Christy Century Backward on a Blustery Spring Day

 "Rainy days should be spent at home

with a cup of tea and a good book."

Bill Watterson

(unless there is a brevet to complete or 

it is a gentle, warm rain good for 

riding in)

Me

 

On Thursday and Friday, I kept looking at the club calendar for a medium distance ride, fifty or sixty miles.  But nothing pops up.  The end of March is nigh and I only have one century under my belt, so despite  the wind prediction, I decide to put a century on.  There are reasons for this.  It has been two weeks since my last century and the endurance benefits are fading and I intend to ride next week-ends century.  It is only supposed to get down in the forties and there is supposed to be sunshine.  I have spent all together too much time inside this past week.  I know I will probably not ride an entire century if I ride alone and conditions get tough. And it is supposed to rain Saturday night and Sunday.  

I love it when it rains the day after a century.  It is as if God is giving me permission to rest and enjoy the fruits of my accomplishment.  I hold it similar to the way I would feel on a brevet when I would be riding alone through the velvet darkness passing houses where everyone was still sleeping and lights were out.  As if the world belonged to me and to me alone along with the rustling sounds that issued from roadsides.  The sound of a dog that you just can't place and that may or may not be a foe.  The deer that, startled, jumps from the roadside into the light of your hub light.  I rarely ride at night anymore, but I still remember it and cherish it.  And I cherish rainy days after a harder effort where you feel your rest is deserved.  God tells us, after all, that our body is a temple. 

I have my doubts as to whether anyone will show for the ride.  Most people in the club rarely ride a century anymore unless it is a Tour de Mad Dog Century, and this is not.  It is a route I have used before, but oddly have never ridden before because for today it is  backwards and has different store and lunch stops.  Strangely, that was not my intention when I put the ride on the calendar.  I intended to do the traditional Christy.  Then after either an email or text from Jon that he has decided to ride, I realize my mistake.  Despite the fact it is just more evidence of a mind sliding backwards, I see the humor in it.  And we run with it.

 

Jon does, indeed, show.  I make several trips over to the firehouse and see nobody.  Jon and I prepare to leave when Glenn arrives.  He says he had been there but left seeing nobody, then decided to do one last drive by and maybe try to catch me via his new GPS unit.  Like me, he has purchased a Wahoo.  Deciding what to purchase was a real struggle for me.  I really miss the street names that Garmin supplies and everyone I know who has one loves their new sun charged Garmin.  But my past experience with Garmin and their help desk soured me though I have heard from numerous people that it is now much improved.  In the end, I decide that I need something easy to use and this trumps all.   I still roam occasionally, but am more careful distance wise than in the past.  Anyway, the ease of use and the price distance were the final deciding factors.   Still, this Wahoo functions differently than my old Wahoo and I am still adjusting to the differences.  Some I like.  Some I don't.  

Glenn, Jon, and I take off.  I do worry about Glenn because I know I will be slow and Glenn is anything but slow.  He tells me it is fine and that he has been off most of the winter.  I tell him that is what Mike and Larry told me last century when they rode with my group rather than the front group they often ride with.  Winter was hard this year unless you love indoor training.  

 

It feels strange to be stopping for a first store stop at a bit over 16 miles, but as I tell Glenn, the next store will not be until the late forties or more in North Vernon.  The wind is strong and we talk about how we will have a long stretch right into it at the end of the ride.  Despite the fact it is supposed to warm ten degrees during the day and the sun come out, nobody takes off a layer throughout the day.  I came close, but am glad I didn't.  I never sweated heartily enough to justify stopping and I hate those rides where I have to stop and keep putting things on and taking things off.

 

Daffodils seem to be blooming everywhere and I love how they brighten the earth. Nothing screams spring so much as daffodils.  When I see the first one, I know spring is real and I made it through another winter.  The purple flowers that blanket fields are just starting, not yet brilliant but beginning to show in the way that makes you look twice to ensure it is not just your imagination giving you what it knows you want to see.   No Redbuds or Dogwoods yet and none were expected.  Fields remain neglected, remains of last years harvest on their faces, awaiting plowing.   I tell Jon it won't be long now and the farmers will begin.  Soil will be turned or no-tilled.  The greening of the earth is beginning, but it still lacks the brilliance that will come.  Trees are starting to bud out, but the green mist that will appear and burgeon has not yet arrived; it is only promised in the blurring of their stark outlines. 

 

 Glenn rides ahead and we don't see him again until the next store stop in Vernon.  I am glad he feels he can do this.  I tell both him and Jon about my granddaughter at the museum last week-end.  We were passing some ancient pottery on display and I hear her tell her little sister, "These are really, really old.  They're even older than Grandma."  How I laughed.  And the point of the story is that I don't want anyone who rides to feel they have to stay back with Grandma.  Grandma put this route together and is very familiar with the roads and when I point them together, I was alone. Indeed, while I love to share a course I put together, I would rather ride alone than have someone have to ameliorate their pace to match my slower one.  I was once fast enough to know how painful that slowness can be.  

 

Before the lunch stop, Glenn begins to fade and asks me to reach and get him a gel.  I suggest we stop and he get it not saying but thinking it would not be good if I knocked both of us down onto the pavement trying to reach into his pocket.  While we are stopped, I think of one brevet where Steve Rice was too cold to retrieve his gel and how I had to help him since his fingers were no longer working the way they should. This leads to the time I could not get my gloves back on my damp hands and he put them on me as if I were a child.  We are very near lunch when this happens and we reach the lunch stop with no issue.  Unfortunately, the restaurant is not yet open but the winery is with a reduced menu.  I tease Jon about my being right about the opening only to later find neither of us was right.  The opening was not this week-end as he believed or next week-end as I believed, but this coming Wednesday. 

 

The waitress is familiar with us as we ride there in the summer quite often and brings a round of water with lemon for everyone without even asking.  The food is delicious though a bit on the pricey side.  Surprisingly, service is quick despite the nice size crowd there when we arrive. Lunch seems to revive Glenn and while he stays with us the rest of the ride, he could obviously drop me if he would like as could Jon.  

 

After lunch the sun is out full blast, but the wind has not dropped and remains strong, flags whipping out wildly.  At times, it is slow going,  but if you are going to ride, you have to accept that there will often be wind trying to push you backwards.  On the reverse side, there are times when it pushes you forward, but not on this ride, at least at this point in the ride. Toward the end it is all headwind.  We decide that with the late lunch, we don't need another store stop and finish the ride out.  The last half mile or so is the only little bit without a head wind and it is good to turn and have just a crosswind.  It is even better to see the end.   I have enjoyed the ride and while I could ride further if necessary, my strength is ebbing.

But I like knowing that I did not waste the day and that I have prepared myself for the next century.  The wind made the preparation even more valuable as it tests not only the body, but the mind, and in distance riding one's mind is just as or more important, that ability to work through the times you want to stop but really don't have to.  Maybe life is like that at times?  Anyway, it was good to see spring. And now I can sit and read and write and listen to the rain outside with the satisfaction of knowing my body really does need the rest and recovery and that I did not waste the week-end and what turned out to be, following a cloudy morning, beautiful spring day.  Even though I am not as old as the pots in the museum, I still am old. The day is coming when this door will also be closed to me, but not yet.  I am blessed. 

 

 

Solo Hardinsburg: Spring 2023

There is no doubt that solitude

is a challenge and to maintain balance

within it is a precarious business.  But I 

must not forget that, for me, being with 

people or even one beloved person for

any length of time without solitude is even

worse.  I lose my center.  I feel dispersed, scattered

and in pieces.  I must have time alone to 

mull over my encounter, and to extract its 

juice, its essence, to understand what has 

really happened to me as a consequence of it."

May Sarton

I wake up and decide it is time to ride my traditional spring century to Hardinsburg and Little Twirl despite the chill of the morning and a tough 62 mile ride the day before.  What is the use of being retired if one always has to plan things?  Just gather your things and go if you so desire.  Life awaits.  And one never quite knows for sure where your bicycle may lead you.  I realize that I desire.....I really desire to ride.   It has been a while since I have indulged myself with a solitary century.  It has been awhile since I have had the desire to do so. I meet the desire with open arms welcoming it back and hoping it settles down and stays.

The centuries I have put together mostly fall into two categories:  those whose goal is a destination and those whose goal is scenery.  Hardinsburg used to have both when the Mennonite Store was open.   Big, fat sandwiches on fresh, homemade bread.  An oasis that was rather in the middle of nowhere which may be why it closed.  

 

 

This left Little Twirl, a constant since I put the route together though it now closes for the winter months, something that it did not used to do.  Don't get me wrong.  I am fond of Little Twirl and it will always hold a special place in my heart.  I still grin thinking of Mike "Diesel Dog" Kamenish spinning around in the parking lot, index finger pointing downward and touching his skull, spinning like a ballerina, giving it a "little twirl." I remember the first group I brought this way, back when Sparky used to ride and kept me in stitches. So many memories. And their food is not terrible.  But it does not replace the lost sandwiches on homemade bread or the memories that store holds.  As I have said so many times, everything changes.  

 

I have always thought the Hardinsburg route was scenic, at least when your mind was not grayed out from lack of oxygen;-)  It has a nice blend of farm land and forest land.  It passes some of the Amish homes that sometimes have something interesting or different going on.  And it is low traffic.  Not once on this route has anyone threatened me in or out of a vehicle.   Sometimes I can ride for a half hour or hour without one car passing me or without seeing another person. 

Still, I also know that despite only having about 4,800 feet of climbing, it always leaves me rather drained.  There are, I suppose, two major climbs, or major for this area.  But there are rollers everywhere.  There is very little in the way of flats once you get out past Pekin and the flat Blue River Road section of the course until a few miles from the end.  Shorts Corner is such a pesky little road.  No major climbs, but it doesn't let you forget that it rolls.  And a steep but rather short climb that the Garmin registers as eighteen percent near Hardinsburg.  Is that major? 

 

 I laugh thinking of how I would hate it when people would call about one of my rides and ask, "Is it hilly?" because hilly to one is not to another.  Heck, now that I am older, what I considered not hilly seems mountainous at times.  Fitness, age, bike, other factors all play into the answer I guess. I remember one time, on a different century, we crossed an overpass that was not particularly steep but has a bit of a bump as most overpasses do and a new riders asking me if there were any more climbs like that on the course.  Leota Hill loomed ahead, a mountain compared to that bump in the road.  If I remember correctly, he bailed at the lunch stop....but that has been so long ago and the rider was not one that ever became near and dear to me so I am not for sure. 

On the ride I find that some farmers have not yet gotten around to spraying their fields so I am treated to large tracts of yellow flowers, so cheerful.  I used to believe they were wild mustard, but Duc told me differently.  Try as I might, I can't remember what he said they were.  Regardless, weed or no weed, they are a delight to the eye if not to the sinuses and I am in no rush today.  Probably a good thing as I have gotten as slow as molasses in January.  I do pass a few farm vehicles making use of the unusually dry weather.  But it is still too cold to do much.  When it is a large vehicle and  on a narrow road, I just stop and pull off to let him/her by hoping to engender good will and for the sake of safety. 

As I near the road that leads to Little Twirl, I think, as I always do on this section of road, of Steve Sexton.  I will never forget the cold December he and I rode this stretch together.  The others had pulled ahead.  I suspect he stayed back with me, not to witness the wind teaching me a lesson, which it did that day, but out of kindness.  Winter sometimes seems to leach the kindness out of us all.  We enjoy riding, but we also want to get it done and get somewhere to warm our bones.  Conflicted feelings I suppose.  I remember another time when a rider I did not know showed for a winter Hardinsburg and how he was averaging nine or ten mph and how I worried he would cause the whole group to get in after dark had fallen.  I tried to cut him loose and give him a short cut home.  He would not listen.  I left him but swept him in later with my car.  

After a small lunch at Little Twirl, the wind is, for a time, my friend.  It was supposed to shift to the west but stayed out of the south. Either will help me on my way home until the last mile or so.   I am not putting much effort into my pedaling, but my speed does not reflect that fact.  More memories pop up.   As I descend the huge hill on Cox Ferry, I think of the time a deer ran right next to me as I descended and my fear that she would veer out onto the road for the steepness combined with my speed made stopping almost an impossibility.  I remember the road crew betting on if I could climb that hill when I first came that way which made me decide to climb it or fall over trying.  I remember Paul Battle, after the descent, looking at me with concern in his eyes and saying, "You don't ride out here by yourself, do you?"  He didn't understand that I feel safer out here than I will ever feel in a city, but the fact that he worried about it touched me.  

Soon I am faced with the worst climb of the day.  It is one of those hills that you think you are doing fine on until you realize it gets steeper toward the top.  But I climb it with no issues.  Perhaps it is larger in my head than it is in reality?  Or perhaps because there is nobody with me to watch my slowness.  I can just take my time without worrying that someone is having to wait for me.   

 

It makes me think of how differently people ride.  Over the years I have found riding companions are different.  Some, like Steve Rice and Bill Pustow, would mostly stay with me and we would talk and share ideas and thoughts.  Bill always had an interesting book he was reading that he would fill me in on. Others, like Jon, like to ride ahead, each of us sharing the course and stops, but other than occasional interludes, riding our own ride. 

 

 I pop in to the Red Barn for my last store stop.  Amos is talking with someone but they leave when I arrive.  I notice his hair is graying as,  of course, is my own.   He talks about his daughter who is a service member and her new baby and I enjoy a bit of conversation before heading toward home and one of my favorite roads.  Low to little traffic, a canopy of trees in many places, and just scenic.

 

 I pass an Amish home where there are three small children outside, the youngest seeming to be about 18 months.  I grin from ear to ear watching her desperately but determinedly trying to keep up with the others dressed with her little bonnet on her head.  In the yard nearby graze two ponies with short, stubby legs and bellies so large they appear to be near to dragging the ground.  I come upon the mother, working in the yard cutting the grass with a non-motorized push mower.  And then I am isolated once more not passing another person or car for miles, able to enjoy the greenness that has drenched the forest.  

I reach home quite tired and quite glad to be there, fully saturated with the day, the sunshine, and the alone time that I still need despite living alone.  Soon I will be craving company, but with the weather becoming more conducive to riding I know that lies ahead shortly.  And in some ways, perhaps, I was not alone today.  The ghosts of cherished, loved friends were with me as I relived memories.  Some ride.  Some no longer ride.  But today, for just a bit, they were by my side.   I was glad to be alive and on a bicycle with no constraints on my time, able to look at where I have come from, where I am now, and where I am going.  Just me, my bike, and the road.  I am blessed. 

Sink and Swim: 2023

"We all have our time machines.

Some take us back, they're called

memories. Some take us forward, 

they're called dreams."

Jeremy Irons

 

It is going to be perfect weather for a century ride despite the tumultuous rain that pounded the area the day before that left roads abandoned and closed in my area and took out power in others. Trees are down everywhere, unable to stand the force of winds that, in places, got up to eighty miles per hour. There is no doubt that the roads will be covered with debris. In fact, today's ride captain, Dee, is without power.  But that weather is gone. This area does not seem to flood as easily as where I live.  So the ride is on. 

 

Today it is crisp  and cool without being cold and with not too much variation in the temperature so that one has to worry about undressing and carrying throughout the day.  The sun is shining. Still, I slip on a light backpack just in case.  Weather is always unpredictable, but perhaps a bit more so this time of year. I heed the lesson learned from an earlier ride this year when I was under-dressed and rather miserable.

I like this century: Sink or Swim.  I think it is, perhaps, that best century that Larry "Gizmo" has ever put together though I am not particularly fond of the lunch spot.  There are, unfortunately, some busy roads, but many of the roads are low traffic and scenic.  There are a couple of long climbs and a couple of steep climbs, but none that will be too painful. Besides, it is time to begin building leg strength for the coming riding season. One does not realize how winter has leached strength so much until encountering a good climb.  Then the legs let you know, whining and complaining as they do every spring, asking if you aren't getting too old for this nonsense, threatening to quit but sucking it up and turning the pedals, however slowly. 

 

 

 I have memories from this century stretching back for years.  Sometime during the ride I will remind Larry of the time John Paul, he, and I rode this century and of our river swim after lunch.  So long ago, it seems like a dream. J.P. had never been in the Ohio River before.  I suspect he has not been in it since.  I KNOW he would not have gotten in without our urging. But he did it.  Oh, the power of peer pressure.  At one point, I think of Dave Combs, who no longer is able to ride, and remember riding with him one year on this exact road.  I remember eating at the gas station with Steve Rice each of us with a slice of terrible gas station pizza but downing it to keep moving.   Odd, the things the mind chooses to remember. 

 

Dee is the ride captain and  has a nice turn out.  About the perfect size group.  Small for a tour stage, but actually perfect for the day. There is Dee, Larry, Glenn, Thomas N, Tom A, Jon W., Samuel, Clint, John P., Chris, Will, and me.   All are strong, capable riders. Well, except perhaps for me.  I am definitely capable of completing the course, but I no longer consider myself strong. But I am out here.  There is that to cling to.  And I am far and away the most senior female.  Indeed, other than Dee, I am the only female.  Distance cycling seems to remain largely a male sport, at least in this area. 

I take off early in hopes of a private place along the first roads to relieve myself since, for some unknown reason, they demolished the bathrooms in the park and I drove quite a ways to get to the ride start.  Since Dee is captaining, I let her know I am taking off a bit early, but I feel certain they will catch me quickly.  Every year it gets harder to maintain a decent average no matter how hard I seem to work, but at least I am out here.  I had started to wonder if I would have to return to riding solo just because of my speed.  I don't like to feel as if I am holding others up and impacting their ride.  I think to myself that this is rather odd because of the number of times I have ridden at the back, sweeping, when I could have gone much faster.  Normally, I didn't mind.  But somehow it still bothers me that it now will be me being swept.  

 

I ride by myself  for quite awhile.  I am glad when the fast group passes and do not notice my tears.  I just found a very good friend from high school passed away and I am grieving the loss.  She was part of the childhood that will never return and enriched my life in so many ways. Her loss triggers memories that I haven't thought about for years, some good, some bad.  Indeed, despite looking forward to the ride prior to that knowledge, I had to press myself to come.  I think of my mom talking to me about how hard it was to be the last of her biological family and among the last of friends she had made.  Experience, perhaps, makes us emphasize in a way that we could not emphasize when younger.   Life is, indeed, about learning.  All too often she rubs our faces in it, recalcitrant students that we are. 

But it is hard to remain glum when the sun is shining and it is spring in the country.  The peepers sing to me.  Flowers are starting to shyly raise their faces toward the sun and bravely open themselves wide.  The grass is showing signs of greening and trees are starting to bud. Color re-enters the world. And I am on a bicycle.  How many times has my bicycle been a friend and a confidant?  How many emotions, tears and smiles and curses and laughter,  have I scattered across various roads leaving them behind.

Larry, Tom, and I ride together for a bit and enter Smithville together.  The road we are to travel is barricaded due to downed power lines.  We cross the barrier to ask about crossing and are accosted by an extremely pissed off line worker who informs us the barricade is there for a reason.  He allows us to pass however.  Tom and I try to placate him telling him how much we appreciate how hard he is working to get power re-established, but it seems to fall on deaf ears.   He mumbles something about the riders ahead of us.  I later learn that it is here that another Mad Dog earns his nickname.  He bunny hops the downed power line without seeing that there is another line that is not on the ground and is low hanging, clipping his helmet.  My understanding is that the lineman said something about him being clothes lined and a new MD nickname is given:  Clothes Line. 

Right before the first store stop, I am riding with Larry and Jon if I remember correctly when Jon's carefully packed lunch falls off the rack of his bike landing in the road. I am able to dodge it and avoid a fall, but behind us are numerous cars.  Somehow, however,  it survives intact.  The joking begins about how Jon "lost his lunch" and Chris comes up with Jon's new Mad Dog name:  Lunchbox.  

At the store stop, the twelve riders regroup.  A truck that looks as if it is held together only by rust passes.  A young man rolls down his window as he passes and yells out, "Faggots."  It makes me sad.   A bicycle would, I think, help this young man.  But of course it will never happen.

When we near the lunch stop, a small group of us decide on the gas station rather than the restaurant.  We sit joking with each other and fueling and before we are even finished, the fast riders arrive from the sit down restaurant.  We take off together.  

As we near the third store stop, I recognize it as well as some of the roads from past Kentucky brevets.  The group re-groups for the last time.  By the end, some of the riders will already have left for home.  Some of those homes will have electricity.  Others will still be without.  I pull off by myself again for awhile, pushing hard at the pedals, enjoying the feeling of my lungs and legs struggling, only to find a small group waiting at the top of the last, short but steep hill.  I debate moving on by myself, but I decide to be sociable.  I am in no rush to finish.

 

 We wait for the last of the group and arrive at the finish together after a short stop by some to reclaim clothes they had hidden along the route after shedding them early in the ride.  There is, of course, laughter and teasing about this, about Dee getting the men to strip and vice versa, and as I laugh I realize I have had a good time today.  This ride has been good for me.  Yes, I have suffered another loss magnified by memories. But this is tempered as I begin to dream of future rides and the laughter that I hope they also contain.  Once again I am forced to accept that I am, in most things, powerless. But I can dream.  There is really nothing in this world quite like a bike ride with friends, nothing. 

 

Underdressed and Cold

"She understands now what she, 

in all her worry, had forgotten.

That even as she hesitates and 

wavers, even as she thinks too much

and moves too cautiously, she doesn't

always have to get it right.  It's okay

to look back even as you move forward."

Jennifer E. Smith

 

As I age, I find training myself to stay strong to be so different than when I was younger.  Mainly, I suppose, because of recovery time changing.  But also due to other things perhaps such as the laziness factor. Additionally, I suppose, there is the idea that I have been there, done that so many times.  Once you have conquered something, done something successfully, doing it again, while still quite sweet and bringing a sense of accomplishment, does not have quite the same shine as the first time:  the first triathlon, the first PBP, the first kiss.  Riding or running used to be just disciplining myself to put one foot in front of the other, to turn the crank over and over, and that worked.  And it still works, but not as easily as it once did.  Mental? Physical? Probably a combination.  

 

So I worry a bit about plans for a ride followed by a walk after my morning weight workout when I find it is one of those days when it takes more effort than normal to lift the same weights.  That usually happens only when a. I have gotten out of my normal routine or b. I am  not fully recovered or c. I did not sleep well.  There are, however, times when it just crops up unexpectedly.  It happened when I was younger as well, but not so often and did not hit so hard.  And when younger, perhaps, I was more likely to skip the weights as muscle retention was not quite as vital as it is at this stage in my being.  

 

I  am just tired.  I toy with canceling, but know that it used to be, when I was doing triathlons, that going ahead with the workout was one way of extending endurance and keeping tiredness at bay in the future.  Only by pushing boundaries do they seem to recede.  And I have a century I hope to ride this coming week-end. I struggle with determining if that is still a useful strategy and really don't yet have an answer.  I will give it a go.  And I will forgive myself if I am wrong.

So I go to the ride.  Jon has planned a route to Lexington from Madison that is supposed to be 35 to 40 miles.  Of course, I should have known better: Jon consistently underestimates the mileage on his routes.  Unfortunately for me, not only is the distance longer than anticipated (43 miles), but I find as the sun hides behind clouds in anticipation of the coming snow, I have not dressed warmly enough.  Three miles is nothing on a warm, pleasant day, but today it is like eternity. When Jon asks about stopping at a store to warm up before proceeding, I even toy with the idea of telling him I will stop and asking him to come pick me up, but I firmly squash that thought and tell him it is best to continue riding.  It brings back a memory of a cold, winter century ride with Bill Pustow and Steve Rice.  It was our second century of the week-end, both in freezing weather, and I mention that I might turn around.  Jaws dropped as they urged me to continue with them.  And, of course, I did.  Was the end of that ride miserable?  Was I as cold as I am today or just tired?  I don't remember. 

 

 

From the store stop at Lexington to the end of the ride, I am freezing cold, miserably cold though I never reach that stage when one's whole body shivers involuntarily making it difficult to remain upright on a bicycle.  Jon occasionally urges me to pick up the pace thinking that will warm me, but what he does not realize is that this pace is it for right now.  The gas tank is nearing empty.  In my mind I think backwards to times when I perhaps asked more of others than what they had to give at the time and ask forgiveness for my naivety and for the arrogance of youth.  Or perhaps it is there and the reluctance to increase my pace is mental.  Regardless, it is there as tall and strong as any wall.  Today, I fear, I lack the strength, mental and/or physical, and  I will not break through. 

At the store we are verbally accosted by a man outside that obviously has some issues.  It makes me sad, watching him struggle to communicate while knowing how vital communication is for a meaningful life.  He incontestably has limitations and is lamenting that nobody listens to him, that we will be getting seven inches of snow.  How sad it must be to have one's opinion continuously discounted, justified or not?  Later, while Jon is in the store, he informs me he also has visual disabilities and that people criticize him for not working but he does the best he can.  And in the end, perhaps that is what we all do, the best that we can do with what we have been given.  How easy it is for us to feel superior without really knowing what we would do in similar circumstances.  Perhaps rather than feeling so smug, I think, I should be extra thankful.  My parents were not perfect, but they met my needs as best they could.  My education was not Ivy League, but it was a good education that I should, perhaps, have made better use of it.  My mother received adequate prenatal care.  She probably drank while carrying me because it was their wont to have a martini before dinner every night, but she was not an alcoholic and did not use drugs.  My father did not beat me or molest me.  Blessings.  

And so, despite feeling as if my toes are blocks of ice that will crack and fall off at the slightest jolt and that I will never be truly warm again, I ride to my car, grab a warmer garment, and head out for a four mile walk, working my way through the tiredness that has only been exacerbated by the cold.  Looking back again, I remember jumping off the bike and hitting the ground running rather than walking.  Just as back then, it takes a bit for my legs to allow walking to feel natural rather than stilted and forced, as if it is a new motion.   But they do loosen though I never lose the tiredness.  I "think" I even manage a decent pace for most of the walk.  Still, rather than lamenting, as I sometimes do, that a ride or walk or hike has come to an end, I am happy to return to the car. And  hungry.

As we drive to a well deserved and much needed dinner I think that perhaps not only is okay, as Ms. Smith notes, to look backwards as we move forward, but necessary to plotting a successful course forward into this unknown morass known as aging.  If, indeed, there is a successful way to age. For it seems to me that aging, while it brings certain advantages, brings more than its share of losses, particularly the losses of people and abilities.  Regardless, it is the way of things.  Old age is uncharted territory, known only through living or vicariously through the writings of others. And I am grateful for that which I have been given.  

P&Y Plans Foiled: It's All Good

"Sometimes our fate resembles a 

fruit tree in winter.  Who would think

those branches would turn green and

blossom, but we hope it, we know it."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

 

 

It is the rare January day when it is supposed to be in the fifties the majority of the day, and so I suggest to Jon that we embark on a lunch ride to P&Y, a place I have become rather fond of during shorter the colder  months.  It is halfway in a fifty mile ride and rather flat.  The food is good and the store is small and normally not crowded.  He agrees and plans are laid to meet at ten and ride for lunch.  

 I do consider chickening out when looking at the wind prediction, but remind myself that  it is not only normal for winter, but relatively mild.  And it is time to get back into shape after a few weeks of Christmas festivities that included overeating and eating things that are decidedly unhealthy. Time to quit being a wimp, something gradually becoming more pronounced as I age.  And despite having my family in, I am ready for a friend.  Don't get me wrong.  I delight in my children and the grands, but visits are demanding in a way friendship is not, particularly with the children still being so small.  

We are both happy to be on our bikes and it feels good to be out.  Even the wind that will be my enemy is almost welcome, still light and caressing my face rather than viciously slapping it.  Sometimes, I suppose, being on a bicycle is like coming home.  How many hours and miles have I spent?  Uncounted and lost along with the Big Dog Site and all the memories the narratives held.  During the first half of the ride I keep thinking repeatedly just how very good it feels to get out, to use my muscles, to see the world however bleak it might be this time year.

I barely notice the long climb up Hatcher Hill, and only later discover that my bike was  in the small chain ring.  Duh, no wonder.  The day is warm enough that I stop at the bottom of the climb and lose my jacket.  Later I will be very glad to have that jacket as the temperature drops and the winds increase, but for now I am happy to stick it in my jersey pocket.  

It is shortly thereafter, right when we are making the transition from city to country, that the funniest event of the day happens.  I hear a cat.  This is a very loud cat.  It is a cat who sounds as if he needs help and I can't ride on by perhaps because a cats meow, according to research, somehow mimic the cries of a human baby.  "Where is that cat?," I ask Jon, only then remembering that the previous night I had changed my phone ring from the Nutcracker to a cat.  I burst out laughing at my own cluelessness and will chuckle about it throughout the day.  Perhaps at least now I will hear my phone rather then tuning it out like the "Yes, Dear" husband who is paying absolutely no attention to the question being asked. Not that I usually answer it if it rings as it is normally a spam caller, just another change the world has wrought during my lifetime. 

When we reach the lunch stop we find it is still closed for the holidays.  We discuss whether to go to Butlersville or North Vernon.  Butlersville is closer.  It is noon and I don't have a light if something would go wrong.  Butlersville will bring us in around 60 miles whereas North Vernon would be closer to 80 and would be a longer lunch.  I am relieved that Jon does not seem terribly disappointed when I say I don't want to go to Vernon.  I am relieved that he knows the route to Butlersville, for I do not.  

We arrive and my intention to begin eating more sensibly vanishes when the girl says the special is a cheeseburger and fries.  The store is crowded and we decide to eat outside at the picnic table.  We both gobble our food as it is cold (the weather not the food) and seems to be growing colder by the moment.  We later lament that we did not have the good sense to eat at the side of the building sheltering from the wind.  But there you have it.  The food was unexpectedly good for a gas station type store. And if we had good sense we probably would not be out on bicycles in this weather, which while warm for January is still quite cold.  

 

The ride home becomes a trial every time we turn into the wind.  But since it will only turn out to be around sixty miles, it is not a real concern, just a hindrance, one that will hopefully help me to become stronger and bloom for spring riding.  Branches will, despite doubts, become green.  Effort will blossom.  And barring illness or accident, there is another year of riding in front of me.  And so, I wish everyone a Happy New Year that includes many hours on the bike knowing that some of them may be more miserable than happy as fitness gives birth, but knowing that the bad days make those good days, the ones where you feel like you could ride strongly and forever and with great joy.  May 2023 be blessed for us all. We finish the day with a few miles of hiking at Clifty Falls, then head to our homes to rest, to build, to prepare for the coming spring. 

Orleans: Trying to Make Use of Coin

"Time is the coin of life.  It

is the only coin you have, and only you

can determine how it will be spent.

Be careful lest you let other

people spend it for you."

Carl Sandburg 

Nobody in their right mind can complain about the weather we have had recently other than the dire need for and lack of rain.  Temperatures have soared above  normal to the low to mid seventies.  Skies have been sunny and largely cloudless and the sun still carries a kiss of warmth with his touch. His caress is more moderate than it is in summer when he is strong, demanding, and forceful, but it is there though without the threat of burned skin.  Less demanding and more comforting, lacking the passion of summer but gaining substance, as love between couples seems to deepen when steeped with years.  Even morning temperatures have been moderate.  In other words, it has been perfect bicycling weather.  Yes, one still has to layer a bit, but to end the day in comfort in shorts and a jersey in November.....well, it doesn't get much better than that.  

I had been excited about a planned new century route that Jon had put together, but my car is on the fritz and so I bowed out.  I certainly don't want to break down on the way home in the dark and with no shoulder to pull off on. I thought he might ride it on his own, but instead he elects to drive here to ride to Orleans with me.  For we are both celebrating and mourning, or I am.  I am celebrating that it is going to be a perfect day for a ride with mild winds and temperatures in the seventies and mourning that it is going to come crashing down and the forecast shows highs in the forties and lows in the twenties for at least a week after tomorrow.  Time, I suppose, to switch to hiking, or to mostly shorter rides.  I do not have the fortitude to face cold weather than I did in the past.  Mental, physical, or a combination of the two.....I still do not really know.

We start at a faster pace than I like for this time of year, but there is a bite in the air and the pace helps to tame it.  About a mile in, however, Jon notices that his headset appears to be loose.  We return to the house and he attempts to fix it.  It tightens and seems tight, but then for some reason loosens again a few miles down the road.  I ask if he feels safe riding or wants to back up and punt.  He opts to ride.  

The fields are mostly bare, stubbled like a man's beard when he needs a shave, almost desolate looking.  I suppose it is that lonely look that fields take on when winter hits as if they mourn the flowers and greenness that adorn them in the spring and summer months just as I do.  Farm houses stand alone, isolated, shielding those within from the winds that have no barrier to soften their blow.  Even the grass along the side of the road looks finished and disheartened, hopelessly clinging to a bit of green but mostly brown and withered looking.  In the areas we pass that have trees, they are mostly bare and seem taller somehow.  The sycamores, my favorites this time of year once the maples have lost their leaves, look lovely and graceful, their limbs like those of a dancer.  What, I wonder, do trees think of winter?  But I suppose trees don't have a brain, at least as we know it, or think.

 

I have two routes to Orleans, but I have chosen the more moderate of the two for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I have chosen it because it is more moderate though it is 103 miles (and will be 106 today with turning around to fix the headset and uncounted mileage out to the dollar store in Medora).  Secondly, I love the stretch between Medora Tunnelton Hill, including the descent on Tunnelton that S curves under the railroad by a narrow lane.  Or I should say I allowed Jon to choose, but had I ridden alone this was the route I also would have chosen.   The stretch winds past the ancient and no longer functioning Medora Brick Plant and follows the railroad.  I think briefly of Packman, for he was the one who told me of the railroad tunnel I have never found and the reason I came this way.  He is gone now and hopefully at peace.  I think of how in the spring this stretch will explode with color and spring flowers, delighting my eyes, a painting just waiting to be captured on canvas.  

This route has a late lunch stop, and with the extra miles it is later than normal.  Both Jon and I are famished when we arrive at Speak Easy Pizza.  They still have their tables outside and the day is beautiful,  and so we sit outside and eat our pizzas and share a few thoughts before heading back through Salem and home.  As we leave, I realize my legs are a bit tired.  I tell them to quit complaining and a bit of spinning convinces them that they are okay and will make it with no problem.  Sometime I wonder about Jon's willingness to ride with me because he is capable of a much faster pace, but I am grateful for his company.  I think of past riding companions.  So few left that ever ride a century.  So few that I ever see anymore. But I refuse to let sadness seep into this beautiful day.  Instead I think how lucky I have been to have known each of them and created memories that I hold dear.  

As we near Salem, Jon points out a huge cloud of smoke and asks me if there is a power plant nearby.  There is not, at least to the best of my knowledge, and we both wonder what is on fire that would cause such smoke.  We never have our curiosity sated. And before you know it, we are at Casey's, our last store stop.  I opt for a soft drink, something I have pretty much given up other than occasionally on a ride.   I wonder what Jon is up to, go outside and find he has been cornered by a stranger as so often happens on rides.  I chuckle a bit and drink my soft drink.  He enters the store and comes out with nothing saying that when he got in there, he realized there was nothing he wanted.  They have no small cans of pop.  Everything is large sized.  

We leave the route for a bit of a work around due to road construction but soon are on Quaker Road heading for the huge descent.  On Old 56 I see a young Amish boy, maybe five or six, a straw hat perched upon his tiny head and a grin plastered across his face  in the field with five or six ponies furiously waving at Jon who does not see him.  I wave back and he smiles.  Further up the road we come upon a mini Amish cart driven by children pulling out of the drive along with a full sized car driven by adults.  There is an Amish woman on a bicycle with no pedals, powered by her legs and and any downhill slant in the road. A grin lights my face and I remember how much Lloyd admired the Amish and the simplicity that seems to be their lives.  Idealized?  Most likely.  But he always longed for simpler times, something perhaps we all do at times.  I think of my mom in her nineties one time telling me that she just didn't want to have to deal with any more problems.  The world does, at times, already seem too much to handle.  And I only have so much coin to spend, and I want to spend it wisely.

This ride today was wise, almost sophic, in some ways.  I have no regrets for how I spent today's coin, on the road with the simplicity of shorts and jersey (back pockets stuffed with layers from a gradual strip tease).  I have no regrets for the too much pizza I ate at lunch or the aches in my thighs and the stiffness in my movements that reminds me that I am, indeed, aging and that will impact the soundness of my sleep tonight.  While I do not delude myself with the belief that I have not and will not waste some  of the coin that has been allotted to me, I try my best not to do so, to hold the moments more dear.  And this is one thing that becomes easier with age and the realization that there is, indeed, a last time for everything.  I am indeed blessed and have been for many, many years.  And I am grateful for the day, the company, bicycles, and the coin that I have already been given. 

 

 

Lost in October

"September is my favourite  month,

particularly in Cornwall.  I felt, even

as a child, that if you get a wonderful day in

September, you think: This could be one

of the last.  The summer is nearly over.

When you get a wonderful day in May, you

think: So, there's more coming."

Tim Rice 

 

It is not September here in Indiana, but October, but the feelings of Mr. Rice hold true.  Today the sun is shining and it is warm enough that shortly I will be riding in  just a sports bra, jersey, shorts, light head covering, and gloves.  The blue of the sky is exquisite and the sun bright.  But tomorrow could be different.  What has been give can easily be taken away.  I head out on the Surly looking for some gravel despite the drought and the dust I know will be waiting.  

 

I am unsure why I pick the Surly, but it allows me more freedom to explore with its wider tires and ability to take some gravel.  I don't care for the thick, large gravel, but more because of the stress on older joints than the fear I used to have of falling.  With gravel, I have found that the words of Steve Rice hold true.  It is better and easier to go faster throwing caution to the wind.  So when I reach Wascum Road, I put my weight on the back tires, loosen my grip on the handlebars, and pedal as hard as I can while still being comfortable and not going anaerobic.   

I reach the point where I had to turn around the other day and think how glad I am to have this entire day to play with:  no other place to be and nothing that presses to be done.  Time is, indeed, a gift.  And the bicycle and lovely fall scenery helps me leave my troubles and worries behind in the dust.  

Farmers are hurriedly making use of the spate of good weather to gather crops, but this means at  places large clouds of dust as I pass fields that are being worked.  I am glad that I have my neck gater and pull it up as I  pass by.  I laugh when I reach to get a drink and get grossed out by the dust that has collected on my bottle, wipe it  off, and drink knowing that I need to stay hydrated.  At times, I pull off the road to allow farm vehicles unfettered access without having to worry about a cyclist claiming "her right" to the road.  My day is for pleasure.  Their day is more important:  feeding a hungry world.  I just heard on television about expected food shortages this year that includes corn and tomatoes, and in my mind I issue a thank you for their attempts to mitigate this shortage.  

I also think how farming is still mainly dominated by men.  Occasionally I will see a woman helping in the fields, but not today.  Since it looks to me, an outsider and not a farmer, like most of what is being done is driving trucks and farm machinery, I wonder why and really reach no good conclusion except, perhaps, tradition and farms, perhaps, being left more often to men as heirs rather than women.  When I worked at the horse farm, I often drove the tractor to bush hog and kind of enjoyed it as the grass and weeds feel sway to the tractors dominion, but only briefly tamed.  But then I remember as a child, my brothers were taught to drive and were allowed to drive the lawn tractor.  As a girl, I was not permitted to do so.   Our home had fairly strict divisions of labor, and they were determined by gender not abilities.  

I begin to reach roads where I must make decisions about which way to go while being not quite sure where each road will lead.  I try to go basically west or south, but sometime the road fools me turning and taking me north.  And I wander and decide until I realize that I have absolutely no idea where I am.  I am gloriously lost knowing that eventually I will find a highway that will tell me where I am or I can use the Wahoo to retrace my route.  

I really have enjoyed my Wahoo for club riding and rides where there is a prescribed course, but when I wander I miss my Garmin.  It is nice to have street names when you wander, and Wahoo only has names for roads if they are a predetermined course.  And while it has a retrace route function, it does not, at least that I have figured out, have a return to start with the option of using another route.  But Wahoo is what I have and until it breaks I don't have to make a decision about what to purchase next.  

As I begin to climb, having left farm roads behind, I notice how beautiful this road is with the trees overhanging and steep drop offs on the side.  The sides of the road are golden with leaves that have fallen yet there are still leaves on the trees in all their different colors ranging from brown to red to orange to yellow.  The wind is rather strong causing leaves to swirl down and the modest grade allows me to play my traditional game of crunching leaves with my tire.  

I laugh coming upon a chair chained to a tree alongside the road.  Behind the tree is a sheer drop off.  Above the chair is a sign announcing it is for sale.  The tree and land or the chair?  What, I wonder, is for sale.  When I stop to grab a photo, I also find that I have no cell service, something happening more and more to me these days.  I suspect my old phone is to blame, but I am not quite sure.  Another purchase I will soon need to make while prices on everything skyrocket.  

At the top of the climb I come upon a small store that I recognize and would have bet had gone out of business due to the Pandemic.  The one time I stopped previously, a number of years ago, the proprietor seemed ancient.  It is just an old shed that sits outside of a house and it didn't have much then.  I don't expect much now but hope for at least a drink because, carelessly, I did not bring food and am rather low on water.  The "open" sign blinks in bright red flashes so I go inside.  The lights are on but nobody is manning the store.  I shout hello a couple times thinking perhaps she is in back, but I get no answer.  I think about leaving a couple dollars and grabbing a drink out of the refrigerator, but I am not really comfortable doing that so I go outside on the porch.  After fiddling with my bike for a short period of time,  I leave when nobody has appeared.  

About a mile down the road, I see a sign for Delaney Park and, grateful to leave a main road, head down Rooster Hill to the road I had hoped to return home on.  As usual, Delaney Park and Eden do not disappoint.  The trees shimmer in the wind and the colors soothe my soul. Squirrels make rustling noises in the leaves scampering to prepare for winter, crossing the road mindless in their hurry causing me to be extra cautious. I giggle thinking of a commercial I once saw that said something about the only  real difference between a squirrel and a rat is their furry tail and asking if the tail makes much of a difference.  And it does. 

 

 I ride miles without seeing a car or another human being and I think how lucky I am to have access to this.  The only disturbing thing I come across is more logging which I think was happening on park land and a for sale sign on acreage up the road that I worry will be bought by someone who wants to cut down all the trees. 

 

Summer has been officially over for awhile.  And we have had unusually cold weather.  We even had a snow that covered the ground, beautiful in its own way but not yet welcome. But that, combined with the coming weather, makes today more special as I soak in the autumn beauty and calm peace of being on a bicycle with no demands on time, pace, or course.   I can't say that fall is my favorite season for I truly adore spring and how the earth yawns and awakens graciously strewing green and colored flowers throughout the landscape.  But I don't think I could ever get enough days like today.  And I am grateful and give thanks. 

Medora Goes PInk 2022

"The first breath of Autumn was 

in the air, a prodigal feeling, a 

feeling of wanting, taking, and 

keeping before it is too late."

J. L. Carr 

 

Medora Century......it always is a rather poignant time, falling as it does on the second week-end of October to celebrate Medora goes pink, and signaling the coming end of comfortable riding.  Yes,  one can ride all winter long.  I did it for years.  And I still ride sometimes in the winter cold.  But it is not the same and does not hold the same freedom that a summer ride does clad only in shorts and jersey and with long hours of sunlight that allow for lollygagging.  Medora, since it started going pink in October,  always brings an awareness to me of how fragile our lives are as well having lost two grandmothers to breast cancer and with my mother having had breast cancer though surviving.  

The Medora rides started many years prior to the festival start and also brings happy memories, and I feel certain that today's ride will be no exception.  I have ridden there with so many people and have seen so many changes within the town.  I remember a winter ride with Grasshopper, and how as we sat and ate our sandwiches, snug and warmed by the inside of the long defunct store as well as our friendship, the snow began to fall, flakes as big as my hand driven sideways by a strong wind, and we wondered about making it home. I remember showing the bridge to Greg Z. when he came to visit and how the main road was closed so we found a way that contained gravel yet he did not complain.  I remember the year some of the riders decorated and wore bras outside their jerseys, including some of the men.  I remember the years riders rode the barrel train in town.  I remember the many, many times I helped first time century riders finish and sharing their elation at their accomplishment, for a century, no matter how easy, is still an accomplishment. 

I change the start time due to the unexpected cold weather and wheels don't roll until 9:00.  It is, indeed, the first breath of Autumn. I don't know it this will help or hurt attendance, but it will certainly make the ride more pleasant for me.  I am not sure how many will show, but I do learn that there will be riders from Riddenfadden and SWI along for ride.  And it turns out to be a nice turnout though smaller than many times in the past.  22 riders turn out for a glorious fall day that, while cool, will be filled with sunshine.  Larry Preble, Tom Hurst, Amelia Dauer, Mark Peterson, John Pelligrino, Dave King, Bob Grable, Fritz Kopatz, Paul Battle, Steve Puckett, Tom Askew, Dee Schreur, Jessie Dietrich, Tony Nall, Steve Meredith, Jonathan Lichensteiner, Jonathan Wineland, Peggy Bannon, John Mahorney, Thomas Nance, and Beth Niccum.  Some I know, some I don't.  Regardless, all are welcome.  Smiles seem to dominate and the chatter is upbeat and falls like music on my ears.  This will, I feel certain, be a glorious day.

At the ride start, I find out that the Chicken Chase, a road race, has been scheduled for the same day.  Not only is it scheduled for the same day, but it has the same start time and the same first few miles of the course.  It slows us for a bit when the sweeping vehicle blocks our path, but he allows us around.  I try to encourage the runners/walkers and to be courteous as we pass.  Hopefully they don't mind our passage.  

 

As I expect, the crowd rather quickly divides into groups.  I stay in the back as I will throughout the ride, sweeping.  Sometimes sweeping can be a chore, a struggle to find conversation with people I don't know well, a struggle against personal needs and wants, but today is a pleasure.  For once, there is little wind, for wind often is the nemesis of this route turning what should be a fairly easy ride into a battle.  And despite the chilly start, a quick warming.  Ideal cycling weather.  

At the slower pace, I am able to nice the contrast of the trees, some fighting to maintain the illusion of green summer and some yielding to oranges, yellows, browns, and reds.  When there is a gust of wind, at a  point in the route where there are trees instead of fields, small leaves flutter to the ground giving a festive feel to an already festive ride.   I try to register each beautiful thing I pass to hold close in the coming winter, to cling to when it seems the sky will never be blue again and the sun will never share his warmth but will continue to give me his cold shoulder.  And Carr is right, I want and want and perhaps even need without being really sure of what it is that I want and need, just knowing that it is something.   And knowing that I will blink and the trees will be bare, many bicycles will be put up, and I will still feel as if I missed it, as if I missed something. 

It seems like a short time when we arrive at the covered bridge, but the first group is already coming back through having eaten and returning to the stop.  Larry takes a photo of us at the bridge and makes the comment about the photo being "Medorable" causing long though good natured groans to emerge from the crowd along with a few giggles.  Thomas comments that Larry must have thought that up last night and been saving it for just the right moment.  They tease me about some woman in Medora asking about me and saying I am there every year. And then we are off.  They head home, three of us head to the festival and to find some lunch.   

 

I am hungry as I had only an apple and some V8 for breakfast knowing that the food here would not be healthy and would be calorie laden.  Since Scotland, I have struggled to lose the weight I gained and winter will not help that struggle as cold weather causes cravings for comfort foods rather than salads and veggies.  I get my usual sandwich and sit where I can bathe in the sunlight for a bit before swinging my leg back over the bike.  As we leave, I try to remember the first rides where i put the initial Medora course together, but my memory fails me.  I remember plenty of rides to Medora, with others and solo, but that ride escapes me.  

We are rather slow on the way in and I wonder if anyone will be waiting to join us for   pizza, but there are a few that have stayed and chatted waiting for us.  The pace is fine, however, and worth the elation I see on Beth's face when she finishes and makes it up the last climb without walking. We all go to have pizza despite Dave's disappointment that the restaurant does not have beer and there is laughter and fellowship.  Henryville is a small town and for the first time it hits me that there is no liqueur store in the town and no bar.  I don't think the grocery sells alcohol either despite the fact I know it is not a dry county.  Rather interesting and probably saves the town from some problems it might otherwise have, but also affecting the economy.  For booze is popular.  

I don't know what  the ride was like for most of the people today, but I hope it was as nice a day for them as it was for me, that they drank their fill of sunshine and the last of summer/first of autumn, that they got something to "keep" before it was too late.  And I wish them memories to warm themselves with when the winter that is fast approaching arrives. 

Bob Grable's Century: Scotland Bound

"It's all to do with the training:

you can do a lot if you are 

properly trained." 

Queen Elizabeth II

 

It has been awhile since I have really trained for anything.  I suppose the last cycling event I really trained in earnest for was the 1000K brevet designed by Crista Borras that ran through Virginia into West Virginia, the one I completed shortly before my husband died in December of 2014.  While I am not training as assiduously for this event as I did back then, it feels good to have at least the outline of a plan in my mind and a goal to reach.  And it feels good to feel my body adapt so that I am in at least half way descent shape for a change.  I do not adapt nearly so quickly, and it takes longer to recover, but I do adapt.

The spring the Pandemic started, I entered a cycling contest on Zwift that was put on by Wilderness Scotland.  It was hard.  Even with the rubber band (and that didn't work on one ride) it was difficult to keep up requiring all the effort I could muster. I had to ride a number of Zwift rides to qualify for the drawing, and for once I actually won something: a cycling trip  in Scotland.  This was so exciting.  I love the beauty that is Scotland.  But of course with the Pandemic, I was  not able to go right then.  

When I contacted the company this spring, I was not sure if they would still honor the win, but not only did they keep their word, they upgraded it.  And so, I chose the week long tour I wanted to complete, the Tour of the National Parks, and signed up.  And now to train.  The distances each day are not long, but it appears there is lots of climbing.   Plus riding day after day for a week with no rest day is not normally on my agenda anymore.  Oh, I could ride in the van, but I am not going to Scotland to ride in a damned van:  I am going to ride a bicycle.  What a vacation it will be.  The icing on the cake was when I found out that Dave King decided he will join me.  It will be so lovely having the company of someone that I know and whose company I enjoy.

 

And so there is more of a purpose when I ride now.  It is lovely to ride just to ride, just to ride with no goal or purpose other than pleasure,  to watch the road give way to my wheels, to see seasons change, but it is nice to have a goal beyond that. And to know I will see the beauty that is Scotland again, that is heavenly. But I have been off the bike for over a week due to grandmothering and travel.  

 

When I awaken after returning from visiting the granddaughters, the day of Bob Grable's Adjective Century, it is raining and thunder seems to shake the very timbers of my house.   I don't want to get out of bed.  I have not slept well and would like to stay tucked in, snug and warm, shutting out the day.  But I need to ride.  The cats rejoice at my early awakening which equates, in their world, to early feeding.

Dragging myself out of bed, I wonder if Bob will cancel or at least delay the start. It is raining but it is quite warm out.  Still, it is raining hard, not a gentle drizzle.  The last I checked, the rain was supposed to end early morning.  I check the web site and there is no delay or cancellation.  I get ready for the ride, don a  yellow rain coat to load the car with my bike and other necessaries,  and head out the door shortly before six into a driving rain.  

By the time I arrive at the start, the rain has eased down to a drizzle that will pretty much last the entire day.  I suspect that because of the rain, the attendance is quite small.  But then numbers have dropped consistently over the past years.  Certainly starting the TMD in winter did nothing to improve numbers.  Things change.  If there is one constant in life, there is that.  And sometimes in fighting the change, one accelerates it.

We start out and I find that I remain in a somewhat foul humor.  Some days are like that.  I don't feel like talking.  I do feel okay with riding, but even this early in the ride I can tell I have been off the bike.  Still I know a ride is what I need to burn this mood off.    As always, I am amazed at how quickly fitness evaporates.  After all, being off with a one (almost two) year old and a three (almost four) year old is not like just sitting on your bum eating bonbons and watching television.  But that is how it is.  Fitness leaves us much more quickly and easily than it is gained.

I pull into the first store we come to, our traditional store stop, rather than riding across the street to where the majority are stopping. I leave the first store stop with a group that I know I won't keep up with (Tom Hurst, Tom Askew, and Mike Kammenish) and soon find myself riding alone.  I am okay with that today.  No need to blanket the entire world with my bitchiness. Plus I just notice more if I am by myself.  Some days I want company and other times I prefer my own company or a companion who is well versed in companionable silence rather than idle chattering. 

 

As I ride, I realize that it has been quite awhile since I have done a century in the rain, and I find myself remembering that sometimes it can be quite enjoyable.  And lord knows, we need the rain.  Everything was starting to turn brown and my lawn is crunchy.  The rain seems to accentuate the greenness of the leaves and grass and the crops I pass.  Flowers seem more brilliant except for the lilies who hide their faces as there is no sun to impress with their smiles.  For a moment my thoughts run the rainy ride that I completed following a canceled century, the ride that earned me my nickname, Puddle, bestowed by Carl Davis and Mike Pitt, neither of whom ride with the club anymore. 

On the hills, my legs complain at what is being asked of them, but I grit my teeth and tell them what they need to do and they do it however grudgingly.  Sometimes I wonder what it will feel like one day when the inevitable happens and they refuse to obey, but for today I am good and t hey are good.  I think how easy it would be to just drop into granny, but that will not help build the strength I am trying to gain.  I grind on sending my mind elsewhere.

When I pull into the lunch stop, Mike and Tom Hurst ask if I have seen Tom Askew.  He was riding with them and dropped back but never showed at the lunch stop.  I tell them he probably missed the turn to the lunch stop and is half way up the long, though not steep, climb that comes shortly after the stop.  But they worry that he has gone off the road and crashed prior to the lunch stop.  They call and text but thus far have received no reply.  

After a quick sandwich, I begin to chill.  There is still no work from Tom A. but there is also nothing I can do. Amelia Dauer and Steve Meredith pull in from the wrong direction having missed the turn. The others have arrived and are ordering, but I ride out alone.  

 

The view up in the knobs after the climb out of Borden is lovely, particularly once you reach Skyline.  This is my favorite part of the ride.  In fact, it is the part of the ride that makes me ride on River Road, something I absolutely detest. But a thick mist appears for awhile that really obstructs my ability to see anything much at all.  I stop to make sure my red flashers are on to try to protect myself from an altercation with an automobile with limited vision.  They are. I remind myself that in  Scotland there is likely to be one or two days like this, maybe more, misty and rainy.  When Amelia and I rode there last time, there was an 8 mile climb that we did in the rain, and I remember how cheated I felt at the top for not being able to see and on the descent for having to be so cautious.  

This scenic part of the ride ends all too quickly and before you know it I am descending down toward the greenway, the bridge to Kentucky, and River Road.  My legs continue to feel sore from the effort despite a reasonably slow pace, but I know that is the pathway to greater strength.  On the bridge there is a large group of people taking the entire bridge.  Luckily for me and them, I am going slowly as despite my asking they refuse to yield any of the pavement.  But after that I am good.  When I reach the park, Tom Askew is pulling out and tells me he has let the others know he is safe.  As I suspected, he missed the turn to lunch.  How dependent we are on GPS routes.  

And so I continue to work toward "proper training" for my Scotland trip.  Tomorrow I will, despite any residual soreness, throw my leg over the seat of my bike and ride, though not quite so far.  And so on and so on.  Hopefully I can avoid illness or injury that would prevent my going as the trip is all planned.  And hopefully I will be strong enough to never, never hop in the van. 

 

 

It's a Hot 52 Mile Ride

"Sometimes I'm doing things considered

crazy by others, but then my heart

giggles.  That's when I know I'm doing

the right thing."

Dodinsky

 

Last night I wrestled with the idea of canceling the 52 mile ride today.  The news, my phone, everywhere I turn they are issuing record heat warnings and advising people not to so outside activities.  And I remember hot rides and how painful they can be, the ones where you feel you are on fire and the only thing that will help are gallons upon gallons of ice cold water.  And I am not stupid:  I know they can be dangerous.  Though I have had my moments in the heat, it is worse when you are nursing someone who is riding with you, worrying about them, often in the middle of nowhere. But I decide to show up and see what happens despite the fact it is a drive to the start for me.  We are, after all, adults and responsible for  our own choices in life. 

When I wake up, my phone has, in large letters, Extreme Heat Advisory, and despite being morning, it is already in the low eighties.  Again I ask myself what is wrong with me that I would even consider having a ride in this weather.   I head to the ride start feeling relatively certain that nobody else will show, telling myself I'll ride and can always turn around if I would like.  Then I plan to go pick blueberries at a nearby You Pick farm. While I often try to combine errands in one trip, I  have become even more determined to do so with the current gas prices.

Sure enough, when I arrive, nobody is there in the parking lot.  I am not surprised and I am not particularly disappointed, maybe because it is what I expected.  I drag my bike out and begin the preparations to leave at the ride start time.  It is hot and it is humid, but it is a bit  overcast and I know that will make a difference.  And then Mark pulls in.  Grinning,  I ask if he knows that he is crazy.  Like a true cyclist and in all seriousness, he tells me, "I need the miles."  My heart chuckles and grins. Not canceling was, indeed, the right thing for me. I do admonish him, however, that there should be no macho "I'm a man and I can take it particularly if a woman can" bull on the ride.  I will tell him if I am having heat issues and I expect him to tell me.  Not sure if he hears me though.

And we ride.  Not only do we ride, but we ride fairly hard.  It is not the tongue hanging out, not enough oxygen in the world hard, but hard enough that I feel it nagging at my thighs and my lungs.  At first I think the humidity, in the seventy something percentile, is going to be an issue as I notice the sweat just sitting on my skin, but the wind from movement of riding begins to evaporate the dampness from my skin.  Yes, I am soaking wet with perspiration, but I am not overly hot which surprises me because I definitely am not yet at all acclimated to the heat.  

We reach the midway store stop and do stop.  I grab a quick 2 percent milk because they only have the large size Gator Aid and I don't want that.   We don't linger however.  We have clouds blocking the sun on and off and they may not last.  We don't want to waste them.  I chug and we pull out.

This route is still new enough to me that I am not overly familiar with all the roads, so I enjoy the scenery.  After lunch, it is mostly riding rather than talking and riding.  It is nice to be with someone that doesn't expect to be entertained the entire ride though earlier in the ride I had to tell him about Dave King's comments about my possibly only taking a carry on bag to Scotland rather than a checked bag.  He assures  me there is no way I can do this and I tell him Amelia did it on our trip there a few years ago. From his point of view, Amelia is so much smaller than me that her clothes just take less room than mine will.  And I giggle just as I did when he first said it and I begged his pardon;-)  I think the main reason he would like  me to take a checked bag is so I can bring whiskey back for him for whiskey, while a Scottish specialty, is not my thing.  

By the time we reach the big climb the clouds have mostly evaporated and we are averaging 15.7, much faster than I anticipated when I started the ride.  The big climb up Tunnel Mill into Charlestown, however, lowers the average to 15.3.  Mark drops me on the climb despite being on a recumbant and "needing the miles," but he is nice enough to wait for me at the top despite my prior urging to feel free to shoot ahead, and we finish it out.  Nobody had heat stroke and no cramps.  The sun is out in full force as we turn into the parking lot.  And I am glad that I rode despite it being a bit on the crazy side. It is not the first crazy ride I have done and my heart continues to giggle.  Then off to pick blueberries.  (The man there also thought I was a bit off, picking berries in the extreme heat, but he appreciated the business and I'll appreciate the berries tonight in pancakes, a special treat for my efforts.  Also have to be sure to fill the huge  size clothing I wear per Dave;-)  Great ride!

Hardinsburg Solo Century: June 2022

"Time flies over us

but leaves its shadow behind."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

It has been awhile, perhaps too long, since I have ridden a solo century.  The weather is supposed to be perfect for early June with wall to wall sunshine, low  humidity, and highs only in the seventies.  I really want to ride a new course I have put together to Bedford, but there are too many concerns about flooding around Medora.  So I decide to ride an old favorite:  Hardinsburg.  There is some road construction going on there that I strongly suspect means a favorite old bridge is being replaced by something more modern, and this trip will give me the answer to the question that has been haunting me since I first read of road closures in that area.  

 

 

One benefit of riding solo is that you can leave whenever the whim strikes you.  If you feel like one more cup of coffee before hitting the road, fine.  If you don't, that's okay too.  There is nobody to answer to except yourself.  I slip out into the chill of morning a bit after seven clad in shorts, short sleeved jersey, and a pair of sun sleeves that serve as light arm warmers but are way too hot to wear as intended.  They don't stay on long.  The climb up Leota Hill warms me and I peel them down around my wrists.  

While it is technically still spring and not summer, and while it is cool outside, the green no longer tells of new birth and spring but of summer.  Trees are full figured,  ripe with greenness.  Daisies litter the road in numerous places, so cheerful.  I briefly think of how I would wander into the pasture to pick them when my marriage was new, trying to brighten the small mobile home in which we lived. 

 

Despite our lack of "things," I do not regret those days.  Indeed, sometimes I feel rather sorry for those that start with everything.   When I look around me now, though without him at my side, I see what we earned pulling at the harness together.  I remember the sacrifices and the achievements, the wins and losses, and the happiness that comes with an honored commitment though like everyone, there were times when we wondered if we would/could remain a couple. A burst of love and thankfulness fills me knowing that he worried about how I would do alone and that I have done okay partially due to his worry. 

It strikes me that there are still no orange day lilies.  And the crops....throughout the ride I notice that the crops, particularly the corn, is not as tall and as healthy looking as it normally is in early June.  Perhaps, I think, it is my imagination.  But a Facebook memory from this very date a year or two ago notes that the day-lilies were in bloom, their orange faces turning throughout the day to follow the sun.

I also notice throughout the ride that numerous people have gardens that did not have gardens in the past.  Some of them are not much to look at, but many of them are glorious and I miss my gardening days.  That thought takes me back in time to the hours I would spend tending the garden, canning and freezing.  Hard work, but how satisfying to hear the lids seal after taking them out the canner.  To open the freezer door and see frozen vegetables galore.  And how, sometimes when I would cook with them in the midst of winter, it would seem as if a trace of summer returned right there in  my kitchen.  The smell of food cooking so that one can fill the empty bellies of loved ones.  Is there a better perfume, particularly when combined with a warm, cozy shelter against cold weather? 

I notice mulberries on the ground and remember how a large mulberry tree grew near the front of my husband's mother's house.  How the children loved them.  And just as I am in the midst of my thoughts, I turn the corner to come upon an eagle feeding in the road who immediately takes flight to a nearby tree, his white tail feathers taunting me yet telling me I have identified him for what he is.  I stop to try to get a better look, but he must think I look dangerous because he leaves his perch taking again to the air, gloriously beautiful.  Tears briefly water my eyes as it all seems too much to take in.  So much beauty.  A gratefulness for the health to ride a bicycle fills my heart.

And then a descent is upon me, difficult to navigate because of the shadows that dapple the ground.  I have ridden this road enough to know it is not well maintained and there are quite possibly pot holes waiting to fell an inattentive rider.  It demands my attention and I heed its warning.  For almost a year now, I have been able to sleep on both sides, normally with no pain, and I know from past falls how easily that can end.  Falls from bicycles are how my shoulders got messed up to begin with.   A cat is at the road edge following a curve near the bottom of the hill.  My descent messes up his hunting, and he gives me a brief, disgusted look before melting, ghost-like, into the brush that lines the road.  

 

During  the ride I find that the bridge I was concerned about is, indeed, scheduled for replacement.  The sign says it will close on or after April 1st, and while I wish it was an April Fool's joke, I  know it is not.  This shadow of time's passage will soon disappear, laying down its life for progress. I say my goodbyes. I have lost count of the older bridges that I have ridden that are now gone, replaced with more practical but not nearly so beautiful replacements.  The number of small country stores that have closed their doors, unable to complete with Walmart and Dollar General and other large conglomerates.  I  accept that this is the way of things, but that does not mean that I necessarily like or approve of the changes time has wrought.  They shadow rides, these stores and bridges, when I pass their way. 

Lunch is at Little Twirl, the first place I ate at when first reaching this area.  At that time it was open year round.  Now, it is not.  There was a gas station that was open as well, long closed. Afterward, a Mennonite store briefly made an appearance and I enjoyed frequenting it with its delicious sandwiches on homemade bread.  But time closed it as well.  Little Twirl is all that remains as a rest stop in that area. 

 

After I have left the lunch stop, I remember that I was supposed to call the kayaking place my daughter and I are to go to tomorrow.  I stop thinking that there is no way here, on Branahan Road, in the middle of nowhere, I will have service only to find that I have better service than I do at home. Four or five bars.  Go figure.  I call and ensure they are open and not flooded.  Back on the bike to prepare for the long climb up to the Red Barn.  During the climb, I want to go to granny, but I remind myself I am, for the first time in a long time, training for a ride so quit whining and turn the pedals in the way that builds strength in both the legs and in character.  

 

When I reach the Red Barn, Amos is sitting outside.  I always wonder how he stays in business, there in the middle of nowhere, but while we sit talking another customer arrives so perhaps he is busier than I realize.  When I ask the man that arrives how he is doing, he grins at me and says that if he were any better, he would have to have help.  This tickles me and reminds me of the Lloydism's I used to share with friends and how we would laugh.  A grin on my face, I pull out of the parking lot to finish the century out.  

 

During the last 25 miles, I am surprised that I am tired, but then I remember that this century always leaves me a bit drained.  It is not the hilliest century, but there is very little flat other than Blue River Road.  But still I continue to enjoy myself, maybe because I love Eden and Delaney Park Roads.  Will, I wonder, this day be another shadow of the time spent?  I hope so.