Orleans: The Back Door TMD Stage 2024

"If you are a boat that wants

to sail in windy weather, you must

be more stubborn than the waves!"

(Mehmet Murat Ildan)

 

There is no need trying to convince myself to ride because I am captaining the ride and thus own it.   The course is not particularly a difficult one and not particularly an easy one, but the wind adds a new dimension to the challenge every long ride brings.  And it is a tad over 104 miles and still early in the riding season.  Legs remain green though they are starting to harden. The soul also requires a certain stiffening to face longer rides. Other than a robust wind, however, it is supposed to be perfect riding weather topping out in the low seventies and with wall to wall, soaking sunshine, a dire need after a long streak of dark, dismal, rainy days. 

 

 The wind is to be in our faces going out which will mean a delicious tail wind on the return, always better than having a tailwind out and fighting the wind on the return.  I try to concentrate on this positive.  Also, the wind will aid in my training for Dave's and my trip to ride across Scotland in a bit.  Indeed, at least a spot of rain along with the wind would be more appropriate training wise.  But I am thankful for the sunshine.

 

I am surprised at the number of people who show as some bowed out due to the wind prediction.  I think that there comes a time when one knows one can do something but also realizes the cost.  So I understand that decision.  Indeed, I have made it myself at times, more frequently with age. As I said after Jon's century earlier this year, it was not fun.  It was hard. Still, I lied when I said I would never do that course again.  It is a fine course.  It challenged me physically and mentally and a time lapse helps with the realization that this is, indeed, good for me. Doing it also  helps ameliorate the danger of losing the ability to do it. Loss happens so stealthily.   One could almost believe it means to trick you into letting your guard down. But perhaps that is how it is:  we fool ourselves better than the best of grifters.

 

I look at that as one of the perils and costs of aging and remember my mother telling me that she forgot that she could no longer do certain things until she tried to do them.  It is one reason I continue to sit on the floor and squat and use the muscles it would be so very easy to neglect.  Time steals these things and with age it becomes harder to regain the use of them. And the loss is a slippery slope.  Is there wisdom in fighting the inevitable?  Sometimes I question myself.  But I know I want to be able to take care of myself for as long as possible.  I rue the thought of being dependent.  But still I wonder when I will ask my legs for strength they can no longer give despite my efforts and desires.  Will I be angry or resigned? 

Most of the riders that show are known to me and I have no concerns over their ability to finish the ride.  I have neither the desire nor the ability to ride this course quickly with my current fitness level and with the predicted winds.  I find myself rather happy knowing that at least a few of these riders may be in the back with me, for the majority of them are strong riders and I will not be able to keep their pace.  Nineteen have shown up, a much larger crowd than I expected.  The riders are Chris Quirey, Larry "Gizmo" Preble, Fritz Kopatz, Tom Hurst, Jeff Shrode, Tommy Paulin, Steve "Meat Dog" Meredith, Jennifer Standfield, John Pelligrino, Bob Evancho, Al Hargrave, Mike "Diesel" Kamenish, Keith Baldwin, Jose Rodriguez, Bob "Backpack Bob" Grable, Thomas "The Train" Nance, Glenn "Clothesline" Smith, Dave "Bam Bam" King, and me, "Puddle." 

 

Tom is the first to arrive and says he thought it would take longer to arrive, but soon other cars fill the lot.  For the first time, I have to use the  parking spaces across the road. Jenn and Steve leave a bit early.   Dave, as usual, arrives late and has to chase us down. 

 

This course has never been a tour stage.  I  have done my other version of Orleans as a tour stage:  Packman's Hint.  But while I have had this ride on the schedule, it has never been a stage.   I have made quite a few modifications to the route for the tour, and I pre-rode most of those changes a couple of weeks ago and think they are good changes.  Interestingly, Ride With GPS has it with about five miles of gravel but there is zero gravel on this ride.  Oh, well, it is a valuable tool...just not a perfect one.   When I first put this route together, I did not have a GPS or RWGPS.  Just a paper map that, interestingly, I only found when I finally reached Orleans.  Part of the delight of designing a route is sharing it, and I hope people like this route. But I also have fond memories of laying the course out, exploring roads.  What works and what doesn't?  What has too much traffic?  Where will stores be located?  There is more to planning a route than many people realize. 

 

 Originally I was going to host Story, but road construction meant a change in plans.  Probably a good thing.  There is, in my opinion, way too much repetition in tour stages this year.   I like the familiar, but there is something nice about new or vaguely familiar roads.  I am always amazed at people who seem to enjoy riding the same course over and over again with little to no variation. Personally, I like a bit of diversity, either new routes (properly designed) or old routes that have not been on the schedule for awhile.  (Oodles of those old routes are available)  I am looking forward to Bob's ride the next week-end for this very reason. I  have ridden the course before, but it was  years ago and will seem brand new.  Bob always does a good job with course design.

We head out through the covered bridge and up Liberty Knob.  The group quickly divides into smaller groups dependent upon pace. I, of course, am at the back. This would be the case even if it were not my responsibility as ride captain. Surprisingly, the dogs at the top of Liberty Knob don't come out.  Had they gone after the faster riders and become worn out?  Had the owners finally restrained them, something they have never done in the past despite my talking to them and Mike Crawford talking to them.  For whatever reason, they are gone.  Prior to this, I was amazed at the traffic on the first section of Liberty  Knob.  It is normally completely car free.  We happen upon a farm auction which quickly explains the cars.  

The blackberries are blooming profusely, clouds of white brightening the roadside.  It looks to be a bumper crop this year. The honeysuckle has begun to flower and occasionally I catch a whiff of their sweet smell.  It makes me think of the Pam Century, normally the ride where I first notice honeysuckle blooming.  It was not on the calendar this year and I could not have ridden it if it were due to a planned visit with the grandchildren.  Indeed, I have not ridden it for a variety of reasons for a number of years.  Perhaps next year it will be back.  Perhaps not.  As John points out at one point in the ride, there is a huge attrition rate with the tour.  People find other interests or gravitate back to shorter rides.  Regardless, people come and go.  I tell him there are only three of us who have been finishers every Tour de Mad Dog since it's inception:  Mike Kamenish, Dave King, and myself.  

Later in the ride, Bob makes the comment that he does not expect to be riding the centuries in five years.  He is younger than me.   "Will I," I wonder, "be riding them in five years?" That is not so far away.  Of course I don't know, but I hope so even if I ride by myself because the other, younger riders hold much too fast a pace.  And if I don't, what will I be doing?  Shorter rides?  Other things?  The future is, always, a teaser.  There is just no way to predict. 

 

 Dave later will pick a sprig of honeysuckle and Steve M. talks about how, as a child, he would do what every other child who grew up around honeysuckle did:  pull out the center stem and taste the sweetness of the nectar.  I remember asking my husband why bees don't harvest that sweetness.  He told me their proboscis is not long enough to reach.  The white daisies are starting to bloom and occasionally we pass large feeds of the yellow weeds that brighten fields despite the fact farming has begun.  In places shoots of corn and soybeans peak shyly from the ground.  And there is beauty in the world.  It seems too early for crops to be poking up through the rich brownness, but they are boasting of a coming harvest.  Fall will be here all too soon, I fear, bringing with it the promise of another winter.  Still, I am grateful and send up a prayer of thanks for allowing me to experience another spring.  I pray best when on a bicycle. 

 

Once we round the square in Salem, right in the middle of town, I see a deer cross the road from one yard to another.  How we are robbing creatures of their homes and then are surprised when they become part of our own. Outside Orleans, Jenn and I see a tiny turtle, no bigger than an inch or two, crossing the road.   The wind is starting to tell on us and she reveals how she struggled on the Maple Syrup ride, a ride I skipped due to the weather.  She discloses that she was going to quit at the festival but her phone did not have any reception so she finished.  I tell her she will remember that ride because of the difficulties, the challenge of finishing.  It is almost always the hard rides that we remember, the ones that take a toll mentally and physically.  These are also the rides we can take pride in because they were taxing.  I suppose very few things in life come easily.  

I ride with Jenn into Orleans, but she is only going to  the gas station.  I tell her I will catch up but that I need to eat and head, along with other riders, to Speak Easy Pizza.   There is only one bike there.  I say the others probably went to the Dawg House, but Bob says he did not see any  bikes there.  Later we find he just missed them when Dave tells us they ate there.  Dave said the special was beef Manhattan and that it was good, but not great.

 

Steve, Bob, Al, John, and I order our food.  We come upon Jose who said he paused and was unable to catch back up to the others.  Everyone goes on about how good the food is.  For the second time, I have a rider tell me they are going to come back and bring their spouse.  It is a long way from Louisville to Orleans, but it would be a pretty drive.  I am just glad it is a success.  After the ride Bob emails that this may be his favorite course due to the lunch stop. 

The ride back is much easier.  The wind that slapped us around gives back, paying us back for our "stubborness" in facing her down.  The course also is relatively flat until we near Salem, something my tired legs are grateful for.  Steve and I talk about how there just is no way to get in or out of Salem without hills.  I remember last years back to back century overnight ride to Montgomery and how my legs ached as we neared Salem.  As we make the turn for the store stop, Al and Jose do not turn.  I decide that since we are 18 miles out, they decided not to stop.  Instead, they just missed the turn and we later find them out wandering, just getting back on course on Canton Road.

 

With the wind, the hills don't seem so exacting, plus I know we have a wonderful two mile downhill coming up in the near future.  Steve later tells me that is his favorite descent of any century though he wishes that, rather than ending with some rollers, the descent ended at the starting place.  And it is a good downhill, not at all technical so you can really let it go.  I mention to Dave that it was rather fun to ride fixed.  He says he does not think it would exactly be "fun."  I grin.  Dave did PBP fixed.  For him, it would be fun.  I wonder what the front riders thought of the descent, but of course they are all gone by the time the last group pulls into the finish.

The ride ends and three of us go out for dinner.  All three of us have overseas plans coming up this year.  Jenn is off to Italy though not to ride.  And as I mentioned earlier, Dave and I are off the Scotland for what, I assume, will be my last time in that enchanted land.  And to top off a delightful day and dinner, Dave, at one point, tells me that I  underestimate myself, a compliment that I will tuck in with others that I keep to cheer myself up or onward when I am feeling down or need, once again, to "be more stubborn than the wind."  (Thanks, Dave).  And thank you to all who came to what turned out to be a challenging but pleasant day.