Hardinsburg: End of Summer and Beginning of Fall 2025

"The past beats inside me

like a second heart."

 John Banville

 

The weather has been unseasonably cool and I have ridden, but it has been awhile since I splurged and took a day and rode the entire day by myself.  I decide on my Hardinsburg Century.  Normally this is a route I ride twice yearly:  once in the spring and once in the fall.  This year I  missed the spring ride.  I have ridden a lot of centuries this year, but not solo.  So I prepare my bike and head out into the morning choosing the Lynskey to be my ride.   It has been and remains such a dependable bike.  And is has seen both use and abuse since I got it in 2011, including one PBP.  

 

It has been so unrelentingly sunny that I am a bit surprised at the cloud cover.  Normally in summer, I carry an emergency poncho if I am not wearing a rain jacket, but not today.  I do, however, start the ride in a light jacket and with a pair of work gloves over my short fingered gloves, something I will later be grateful for.  I settle down into a steady pace soon hitting the first climb up Leota Hill,  a climb I have done hundreds of times.  It is steeper than its sister hill, but not as long.  The leaves are just beginning to hint that fall has been dipping her big toe into the waters of summer and there are leaves scattered along the ground and in the road though not as profusely or as colorfully as they will be in a week or so.  The weather person says we are going back up to or near ninety degrees, but today will be perfect reaching at most the low eighties and with only light winds which can be the curse of otherwise perfect fall riding days.  

 

As I climb,  I pass where the Knobstone Trail crosses the road to the Leota Trailhead.  Soon hiking season will be here.  While I don't long for it as I do sometimes near the end of summer, I do look forward to it.  I normally only hike when it is cold and the ticks are not so thick and the snakes are in bed for the winter.  I have crossed this road hiking with Diana when we did our through hike and other times, with Jon, with Chris, and alone.  I think how I will miss Chris this winter and while I am glad for him and his wife that they followed a dream, I am selfishly sad for myself.  I have been riding and met hikers crossing doing a through hike and encouraged them because I know the climbs that they will face shortly since they are going north.   Hills while hiking can be as demanding as hills when bicycling and just as debilitating and just as rewarding if you conquer them.  

 

After I crest, I eventually pass the house where I heard the story of the dog called Tripod because while he only had three legs, he would chase passing cyclists.  I don't remember who told me the story, but he (and I say he because most of the distance riders I know are male) said Eddie Doer named the dog.  Tripod was gone prior to my traversing the road, but for some reason I remember the story and, of course, I remember Eddie.   I first me Eddie when he was holding training sessions for the OKHT Time Trial all those years ago hoping to improve my cycling but not knowing he would lead me away from triathlons toward distance cycling.  I still hear him telling me to weight my pedal on switchbacks.  So hard to believe he is gone, too young, younger than me.  So many gone, I press harder on the petals attempting to leave ghosts behind for today is not a day I want to be morose and sad but to have fond memories that make me smile. 

 

I leave Eddie behind with Tripod and head on to Blue River and think of a family I used to work with who lived on the road wondering what ever happened to the children.  Abuse had left them where it was unlikely they would ever really be able to be independent.  Perhaps it is best I don't know.  And then I am at Pekin with memories still chasing me, some happy and some sad.  But that is their nature and they way they mold us as we become who we become.  

 

Bill Pustow comes to mind.  He  and I were riding this course one cold winter day.  One of us, and I don't remember which, had a flat tire.  While I don't remember which of us it was, I remember the sinking feeling because, if you have ever changed a tire when it is freezing out, you know how hard tires become and how cold hands can get.  A woman noticed us and allowed us to bring the bike inside into the warmth to change the tire, a living example that kindness does exist in this world, something easy to forget into today's world and political climate.  Sometimes it seems to me that the more we have, the less generous we become.  But perhaps it is my imagination that leads me down that path.  I think of how in the past, I could always get someone to ride a century despite the cold, but those days are behind me, one more thing lost to time.   How glad I am that I did them while I still could. 

 

And that is one reason why I ride today:  because I still can and because I still love it even though at times it depletes me.  How much longer will I be able to do this, take off on my own to dream for an entire day..  How long will my mind and body heed what I ask of it before refusal.  For this is not an easy century.  There is lots of climbing that makes demands on the legs, lungs, heart, and mind.  Again I ask myself if we quit because of our growing bodily weakness or our growing mental weakness.  I have often repeated the words of my friend, Lynn, "When you get older it becomes harder to be mean to yourself."  

 

Leaving the store, I shortly make the turn onto Shorts Corner knowing that this road will hurt.  I remember Steve Rice once describing it as "annoying."  I remember he and I were together when we passed a young kid, much too young to have the tool he had:  a chainsaw.  I would guess he was at most ten or eleven.  Shorts Corner does hurt and also brings to mind when I was designing the Merango Mangler course and Grasshopper was with me.  We were coming the other direction and as we made the big climb going that way, he was obviously in pain.  I don't know if that is when he was riding with his broken neck, but I suspect so.  When we rode together last year, he was on an e-bike but still having neck issues.  Does he, I wonder, remember that day.  How I wished I could help him with his pain, but  unfortunately it was the kind of pain one has to bear alone.  

 

I near Hardinsburg and think how glad I am that they finally paved the swooping downhill that used to be full of pot holes.  When I first put this century together, before RWGPS or other on-line route planners, I intended to have lunch in Hardinsburg only to arrive and find that it was too early yet for lunch and that even if it were not, the only thing there was a dilapidated Dairy Barn, now closed, that looked too nasty to consider eating at.   So I rode onward, unsure of what was ahead and with a sandwich in my bag if needed.

 

As I head to Livonia, construction trucks keep passing me on what is normally a fairly quiet road.  And suddenly I am with Steve Sexton, climbing these hills while the others surge ahead on a winter century.  I don't remember if it was a Christmas Breakfast ride, but I suspect it was as this was often the route I chose for us to ride following the celebration.  I remember feeling weak, the wind was so very strong that year, and how we climbed together.  I feel certain he could have been with the lead group for he was always so strong, he who almost always rode in the big chain ring,  but instead he faced the wind and hills with me. He retired recently and I hoped perhaps he would once again ride with the Mad Dogs, but it has not happened.  Another dream I suppose. 

 

I pass a watermelon field filled with watermelons most of which appear to be rotting.  It seems I always encounter a few fields of watermelons or pumpkins that are grown but never harvested.  I have always wondered why.  Across the road is a field of pumpkins, their orange skin peeking through the green leaves that are still a strong green but beginning to fade. 

 

 

As I near lunch, the sky begins to spit a cold drizzle, and I have to stop for a one lane road.  The woman apologizes and I tease her a bit, but I don't mind having to stop half way up the hill and have a bit of a rest.  This is where the trucks were going to I suppose.  When she lets me pass, the sky opens and I am pelted by a cold, hard rain.  I giggle as  I hear construction workers laughing and talking running for the truck, all of them except the poor flag people who must remain due to traffic. I think that it is somehow uplifting to hear the laughter of young people. I don't want to stop because traffic coming the other direction can't proceed until I get to the end, so I pedal as hard as I can a bit worried about my phone and glad I brought a plastic bag to stick it in "just in case."  Once I come upon the second flag person, I pull over and put it in the bag and the downpour stops shortly after.

 

I pass what used to be the Dutch Barn and see it is becoming a volunteer fire station.  I grin thinking of Dave and how he said he liked the women employees, Amish or Mennonite, because they had "sturdy" legs.  Many the sandwich I ate there piled with ham or turkey and cheese and served on homemade bread.  How sad I was when it close.  But Little Twirl was where I would go before the Dutch Barn existed and is where I return to.  It was also the store stop on my Campbellsburg Century, the first I designed for the club, and I remember that Mike Pitt and Jim Moore were there the first time I put it on, the century designed by exploration and sidewalk chalk as I had no GPS and no real map.  How I miss them both, more than I would ever have imagined.  Jim so sensible and protective.  Mike making me laugh until I almost pee in my riding shorts.  I remember once following a ride waking up laughing and how weirdly wonderful that felt. 

 

I ask the woman working how their fish is.  She answers by telling me it is her husband's favorite menu item so I decide to give it a try.  I sit outside on the picnic bench glad the rain has stopped and wait.  Meanwhile, chilling a bit, I pull the jacket out of my jersey pocket and put it on glad for an additional layer.  She brings my food and I eat, needful of the calories to finish the ride.  The fish is okay.  Nothing to write home to mom about as they say, but not terrible either.  Since it was fried, I wonder if it is better for me than a hamburger?  At least it is hot and the warmth fills my insides as I prepare to finish the century out. 

 

I head out and think how unusual it is to eat and have a flat stretch before the climbs resume.  It so often seems we eat lunch on a ride, throw a leg over our bikes, and then ride up some big ass hill that makes you wish you had just starved.  Of course I have ridden enough distance to know that you must eat.  I know that when I am not hungry on a long ride, it normally means I am in trouble or about to be.  

 

I travel through Campbellsburg remembering the first time I got there on a bike.  It was quite cold out.  It also was the only time I have seen another person on a bike there in all the times I have passed through other than seeing other riders on one of my rides.  It was an old man, dressed in regular clothing a cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he rode. smoke, breath in cold air mingling or both.  

 

I reach the top of Cox Ferry Hill, the large hill we climbed on the overnight this year, or I should say I "tried" to climb, in the big ring no less.  This time I am heading down the hill.  I remember the first time I descended the hill and how I startled a deer and it ran alongside the road with me on the descent.  How frightened I was that it would veer and pop in front of me, for the steepness of the hill with rim brakes does not make for easy stopping.  At the bottom I stop to photograph some artwork for the overnight that not one person spotted.  I then notice a large snake has shed his skin and think this would be an ideal place to live if one were a snake. 

 

 Suddenly I am thinking of Paul and how, after the descent, he looked at me with amazement in his eyes saying, "You didn't ride out here by yourself, did you?"   There is nothing here but fields and the occasional house.  Normally I don't see a car on this stretch of road.  I tell him I do and know he does not understand that I feel safer out here than I would walking down a city street.  I remember he liked the view and so do I.  It is wide and open and filled with different colors. 

 

As I progress I pass the house with the scary pit bulls that the lady appeared unable to control.  Either she has moved and taken them, she has gotten rid of them, or they did not hear or see me.  My breath comes easier knowing I won't have to try to evade them or defend myself, particularly after the long climb.  During the climb I think of Scott Kuchenbrod, someone who has not ridden with me for years.  Scott was a great climber and rarely stood.  Scott stood on this hill and I remember thinking that is one way to know for sure that it is a hard climb even if your legs aren't already telling you.  I am proud to find I don't have to switch to Granny this time.  My legs remain strong.  

 

I arrive at Amos's and he is sitting outside with a friend eating his lunch.  I buy my normal Snickers bar form him and also get a Gatorade, not because I really want the Gatorade but because I know he keeps it in just for me and when I bring riders.  When he hears how far I have ridden he laughs saying he couldn't walk if he rode that far.  We talk about the new pavement on the road that passes his store and the man sitting with him says the new pavement is because the county passed a wheel tax.  Regardless, it is nice pavement, not the hated chip and seal being placed on so many roads where I live.

 

I bid them farewell after listening to a conversation about a cow watering station and how big the concrete slab should be for the best performance.  The rest of the ride is largely on one of my favorite roads:  Delaney Park and Eden.   The sun pops out.  Once again I think of Steve Sexton and how he took a fall on this road one day.  None of us ever really figured out why. I think of Larry breaking a spoke on this road once going in the opposite direction.  I pass the entrance to the trail head where Chris, Jon, and I hiked last year and laughed about the man who disappeared on the trails there and how we joked he was a ghost.  He had been behind us, then passed while we were stopped for some reason, and we never passed him again but somewhere along the way there stopped being footprints, as if he had just disappeared.  I notice the wind picking up and am glad I near home though a part of me regrets that the experience is coming to an end. 

 

I arrive home tired but happy and thinking how very lucky I am that I can still do this and that I have so many memories to haunt me.  I know there are many who think of this a whole day doing a century alone on a bike, as torture, but to me it is precious time that I would not spend any other way.  I love even the sadder memories, the memories that involve people I no longer ride with or who no longer ride.  They were friends and I hope they know I cherished them and I miss them.  In the end, are we are , I suppose, our memories come to life because there is no denying that these experiences shape and mold us.   One of my great fears is dementia and losing those memories, but we face what we have to face as best we can.  Maybe that experience will not be one that is on my plate or maybe it will.  Some things you can control, but many you can't.  Even if I don't remember them, however, they will always live inside my heart.   I am thankful for all I have been graced with in this life, however undeserved it might be.  Now, it is time for rest for the mind and body to prepare for another day. "Tomorrow's another day, and I am not afraid, so bring on the rain." (Jo Dee Messina)