Dupont: Century of the Week

""Summer dropping so easily a delicious

everything upon your skin and lips.  Like

a never-ending kiss - taunting, deep, and 

luscious.  The sun.  The heat.  The thousand

echoes of a timelessness before time, when every

day seems longer than the next, and no day 

seems likely to truly end.  Summer."

 

Carew Papritz  

 This weeks century is the Dupont Century.  I am not sure who put this route together.  Paul says  he does not know.  I suspect it is Tim Chilton, but I don't know for sure.   I try to pass these things on  knowing full well that most won't remember and fewer still will care, but that there will be the one or two who understand the importance.  Certainly putting a century together now is much easier than it was in the old, pre GPS days.  But even now roads have to be woven together to reach stores to refresh supplies and to meet other needs.  Regardless, the route has, to the best of my knowledge, remained the same.  The change is going to be the store stop.  The old store is closed whether due to retirement or lack of business I can't say.  I have fond memories of the old store, but its closure can't take those away.  It can only mean there will be no new memories there.  Like the store at Medora, the old store was, literally, an old store, the kind that takes you back fifty years to a different way of life.  As the Rascal Flatts song says, "I miss Mayberry, sitting on the porch drinking ice cold cherry coke."  Change, change, always change.

I am the first to arrive at the ride start but it is not long before cars begin to  straggle in.  John calls to tell me he is running late due to a road closure.  I assure him I will wait.  I wonder how the day will go, for it is summer and it is supposed to be hot and  humid.  I hope everyone rides wisely.  I hope everyone is starting the ride fully hydrated.  

 

As I have said before, the sun is so masculine to me, searing hot and demanding.  The sun is wonderful and I will miss him when winter knocks with her gray days and pallid, heatless sunlight, no longer a kiss or caress. There has been too little of his presence thus far this summer, this bright, bold sun.  He can make demands on the body that leave you praying for cloud cover, some wind, or a blessed ice cube and watering hole.  Thirst...a powerful need.  But there is a comfort to his presence, a reminder of other summer days with  no school, no responsibilities, an eternity.  I feel sorry for children today that they have been robbed of that experience.  But it is what it is.  They will have other things to remember and treasure as have the generations that preceded them. 

It is pretty much what is becoming the regular crowd that show:  Larry "Gizmo" Preble, Tom Hurst, Tom "Ambassador" Askew, Thomas Nance, Bob Grable, and John Pelligrino.  I hoped Gayle would begin showing back up.  She is so funny and makes everyone laugh.  I miss Mike "Diesel" Kammenish and Dave "Bam Bam" King and others that I don't see very often. But it is what it is and I enjoy the people who have showed.  At the start of the ride there are jokes about the numerous Toms that are riding and I tell them Steve was the popular name when I first started riding centuries:  Steve Rice, Steve Montgomery, Steve Sexton.  But those are names from the past that don't ride centuries often or at all anymore. 

We start off and almost immediately break into two groups.   The Toms and Larry race ahead.  There is no way I am going out at that pace knowing what is in store later in the day.   Bob and John hang back with me. I am fine with that.  I am fine with riding the course alone, but I am also fine with having company. I want everyone to ride the pace they are comfortable with and to be safe and enjoy the day, the weather, the scenery.  I also know there will be one more that intends to join us at the first store stop:  Jon Wineland who is running a 10K this morning before the ride.  Jon seems to ride between paces most times often by himself even on the group ride.  

The first climb is as challenging as I remember and I think how much harder a hill is very early in a ride when  your legs and lungs have  not warmed up yet.  Still, I know this is the easier direction to climb on this road.  Climbing the other direction is longer and more difficult. Earlier this year I walked it with a rider who was cramping and did not have any regrets not having to push my legs until they ached. So who am I trying to kid?  That climb is hard in either direction and at the beginning, middle, or end of a ride. 

 

We pass an Amish Store shortly after the climb on the left that either is new or that I have not noticed in the past.  I make a mental note that it could be a store stop on a shorter course if I design one that goes in that direction.  Had I been alone, I would have stopped and explored, but I am not alone today.  From the outside, the store reminds me of the closed Mennonite Store in Lavonia other than it is closer to a city.  I mourn whenever a smaller store away from any city goes out of business.  One less oasis for the distance bicyclist that needs to refuel.  Roads become less accessible if there is nowhere to stop within thirty miles. And so many of them are now gone.  I have so many century routes that are no longer viable due to closed stores or restaurants.  

 

This morning it is not so hot, but it is humid and I know what is coming in the afternoon.  I know the pace separation is unusually big  between the two groups when we come to the first store stop and the first group is gone.  We are averaging 15.1 ourselves so I figure they are burning up the road.  I know they are all strong riders. I don't see Jon at first and wonder if he was held up, but then he appears.  He will continue with us until Otisco when he will ride back to where he started from in Madison.  

 

When we reach the lunch stop, the front group is still there.  But they have eaten and are ready to leave though they stick around to chat for a bit.  They opted to eat inside under the air conditioning, probably a smart move.  Our group buys our lunch and sits outside under a tree. All except Jon who eats outside but who brought his lunch and complains that it is still mostly frozen. I like this, the sharing of a meal outside while we temporarily loll.  Winter rides are like that.  No lolling allowed.  Ride and get in before  you get cold or the wind gets stronger or darkness imprisons you.

 

 The sandwich tastes divine though perhaps a bit too much mayo for my liking.  Bob said he likes all the heavy mayo.  I remember it was the same at the other store.  Some complained about too much mayo and some liked it.  The words to a favorite song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Don't Need Much to be Happy" come to mind, "Sometimes it's hard to remember how tough we are to please."  

The first group take off with Gizmo complaining of stiff "lunch legs."  There are grins on faces still and so far everyone appears to be dealing with the heat okay.  Despite the fact that they are stronger than me, as ride captain I feel responsible for their well being. Not too long afterward, we finish and  head toward LeRoy's and Lexington.  The miles pass quickly.  For some reason, I remember this course being hillier than what it is.  I keep dreading the climbs, but they never happen. There are a few rollers along the way, but no significant climbs yet.  Odd.  I remember this was my first century after returning from PBP 2007 and I remember feeling that I just might not be able to complete it causing me to realize how hard PBP was on me physically and mentally.  For a bit, the bike became a chore rather than a love. 

By the time we reach Lexington, the first group has gone.  Jon is waiting outside on the stage behind the building.  Bob and John opt to remain indoors under the air.  After buying a drink and getting ice for my water bottles, I join Jon behind the building until it is time to leave mentally dreading the climb I know is to come.  As we climb, however, I find it really is not a bad climb so either I am in better shape, going more slowly and not pressing the pace, or delusional.  Either way, I am happy not to hurt.  My legs happily are meeting the demands I am placing upon them.  Maybe it is because I have company.  Maybe it is because of the sun. Maybe it is because we are not pushing the pace.  For whatever reason, I am glad. 

Between the store and the finish, we stop to rest due to the heat.  Right before the end, about five miles out, Bob has a flat on his new wheels, something that has been plaguing him since he got the bike and that he was really hoping would not happen again as he wants to get clinchers but feels this needs to be resolved first.  He sighs as he changes the tire saying that it will mean yet another visit to Bob at Clarksville to try to figure it out.  I tell him about the wheels I got a few years ago that were not supposed to need rim tape and ask if his have rim tape.  I had about 13 flats that year until rim tape was installed whether or not they needed it.  Since it cured the problem, it was needed.  I have no idea what the issue is with his wheels, but there is definitely an issue when you have flat after flat.

And we finish.  The first group is long gone.  Jon peeled off for home at Otisco.  It was a good day.  I drive home tired but sated.  Hot and thirsty, but so glad for the heat and the sun's embrace in what, thus far, has been a rather cloudy and dismal summer.  And yeah, as always,  really glad for bicycles and friends.   

 

Solo Orleans: The Back Door with route changes

 

"It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love others. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverence for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love others for what they are, not for what they say."

~ Thomas Merton

 

So I went to bed at my normal, early hour only to find that I was troubled about something and that sleep evaded  me.   Lloyd always used to be able to tell if something was worrying me, consciously or unconsciously, as I would not sleep well.  Finally it hit me.  Frog Pond Road was water covered during today's ride, so Medora, part of tomorrow's century ride, the third store stop, would most likely be flooded.  

So I pop out of bed, change the route on the club calendar, and do a cue sheet for a ride I had changed to try to a. take us off so many of the same roads on another version of the ride and off the state road earlier and b. stay away from areas that flood easily.  The original Orleans has Medora as a first store stop, and if there is rain it seems the road to Medora is always flooded. While I don't expect anyone to show to ride with me, one person had said she might so I felt like I needed to be prepared.  

At the start time, I take off on my own.  A part of me, of course, is disappointed that nobody else is going to ride, but oddly enough a part of me is quite glad that I am the only one to worry about with the sun and the heat predicted.  And it will give me time to think about issues in my life right now.  I think best on the bike or when doing something for some reason.  Running, I miss running because of this.  I hope the day will hold some challenges other than the heat, that the ride will become an adventure where I have to use my brain as well as my legs.  It is already quite clammy.  The news person said it is not as humid as yesterday, but despite the lack of fog today (it was quite thick yesterday), for some reason it feels more humid.  

 

Because there are new roads on this route, I am not sure what climbs there may be having not really paid much attention to the little chart at the bottom of the page, but I know the first part of the route as I have not changed it and there are a couple of nice climbs.  It is what it is.  When I need to climb, I climb.  When I am by myself, the climbs come easy.  Or should I just say easier. No need to press the pace.  Climbing is always easiest done at one's own pace.  To try to go faster or slower is difficult.  

 

I wonder about the dogs at  the top of Liberty Knob.  There are so many of them and they are always coming out.  They have never offered to bite, but biting is only part of the damage dogs can do and they act like they might bite.  If they hit your wheel, down you go.  The owner of these dogs does not care that they chase cyclists.  I have talked to him and others have talked to him.  Because there are so many dogs, one day they may, like humans, do things as a group that they would not do as individuals.  But I am not willing to yield the road and quit riding it because they have an owner who refuses to control or discipline them.  He doesn't understand, evidently, that his rights end where mine begin.  And it is a public road.

 

Today they are not too aggressive.  They come out, a pack of five from two different households, but when I stop and begin squirting my precious water at them, they back off.   I move on without being further terrorized.  

 

The quote above pops  up in Facebook when I am sitting by myself at the first store stop drinking a container of grape juice and my homemade blueberry oatmeal bar that I often take on rides.  I think it is quite appropriate for the day.  It seems such a long time since I have done a solo century.  When I retired, I had great plans that did not materialize.  But I am thankful that I can still complete them and that I have not lost my love for distance.  And I know I will spend part of the day thinking of people that ride or used to ride and how deeply I care for them.   I actually spend a good part of the day thinking about how grateful I am that I can still ride and that I am not wasting today.  I might curse the sun at times, but it is the first time in weeks where I have ridden in strong sunshine, the kind that makes the skin on your face feel tight after a ride no matter how much sunscreen you use.

 

 

On Martinsburg road, I am briefly awed by my surroundings.  At the top of the ridge I look out and see hills and trees sprawled before me.  The sides of the road hold Queen Ann's lace and the last of the Black Eyed Susans.  Sweet clover is beginning to blossom along the hedgerows.  I pass one flower whose name I don't now but I have learned is an invasive plant.  It seems I missed so much of the beauty this year.  Part of the time due to  injury, part due to weather, and part due to myself.  June slipped by without even a whisper.  And here it is July, half done.

I am surprised at how good I feel.  With having ridden a tad over fifty miles the day before, albeit at a slow pace, I thought I might have nothing in my legs.  But I am moving down the road at a reasonable pace.  

I reach the lunch stop which is near 60 miles in and sit down next to people who want to know how far I have ridden and where I am going.  They notice my Louisville Mad Dog jersey and want to know if I am riding back to Louisville.  They are astonished when I tell them I have already ridden 60 miles and have 43 left to go. They also seem to think I am a tad on the crazy side, and I am okay with that.  I have always said the distance cycling does draw a rather odd group of people together.  

So many memories flood my brain throughout the ride.  Memories with old friends and memories with new friends.  After lunch the sun really begins to feel hot, demanding his due.  My pace slows but while some of the roads are new roads I am not familiar with, I find that there is not too much climb until Salem.  I stop the store stop I have chosen for a group ride and go to the bakery.   Dessert is a brownie, thick and chocolatey.  And then home.  On the last stretch, I see what I think must be trash up ahead only to find that the rain has brought out a large group of  mushrooms.   I laugh thinking that eating them would be one way to get out of the heat, take some photos, and pedal home in love yet again with cycling and with many of my cycling friends.  It was a good day.  As I told a friend recently, we only have so many cycling days left in our cycle.  Glad I didn't waste this one. 

Bethlehem in July

"This is the power of gathering: it

inspires us, delightfully, to be more 

hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful:

in a word, more alive." 

Alice Waters

 

 This weeks century is Bethlehem, a century generously infused with memories of countless trips with countless groups of people.  I remember how much trouble I had finding a way to punch through from Bethlehem to Hanover without encountering gravel, how I tried and failed to find a route that bordered the river, how I went into the old, closed nuclear plant that never was and became frightened being by myself after my imagination took hold and filled the empty, eerie spaces with villains.  I remember the Christmas rides, always held the first week-end in December, when we would do the route to mail our Christmas cards in Bethlehem so the postmark would read Bethlehem and they would be specially stamped.  This was the last century I had that Jim Whaley came to before his passing, and I send up a prayer hoping that he is well and putting all the hills in heaven to shame.

Now the post office is closed down.  Many of the people who rode no longer ride or are missing.  If there is one lesson that nobody can evade in this life, it is that change is constant.   No use fighting it.  Roll with it and move on.  

I am not sure how many to expect.  It is one of my easier routes and the weather is predicted to be low eighties, a sheer treat this time of year.  But there is no longer a Tour de Mad Dog and crowds at rides are smaller.  I prepare for possibly twenty and begin to worry that I will not have sufficient cue sheets as more and more roll in, but I have more than enough.  The final count is 13 with a 14th, Jon Wineland,  joining us along the route after having run in the Madison Firecracker 10K.  Some of them have ridden earlier centuries with me this year (Tom Hurst, Larry Preble, Dave King, Thomas  Nance, and Tom Askew:  some have not (Mike Crawford, Amelia Dauer, Fritz Kopatz, Tony Nall, Paul Battle, Frank Hulsman, and Dee Schreur).  

The only person I am not familiar with is Frank Hulsman, and he tells me it is his first century.  It has been awhile since I have captained a first time century rider, and I am glad he has joined us.  There is something quite special when someone rides their first century.  It has always interested me.  For some, it is a "one and done" experience.  It was a goal, they complete, they have no interest in repeating it.  For others, they fall in love with the experience and repeat it time and time again.  I suppose that is one of the best things there is about cycling......there is a niche for almost everyone and they are all good.  As for my first century, nobody shepherded me.  It was the My Old Kentucky Home Tour time trial.  I shake my head remembering Eddie Doerr, the man who suggested that I ride it, another that I have not seen for years and years.

We roll out into the cool of the morning.  Despite not driving the course, something I am just not doing this year, I am not at all concerned about this part of the route as I rode it earlier this week.  I know there are no bridges out and no road closures.  I grin thinking of Tom Hurst telling me this morning that he brought his cleat covers today as every other ride seems to have had an obstacle and he did not have his covers with him.  Perhaps it is like washing your bike:  there is no better way to ensure that you will get rained on during a ride than to wash your bike ahead of time.  By being prepared, he has doomed us to a ride with no unusual obstacles;-)

Because it is a larger group, I have no illusions about this group being cohesive and staying together.  There are enough people that faster people can pair with others who ride fast and slower people can ride at the back with me.  I have found that I have enjoyed this year and the slower paces. I do worry when I learn that Paul has forgotten his GPS in case he gets ahead of me and I worry if I programmed the detour around the gravel correctly.  Neither is a huge issue though I do learn later that while half of the group found the detour, there was a small group that navigated the gravel.  

Despite the different paces, there is not enough speed disparity that we don't regroup at store stops.  At each stop, people regroup.  Along the way I notice as I did earlier this week that the sweet clover is blooming and the Black-eyed Susan's are on full display screaming, "Notice me. Admire me for I am beautiful."  The orange day lilies are mostly gone, but there is still color in the world.  And it is still green, green and lush.  Corn and soy beans line the road in places.  It makes me feel as if somehow I misplaced June.  I spend a moment grieving my inability to slow time, to soak up every moment, every sight, to remember every joke, to clutch the sound of everyone's individual voice and laughter so as to bring it up at will.  But alas, my brain is much too small and insignificant.  Tears fill my eyes for a moment at the beauty of it all, the beauty of the people, the beauty of the landscape, the beauty of the bicycles and jerseys, and the beauty of being healthy and alive on a fine July day.  But I realize that this is not a ride to sink inward in the way that I can do at times.  There are too many people and I have responsibilities.  

 

 The ride ends with Frank successfully completing his first century to the sound of the others who kindly waited at the end, clapping and congratulating him.  His bravery is inspiring as I know the hills at the end hurt him, but he did not complain and kept the wheels turning.  The only issue the entire ride is Larry breaks a shifter cable.  Luckily, I carry an extra cable and Dave King is kind enough to help with the repair so it becomes a non-issue.  The group has inspired,  helped, and been grateful.  A good day and a good ride.  Different than others, but that is only to be expected.  Any day on the bike where everyone successfully finishes and nobody has a major accident or mechanical, well I suppose that is a good day.  We are blessed. And we are alive.