Spring Approaches

 Well the road rolls out like a welcome mat,

to a better place than the one we're at...."

Chris Stapleton

 

This song caught me with the first line......how true it feels on a bicycle when the last of the winter days speak of spring with a kiss of unseasonable warmth and the road is so welcoming, teasing of adventure.  And today is such a day.  How welcome it is to be on a bike.  

The day begins shrouded in grayness that  could speak of winter, but it lacks that cold shrillness that often haunts winter days, perhaps because the wind is mild:  enough that you know it is there, but not strong enough to leave you cursing and despairing.  Additionally,  I know that the skies are predicted to clear before growing heavy with clouds again and issuing in rain, and the thought of sun is joyful.  From what the weathermen say, lots of rain.  Three of us roll out of Bicentennial Park in  Madison toward Pleasant.  Almost immediately, Ken notices a brake rub.  He stops and it is a quick and easy fix, but bicycle problems will haunt him throughout the day afterward ushered in with a flat.

Rural Indiana has had snow this year, something we were spared the past couple of years, and cinders are thick on the road.  If you have ridden much in cinders, flats are expected, not a surprise.  The surprise of the day is that Ken not only  has but one flat, but also is the only one who has a flat.  When we first take off, I attempt to use my glove to clear the cinders after riding through a particularly heavy spot, but the roads are wet from the prior evenings rain and it is too cold to have water soaked gloves so I just accept my fate.  If I flat, I flat and will fix it.  There are worse things.  The other curse of cinders is that they easily can cause a wheel skid that results in a loss of control and a crash.  Between luck and easing down descents that we would otherwise let loose on, all of us avoid this unpleasantness.  

 

When Ken has his flat, he is never again able to get his back wheel exactly right and there is an audible sound  when the tire turns.  He has tried loosening the brakes, re-seating the tire, and other tricks to no avail.   Yet he never complains despite the fact that it must take lots of additional effort, and while this is not the hilliest ride I have ever completed, it is not the flattest either.   As I later tell him, I would have milked it for all it is worth.  I don't know him well, but it says a lot about his character that he does not. 

I shed my jacket after the first climb and then chill as the sweat dries, but once the wind has dried my wool jersey and base layer, I am comfortable.  I smile inwardly knowing that I have hot soup on my bike for my lunch.  Hiking with a thermos of coffee this winter has taught me how fortifying a hot beverage can be when there is chill in the air.  The trick was getting my thermos to fit my bottle cage.  I accomplished this by taping newspaper around the outside.  The other trick was getting the vegetables inside the narrow stem.  This morning while preparing I decided that next time I will bring a soup that does not present this issue.  The guys tease me about the soup until after we stop in Pleasant for lunch.  It is a friendly teasing, that kind that has no malice or meanness in it, so it makes me smile.  For just a moment I think about life when I used to eat inside restaurants or stores.  It seems a lifetime ago.  

The climbing feels wonderful though I obviously am not cycling fit.  The skies clear and we have some time with a wonderfully blue sky.  Again and again I delight at how magnificient it feels to be outside and on a bicycle, particularly on the lovely roads that Jon has chosen and with people.  How I have missed people in my isolation.  Often there are creeks, gurgling and shining, at the side of the road.  At one point I wonder what it will look like here when the spring wildflowers arrive.  It must be soon. My early flowering daffodils are pressing up through the ground at home, promising me beauty and color. 

 

The ride seems to end all too quickly, but 45 miles is really the perfect distance for my current fitness level. I tell Jon I want to ride Telegraph Hill, just not today.  I think he is, perhaps, disappointed, but my legs are feeling the climbs we have done.  I end knowing I could have ridden farther, feeling as if I got a workout without feeling absolutely exhausted.  Ken split off for home prior to the last descent, so the ride ends just Jon and I and after putting up our bikes, we walk up to Main Street to find drinks:  coffee for him and hot chocolate for me.   But  the road will call again soon, shouting its welcome.  Of that I have no  doubt.

An Untroubled Century Ride

"At these times, the things that troubled

her seemed far away and unimportant:

all that mattered was the hum of the bees

and the chirp of the birdsong, the way the

sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower,

the distant bleat and clink of grazing goats."

Alison Croggon

It seems impossible, particularly after the blazingly hot, humid days of the past few weeks, to have the prediction for a high in the low 80's and little humidity.  Each day recently, upon awakening, I would find so much condensation on the windows that it was hard to see out and 90's with heat index near or over 100 degrees a broken record, relentlessly repeating itself. But this morning there is just a hint around the bottom of the pane. And here it is, the forecast for cooler, less humid weather, and even the night before it is not changed.  The only club ride that would possibly have tempted me would have been a long one, and there are none.  So I decide to head out on a solo century, a journey that has been calling me for awhile but which I have weakly resisted due to the hot, steamy days that making breathing more difficult as if the air had thickened to consistency of honey.

Coolness wraps  its arms around me, bringing goosebumps to my uncovered arms, and I wonder if I should have worn light arm warmers.  I giggle to myself thinking of how when I first started riding and lacked many of the essentials, I cut the toes off some old tube socks so they could serve as warmers.  And when I am done giggling to myself, I realize I no longer feel the chill in any way but a pleasant way, one of the odd phenomenons of riding. I suppose the exercise warms the body. I have decided on the Christy century, and early in the ride I pass the spot where, long ago. I came upon a fox, sitting in the middle of the road, enjoying the morning sun as if he did not have a care in the world.  I remember thinking he was a dog until I drew closer, and then worrying if he was, perhaps, rabid, since he seemed in no  hurry to run from the bicycle that was bearing down on him.  Up he got and slid seamlessly into the nearby woods, disappearing all too quickly yet not seeming hurried. 

I wonder what the day will hold for me because you never really know, particularly if you are on a bicycle. We often think we know how our day will go, reeking with boredom, only to find that it just does not go that way. Sometimes it is a relief when the unexpected happens and sometimes it seems a curse, but perhaps these changes are a blessing, even though we don't like the way our routine is disrupted.  It is hard to remember sometimes that change can be good and that variety is, indeed, the spice of life. 

I think briefly how different preparation for a ride or other outing is different in the time of COVID.  I have packed a mask and neck gaiter for the anticipated run into stores.  I have brought a snack for the first stop, but did not pack a sandwich for lunch.   I miss the old days. On some rides, like the Willisburg Century, lunch was one of the main attractions. And I miss old friends.  I think of Bill Pustow and how when he rode this century with me, he was so shocked at the lunch town Halloween decorations.  And they were, indeed, sacrilegious, or some of them were.  I continue to wonder if that was the intent or if someone just did not put two and two together.  Regardless, I am glad for the miles we rode together, for his company and the stories he would tell, for the times he made me smile and for the times he made me think.  I don't like changes, but things change, and he no longer rides with the club or with me, but I am glad we had the time we had.  Memories of the many rides we rode as companions lace my memories and will for as long as I can hold my memories tightly.

Before I know it, I am passing Cliff Stream Farms where Jon and I recently rode for lunch and where I took Diana for her birthday lunch, a new favorite not just because of the delicious food but because of outside dining, another COVID change.  It is too early for it to be open, but maintenance is hard at work, the roar of the mower sounding through the morning air, the smell of cut grass perfuming my passing. Again, I give thanks for friends, for how they brighten days and moments of our lives. I decide I will stop for my first break at the bridge nearby, one that I loved from the moment I first laid eyes on it while out exploring these roads. 

At the bridge, I come upon a sign and I am not quite sure what it means, but it sounds as if the bridge may be torn down and replaced, something I have seen happen repeatedly on the roads I ride. What does it mean to "reuse" a bridge?  I don't know the answer to this question. Sometimes the things that appeal to me aesthetically are not really useful for most people. Is utility, should utility, be the main goal, or does/should beauty fit in there somewhere?  Perhaps others find beauty in the new bridges, their structures, their size.  Personally, I gravitate toward the old.  I lean my bike against the railing and eat the homemade peanut butter crackers I have brought as I mull these things over in my mind.

Before I reach Vernon, my destination, I have another unexpected event.  I reach a road that says it is closed as a bridge is out.  Of course, scoff law that I am, at least on a bicycle, I skirt the sign and proceed hoping that the people will not be working and that I will be able to pass.  When I reach the bridge, I see a workman sitting there.  Hoping against hope, I wave and approach telling him I am not from around here and wondered about a work around.  Without my asking, he tells me I can cross through the creek if I don't mind getting a bit wet.  He even offers to carry my bike for me, an offer I refuse but appreciate.  I don't stop to take pictures after crossing as more workmen are coming and I worry he will get in trouble for his kindness in allowing me to pass.  I suppose it has been fueled by lawsuits, but it certainly seems that not many are helpful anymore.  In allowing me to pass, he has saved me what I would estimate to be about five extra miles, not a big deal in summer on a day like today, but a big deal when daylight is less abundant or when the sun is scorching every inch of your skin like a blow torch .   

I love the roads on this ride, particularly the first 65 miles or so. Some are more lanes than roads.  All have tree overhangs shading providing shade that dapples the ground.  Certainly, it makes spotting potholes more difficult, but oh how pleasant it makes the trip.  I realize that Ms. Croggon is right.  Whether it is the bicycle, the scenery, the weather, or a combination of the three, things that trouble me fall behind me on the road.    I think that is one of the things I love most about riding, how often you can leave behind the negative. As usual, I appreciate the deep, rich greenness.  The hot, humid weather has ensured that things have remained green.  In the corn fields, however, I spot the first signs of the coming fall.  Silks are blackening, edges of leaves are hinting of browning. Black Eyed Susans are pretty much gone as are the daisies.  I see the first of the Sumac and think how, when Lloyd was living, I would have told him as they are good honey producers.  Yellow flowers, tall and beautiful, perhaps wild sunflowers but whose name I don't really know, are blooming.  Insects buzz. As I pass wet lands, I hear a frog still pining for a mate.  And because I am not with others, I can sing, loudly and robustly, as I have not been able to for quite a while.

I pick up the pace after lunch finding that my legs feel better than expected.  I have been riding slowly all year, and while I still am not riding quickly, I am riding hard for my fitness level and it feels good.  My lungs start to heave a bit and my thighs ache, but I know I can hold this pace for a long while, pedals churning.  And all too soon it is over and I am home and I wonder why I hurried.  And I wonder if I will ever figure out how to correct the date on my camera;-)  But it is all good.  And this day, a brief respite from the merciless heat that is August,  a brief respite from the things that trouble me, has been a blessing.  Oh, yeah.....bicycles.

The First Ever Indiana 300K Brevet

"Contrary to what we usually believe, 

moments like these, the best moments, are

not the passive, receptive, relaxing times---

though such experiences can also be enjoyable

if we have worked hard to obtain them. 

The best moments usually occur when a person's

body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary

effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Optimal experience is thus something we can make happen."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

As I train for my fall 1000K, the one that scares me so as I am so with the unfamiliar terrain I will encounter and my ability to master it along with numerous other niggling fears, fears that I recognize but refuse to allow to define me, I am delighted to find that there is a 300K on the RUSA schedule that is  quite nearby.  Part of the problem training for a long fall event is that there normally is such a large gap between the completion of your qualifying 600K and the 1000K.  How do you maintain the fitness you have gained between the two events?  Even with a century every week-end and sometimes two, I feel like I am losing ground.  Yes, I feel faster and I am climbing better as a few pounds peel off, but I am  concerned about my endurance level dropping and I still am not and likely never will  be some slim whip of a lass.  I also am concerned about burn out, how to get myself to the starting line as strong as I can possibly be without being so tired of riding and training that I just want it to end.

It is doubly nice that this 300K  is a first in Indiana and I am going to be part of that first. Hats off to Bill Watts for starting a series in Indiana. Yes, I could ride and train that distance on my own, but it just seems too difficult to discipline myself to do that, particularly as I have no training companions at the present time. It is too expensive to go elsewhere. And my house has fallen in even more disorder than usual with my increased riding time.  But perhaps Steve Rice is right when he tells me that a large part of riding a brevet is the mental fortitude necessary to finish once you are century fit.  Time will tell.

I decide not to drive to Indianapolis and stay all night the evening before as I believe that starting to ride with not enough sleep is just a part of training for the fall event.  The 1000K begins at 4:00 a.m.  This ride starts at 6:00 a.m. which means this lazy girl doesn't even need to leave the house until 3:45 a.m. to make it by the 5:30 sign in.  As usual, my internal clock awakens me even earlier than I would need to be up and I stagger downstairs to make my morning coffee.  Cats haughtily stalk through the house, tails straight upwards,  following me and monitoring my activity, upset at this change in their routine and at not getting fed. I chuckle thinking that my husband can deal with their offended little egos when he arises later in the day, and I strongly suspect that he will not be permitted to sleep in.  While the coffee brews and the heady aroma wafts through the kitchen, I head upstairs and dress myself in the clothing I laid out the evening before.  My bag is packed and ready to go.  My bike had lights attached and was made ready for loading the evening before.  All I need is to get my coffee, throw everything into the car, and drive.

When I arrive, I am surprised at the number of people who appear to be getting ready to ride, particularly since the weather is supposed to be very hot, humid, and windy with lots of thunderstorms thrown in to make things interesting. Per the RBA, 24 registered, 21 started, and 20 finished. But there you have it.....how sensible are people who ride brevets?  I grin thinking of the doctor I went to after PBP 2007 when I temporarily, a week or two after the event, reached for something and quite suddenly  lost feeling in a forearm for some still unknown reason. Thinking I was being smart, I made an appointment at the office of someone I knew  rides a bicycle albeit not long distances.  I get one of his partners who says, "You damned idiot.  If you want to go somewhere 100 miles away get in a damned car."  Incidentally, he did nothing to help me with my problem, but time cured it as time so often has a habit of doing if we are just patient.

It is interesting to see the variety of people and bicycles at the start.  Some of these  people I know, but most of them I have never seen before.  Dave King is here riding his fixed gear. Steve Royse and Dave Rudy are here. There is another fixed gear rider and a tandem  and two recumbants.  All the rest are singles.  There is one other woman riding, the stoker on the tandem. I wonder who, if anyone, I will ride with.  When I learn we are coming and going on a bike path through the city, it firms my resolve to try to find a suitable companion today, and I am lucky enough to find two:  Dave King, a good friend that I have known for many years now, and Bob Bruce, who I have not met before but who I  now consider a semi-friend.  I say a semi-friend because we don't know each other well enough to discern if our personalities mesh as Dave's and mine do.  Yes, Dave and I annoy each other at times, but we also like each other and enjoy riding together. The number of miles we have traveled together attest to that.

Almost immediately after we get off the bike path, we are stopped in our tracks by a train that is blocking the road.  It moves forward, stops, then backs up. Alas, it is hooking onto another load of cars.  After what seems like quite a long wait, it finally moves forward, creaking and groaning as it strains under its load,  and we proceed as best we can while having to stop at numerous traffic lights.  I tell Steve Royse that it reminds me of PBP 2007 when he dragged my sorry rear in at the end of the ride.  I have never wanted to get off a bicycle so badly and felt terrible having lost my ability to force food down, and it seemed fate was conspiring against us with every light throughout the  town turning red right before we got to it: an endless procession of red lights.  Only Steve and his hard candies (something my brother, the dentist abhors) got me through the last few miles.  I spend some time thinking about how kind some people are to others and that Steve was drawn to the right profession when he chose medicine or when medicine chose him.  I do admire kindness in people, and while my husband once told me that people can sense an inner core of kindness in me and that is what has made me successful at what I do, I often feel I am lacking in that area. 

I am not used to riding in the city, and the traffic and even some of the people we pass make me rather nervous while at the same time fascinating me.  What would it be like to live in such a place? I realize I will be more comfortable when we get to a more rural areas, but that is not necessarily a good thing.  I waken from my reverie to find that the larger group I was riding with has now split into smaller groups as bicycling groups are wont to do.  On the way back into the city later, Bob says something about the country mouse not liking the all the commotion of the city and it was very odd as I had just been thinking that I was a country mouse and would be glad to get back to my own quiet, rural home despite all the enriching experiences and people a city holds.  It was one of those moments when you get the uncomfortable feeling that someone is reading your mind. I didn't ask if he was referring to me or to himself and whether he thought it was a good thing or a bad thing, but I feel certain it was to me he was referring to, and what a coincidence that he would use the exact same terminology that I was using in my head. "It is not easy to to walk alone in the country without musing about something."  (Charles Dickens) Yes, the city is fine for a visit, but I would not want to live there.  Even as a child I knew that, that I needed the green fields in the same way that some people need the roll of the waves or that some people need the snow or that others need the bustle and hum of the city. 

The course becomes quite beautiful after the first control and I find my interest particularly piqued when we hit the town of Bean Blossom.  This seems rather silly as I have only seen the name on a map and wanted to ride there, but I  have never ridden through it before.  There is not much there in Bean Blossom, but the name strikes my fancy.  Like many small towns in this age of huge corporations and conglomerates, decaying dreams line the main street. We have so many more things now, but are they the important things?  Or was it better to pay more and  have fewer things but have something else, something I can't find a word for but I know was there, or I think was there. But then I am a dreamer and my dreams tend to romanticize reality. As I have told friends, it is a quality that is one of my biggest strengths, but it is also one of my biggest weaknesses. 

As we near Nashville, the second control, the rain begins to hammer us with that stinging rain that feels like little javelins are being hurled at you by some Lilliputians. Bob and I stop as he remembers the course from the 200K as being different from the cue sheet.  I had turned off the mapping on my Garmin earlier as alas, yet again, after the first control it kept giving me the message that I was off course and then started to tell me to take wrong turns.  I turn it back on and it does pick up the right trail and works again for awhile through eventually I end up turning it off completely.   I don't  particularly like looking so stupid in front of Bob, but I am what I am, and technologically challenged is a nice way of saying it.  I feel a bit better later when I find that Dave also has had some problems with his GPS. Strange, the comfort there is in knowing we are not alone.  And Dave is good with technology and does computer stuff for a living. Thanks to Bob's memory, we take the right turn and end up in Nashville.  It is there that we see Dave again. I am glad. We had arrived at the first control together, but I didn't know if he was behind me or left ahead of me.  

Nashville brings so many memories as we normally go there during the Christmas holidays to have lunch at The Muddy Boots and so that my daughter-in-law can look at the quaint little stores that line the village.  It is one of those excursions that begins as a whim and ends up being somewhat of a tradition.  And I am all about tradition. But my coldness from the rain and being thoroughly soaked from head to toe keeps me from getting caught up in the past.  Bob suggests hot chocolate and I concur thinking how odd it is to be drinking hot chocolate on a day when it is predicted to be in the nineties.  I also think how stupid I was to leave my rain jacket in the car as I begin to chill.  At least I did have the sense to wear wool socks and my feet are warm enough. The rain does not last long, however, and before you know it the warmth of pedaling has filled me as we make our way toward Freetown. When we return this way later in the day, there will be no thoughts of hot chocolate.  The air is syrupy thick and steaming hot, and it is like riding in a sauna. 

It seems such a short time before we have passed through Freetown and made it to the turn around.  We stop at a small cafe to have something substantial before the return journey.  It looks like a hole in the wall on the outside, but inside it is clean and humming with business.  It turns out the food is good, the prices are reasonable, and the service is quick.  The waitress does everything but stand on her head to help us out bringing pitchers of water with ice to the table so that we could drink our fill and fill our water bottles.  What strikes me the most about the meal, however, is that nobody takes out a smart phone to check e-mail or the weather.  We just enjoy the meal and each others company.  Other than meals with my husband or my best friend, Sharon, I can't think of many times that has happened recently.  And I often wonder about everyone's obsession with checking the radar:  what good does it do if you are half way through a ride.  Weather just is going to happen and you have to deal with it.  That being said, I have been caught out a few times when I wondered if I would survive the weather:  but are those not the rides you best remember, those that test your courage, your determination, your ingenuity, your endurance? I can't say I am sorry to have missed the stinging hail some of the others got to experience during the ride though.  Ken, who finished before us, says it hailed on him and others behind post it hailed on them, so it must have danced around us.

After lunch Dave tells Bob and I to go on when we hit the hills, and I smile inside knowing Dave does not do himself justice.  And while he does lag a bit on a few of the longer climbs, there are many that he is way ahead of me on.  He even makes it up the steep climb after Freetown, weaving upwards and beating me to the top. But I also am smiling as I told Bob this same thing near the start of the ride when it became apparent that our paces were somewhat similar as I knew he would most likely be stronger on the hills.  I would have been really concerned if I had know his cycling history:  Leadville, Cascade, Granite Anvil, etc.  Odd how we don't want to hold others back, and as I told him at one point if there is one thing I have learned about randonneurring it is that  you must ride your own pace. It is hard to stay with someone who is much stronger or much weaker on the bike, and there just seems to be more of a speed variation on hills.

As we near Indianapolis, Dave picks up the pace while I do my best to hold on.  The miles pass quickly and we get on the bike path.  There is something going on which I assume is a 5 K run, but people are dressed like victims of a mass murder or disaster with fake blood and dirt covering them.  We pass through a tent that has decontamination tent written on a sign and people wearing white with spray cans of some type.  I am impressed at the number of young people I see running, and I cheer for them as we pass.  But the rain has started and is gradually increasing in intensity, pounding out a rhythm on my helmet and dripped over the end of my helmet. Lightening begins to streak the sky in jagged, beautiful, patterns.  Rather than heading earthward it seems to be streaking crosswise.  I note this all the way home in my car as well. I laugh thinking of a storm safety lesson I heard on the radio just a day or two prior to the ride and realize that we are doing everything that you are warned not to do: we are riding by the river, near and under trees, and on metal objects. Who said brevet riders have good sense?  Perhaps we don't, but we have had a day filled with challenge and companionship and just plain fun, at least when it wasn't hurting;-)

My only concern is the pain in my neck has returned.  Thus far, I can deal with it, but I worry about how severe it might become on the 1000K and whether it is permanent pain or one of those things that will heal once I take a rest from the long miles.  We get old, things hurt, but we still carry on as long as we can.  That is life. My next big training experience will  be riding four centuries in a row in August.  What a way to spend two vacation days!  "What fools ye mortals be."  Shakespeare