear cog. I decide to ride in rather than to try to fix it (something I have seen done but never attempted myself) since I still have my front rings to vary, but this puts additional demands on already weary legs. Mark has pushed the pace for me the entire time, and I have answered as best I can because who likes to be the chubby anchor? Interestingly, I know that being this weary will mean little sleep tonight. Tomorrow night, that will be a different story.
We arrive, Mark leaves, and I savor my hot bath and grin at the grit left in the bottom of the tub as I shower off. It is nice, I think, to smell like a girl afterward. Despite it still being early, I opt for my jammies and sip hot chocolate on the couch, luxuries after such a day which brings a new appreciation for the good things in life, the things that bring me joy, however small: a cat curled nearby warming the air with purrs, the smell and taste of the cocoa, the softness and comfort of jammies, a comfortable place to sit, after a long, demanding, cold bike ride in the rain. Life is good. Thanks, Mark, for the company and the adventure.
When we get to Brownstown, we find the road we need to travel is closed. Luckily, we are able to skirt around the closure as it truly is closed and there was absolutely no road or what was a 103 mile route might have become a 200K. Then, however, my rear cable breaks while in the smallest rear cog. I decide to ride in rather than to try to fix it (something I have seen done but never attempted myself) since I still have my front rings to vary, but this puts additional demands on already weary legs. Mark has pushed the pace for me the entire time, and I have answered as best I can because who likes to be the chubby anchor? Interestingly, I know that being this weary will mean little sleep tonight. Tomorrow night, that will be a different story.
We arrive, Mark leaves, and I savor my hot bath and grin at the grit left in the bottom of the tub as I shower off. It is nice, I think, to smell like a girl afterward. Despite it still being early, I opt for my jammies and sip hot chocolate on the couch, luxuries after such a day which brings a new appreciation for the good things in life, the things that bring me joy, however small: a cat curled nearby warming the air with purrs, the smell and taste of the cocoa, the softness and comfort of jammies, a comfortable place to sit, after a long, demanding, cold bike ride in the rain. Life is good. Thanks, Mark, for the company and the adventure.
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