A Century Ride as the Winter Solstice Approaches

"We cannot stop the winter

or summer from coming.  We

cannot stop the spring or fall or

make them other than they are. 

They are gifts from the universe

we cannot refuse. But we can 

choose what we will contribute to

life when each arrives."

Gary Zukhav

 

I must confess,  I have very mixed feelings when I decide to ride a century in December, a month when I normally did a minimum of two centuries just a few years ago:  my Christmas breakfast century whose route varied and Bethlehem whose route did not vary.  I was younger then, and stronger.  I had a pretty close knit group that would always attend. But it is time to go on.  Even past time.  I grow weak.  A weather and route weenie.  And it is not supposed to be so very cold today and the wind is not supposed to be so very wild.  So out the door I go praying that the weather does not overly beat me up.  I know I will hurt by the end.  That is the price of admission when one has not ridden a century for a bit.  But rather than paying at the door, I know I will pay at the end.  I just hope it is not too ugly.

Since December of 2014, I have lost my husband, two brothers, my mother, my sister, and a nephew.  If there is one thing age and loss have taught me is that time on this earth is limited and should not be wasted.  Which is not to say that I don't still waste time, but it is at least conscious wastefulness, and today will not be a waste.  A century ride is never a waste.  And if you don't use your body the saying is true, you truly do lose it.  Additionally, age makes it harder to get it back.  Better just to persevere until the time comes to hang the bicycle on the wall for good.  And adventure may await.  One never quite knows what to expect from a long ride.

 

The morning is gloomy with nary a hint of sunshine though the forecasters said the sun might peek through this afternoon.  I sincerely hope so for there has not been one ray for what seems like an eternity.  At least the temperature has been mellow for this time of year.  And at least some of my obligations and worries are coming to an end.  But I long to bathe in the sun despite the fact his power has waned and lacks the heat he has in summer.

 

Jon agrees to ride with me so we meet at the ride start in Madison and head out both worrying a bit about how we are dressed.  As it turns out, we are both fine though I am a tad overdressed.  I have already asked him to agree not to linger at stops.  Winter riding is not so very hard with the appropriate clothing so long as the distance is short and no stops are necessary.  To me, one of the hardest things about winter century rides are the necessity of stops.  Inevitably, within a short time I begin to chill.  To try to prevent this today, I unzip my jacket well before stops allowing the wind to reach inside my warm outer shell and dispel some of the inevitable dampness that builds during exercise.  It helps, but does not eliminate the discomfort completely.  I remember one cold brevet where another rider was upset that I left the control so quickly saying he wanted to ride with me, but my body had begun shivering involuntarily to the point where if I didn't leave, I was unsure if I would be able to keep the bike upright.   Just another reminder that in the end, however much I like to feel in control of things, I truly am not.  Even my own body has demands and needs that I cannot control.

The route we are riding does not have a first store stop so we stop rather late at a park.  The picnic table has collapsed and slants downward, but we manage to sit for a few moments and eat what we have brought.  Jon has a Cliff bar I think and I have a half whole wheat p and j sandwich.  It tastes wonderful and I need it, but I am glad we move on quickly.  I briefly think of the times we have tarried there on this route, luxuriating in the finer weather.  Today is not, however, such a day.

We have decided to eschew the traditional Subway lunch stop as it is so early in the ride and not a favorite of mine anyway.  We go quite some distance further to a coffee shop we both know that also has sandwiches.  But on our way we face a long, rather boring stretch that is, as normal, into the wind.  Though the wind is not inordinately strong, it is strong enough that I struggle and the scenery here is repetitive, not helping anything.  We have reached the point in the ride where conversation is sparse and scattered.  Jon rides just a bit ahead, stopping to wait at times as I fall behind. Barren field after barren field waiting patiently for spring and planting time.  Lush greenness is a vague memory.  The world seems sepia colored other than the occasional yard that we pass that has Christmas decorations outside.  

 

Decorations bring to mind that it is not too long before the children will visit for the holiday, and I set my  mind yet again to determining the menu trying to plan for vegetarians and young children that are not the adventurous eaters that my daughter was when young.  I quite enjoy it but it makes me hungry and I realize I will be VERY glad to hit the lunch stop.

 

Lunch is delicious and does not take overly long as I worry not only about chilling but about getting in before dark.  I brought lights just in case, but I don't like to be on busier roads when the light has faded.  Odd because night riding was one of my favorite things about brevets, but only when we were out on side, lightly traveled roads.  Even during those years, I worried when there were lots of cars.  

 

After lunch we get a good chuckle when a group of children come to the side of the road hailing and cheering us.  One yells, "Do you like ketchup and mustard?"  It takes me a moment before I realize it is a reference to our jackets.  Jon is dressed in a red jacket and I have on my yellow jacket.  I  think how refreshing it is to actually see children outside in the yard doing something rather than inside the house watching television or playing video games.  Perhaps I remember incorrectly, but I remember being outside most of the time when I was not being tortured in school.  Not that I didn't like school or the other children or the teachers or reading.  I adored reading.  But I did not like the sitting required and being trapped inside, particularly on lovely days when the earth just seemed to abound with things to do and places to explore.   

Sometimes the last miles of a century, particularly when one has been lazy, can be  more a death march than a pleasure, but despite my being out of shape, it is not so today.  I am tired, pleasantly tired, and I am as stiff, but I know I could go further, easier anymore than going faster for sure.  We are in before dark with some minutes to spare.  I would not chose a winter day as my favorite for riding, but I am glad that I did choose to ride and make use of the day and my body, to appreciate the starkness of the trees against the gray sky, to almost laugh out loud with excitement when a few rays of sun do happen to break through the ponderous gloom that has settled on the earth recently.  Yeah, it was a good day.  And I realize yet again that I am blessed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Campbellsburg Century Revisited

"You may not remember the

time you let me go first. Or the time

you dropped back to tell me it wasn't

that far to go. Or the time

you waited at the crossroads for me 

to catch up. You may not remember any

of those, but I do and this is what I have to

say to you:  "Today, no matter what it takes, 

we ride home together."

Brian Andreas

 

It is interesting, this century a week, reminding me of the early days when a few of us rode two centuries most week-ends, all of our free time spent with the bicycles, each other, and the open road.  That intensity passed.  There were other paths to travel, spouses to appease, other interests to pursue.  Despite becoming quite special, people became known, and as the saying goes, familiarity can breed contempt, or if not contempt a lack of appreciation. Life has a way of shaking things up. Change happens.  So I was not at all sure what sort of response I would get this year to scheduling a century every week-end  that I possibly could throughout the traditional touring season. 

 

So far, interest remains higher than I anticipated.  This week draws Mike Kamenish (who arrives after the start but is so strong that he quickly catches up), Larry Preble, Tom Askew, Tom Hurst, Bob Grable, and John Pelligrino, all of whom have ridden at least some of the centuries I have put on this year.  The centuries do not draw the huge crowds that the Tour de Mad Dog drew, but it harkens back to the closeness those of us who shared the roads  all those years ago knew.  Perhaps because the group is smaller.  Despite the different riding abilities, there have been rides like the last where everyone has pretty much stayed together.  So far as I know,  nobody has felt as if the pace was more than they could or wanted to handle and nobody has felt it was so slow as to be tortuous.

I have urged people to ride ahead if they feel the desire and the need, for in part I am reliving memories as I am putting on many routes that I myself designed.  This ride brings back memories of no map or GPS as I  planned the route, heading out with bicycle, pen, paper, and sidewalk chalk on that I used to mark turns on roads I was not familiar with so that I knew how to get back.  This ride brings back memories of cutting off some of my son's old tube socks to use as arm warmers as I could not afford to buy real arm warmers at the time.  It brings back memories of people that I loved who no longer ride at all or who no longer ride distance or who no longer ride with me.  And with that company, I have no fear of being alone.   But they do not drop me.  A few ride ahead, but we always regroup at stores and there is laughter and conversation as new memories are formed.  

 

I think of how when the Tour de Mad Dog began, despite differing abilities, people rode together.  It reminded me of the saying above.  Suddenly in my memory I am alone on a brevet at night in the middle of Texas after having a flat and watching the lights of the group I was riding with disappear leaving me in complete and utter darkness other than my bicycle light.  And I was afraid, not terrified, but afraid.   But it was not too long before they returned, helping, urging me on, assuring me I could fix the flat and finish, that we would finish together. And we did.  I think  of how when the Tour de Mad Dog began, fifteen people might stop and loll in the grass, talking and joking, while someone fixed a flat.  But I am brought back to the present by the riders with me. 

We arrive at the Red Barn store after the long climb.  Everyone nervously asks about the climb ahead for I have assured them it is a tough climb.  I believe that other than myself, only two have climbed it before.  I tell them of how my friend, Paul Battle, fell over on the climb.  Of the numerous people who walked, unable to turn the pedals due to the steepness.  I tell them of how you are riding along in a valley and suddenly you will see trees arching over the roadway, darkening the entrance to the climb, as if foreshadowing what is to come.  But we climb it and arrive at Little Twirl for lunch.  Some say they read a 26 percent grade, others a bit less, but everyone agrees it was a tough climb.  

 

Then we hit the head wind from hell and endure it for numerous miles before making the turn for a crosswind and lunch. As I take my turn pulling, I think that the headwind is as strong as was predicted and wonder about those of us who chose to ride in it rather than stay home with our feet propped up.  But despite the challenge, or perhaps to some extent because of the challenge, we are having a good time. 

I am concerned about how the food at Little Twirl will  be as I have not eaten there for some time, but the concern is needless.  While it does not have the healthiest selection of foods, it tastes good, particularly in comparison to some of the fine sidewalk dining at gas stations I have done over the years.   Little Twirl was the original store stop, before the Mennonite Store that came and is now closed.  It used to be open all year long, but now it opens only spring through fall.  New ownership.  Everything changes.

We leave and resume our journey into the headwind knowing that it is about to come to an end, and as we turn onto Beck's Mill it does.  At Beck's Mill, however, we find that the road is closed as the bridge is being rebuilt.  Workmen are busy.  Tom Askew is brave enough and persuasive enough that we are permitted to pass with the recommendation that we carry our bikes because of nails.  As I carry my bike, I wonder about how nail repellent cycling shoes are, but I don't bring it up.  Nobody gets a nail in their foot and I heave a sigh of relief.  And Larry gives Tom a Mad Dog name, Ambassador.  The naming of dogs, well, as T. S. Eliot says about cats, is serious business.  And it has been awhile since a Mad Dog has earned a name.  We are all grateful that the Ambassador saved our tired legs extra miles.  Nobody complains which is good because I did warn everyone I had not driven or ridden the route ahead of time.  

At one point, and I can't remember exactly when, we all do a double take when passed by an Amish couple on bicycles.  She has her bonnet and her dress on and he is also dressed traditionally.  No helmets.  I didn't look but I feel certain no cleats.  But they are both intent on their cycling and look to be as fast as the wind. I have run into Amish cycling once before, a number of years ago, but it was a group of young Amish men. 

And then we are at the end.  No Dog has been left behind this day though one of our number began to get leg cramps from the heat.  But he persevered and finished.  I suspect that now he has adapted to the heat, he will be fine.  And what a wonderful day it was.  Perhaps I can give back a bit of what I have been given, for there have been many rides when others could have gone on and left me but chose not to. "No matter what it takes, we ride home together."

 

 

Red Barn Ride: June 2020

"True friendship comes when the 

silence between two people

is comfortable."

David Tyson

As I head out on my bike this late morning, I think quite a bit about the ride I put on yesterday.  I was surprised that eight people showed though I know it is a lovely course with little traffic.  It is a long drive to the ride start for my friends from Louisville, but then there was nothing else on the schedule.  And some are close friends, friends whose company I enjoy and who must enjoy mine.  As the bike club re-opens from COVID, I suspect some captains and some riders will not return and others will wait to see how the rides go.  But most of us that ride will continue to ride because riding is about more than the bike. Riding is about the jokes, the surprises, the friendship, the beauty, the trials and tribulations, the triumphs, the sweat and the chills, and so much more. 

Today I have decided to ride to Borden and get a couple of tough climbs in, something I have been avoiding lately.  It does me no good to avoid the climbs because that is the only way to truly build strength.  It would be better to have others to climb with to push my speed a bit as I tend to be lazy, but it is what it is.   I think I am fortunate that the weather today is moderate.  Climbing is so much easier when it is not in the nineties where the heat brings the sweat that drips in the eyes causing them to burn as if they were on fire despite one's headband.  Over the years I have learned to carry an extra bandana for such moments and keep it handy, tucked in my shorts.  People have laughed at the "tumor" on my thigh, but it serves its purpose.  Today, however, I should not need it.  Thinking of this makes me giggle about a sweat band  that I bought at Texas Hell Week, a rubber "gutter" that went around my head.  The guys laughed.  They were right.  Not only did it not stop the sweat from getting in my eyes, it gave me a headache. 

Interestingly, perhaps even Freudian  or because I am lost in my own head, I miss the turn to Bartle's Knob, but this does not save me, it only adds miles as it is a dead end road.  I have never ridden down this way and it is a nice road, secluded with attractive homes.  One lady is out spraying the weeds in the ditch by the road.  I always hate riding by anyone spraying weed killer or pesticides because I suspect it is decidedly unhealthy.  I never know whether to try to hold my breath or breathe shallowly and rapidly to try to keep it from reaching deep in my lungs.  This time I hold my breath.  On the way back, I breath shallowly.  I am halfway up the road before recognizing my mistake and understanding that somehow I am not on the right road, but I ride to where it dead ends with no trespassing signs before turning around. 

Before you know it, I am passing Wiley's Chapel on the way up the first climb:  Bartle's Knob.  The climb is long and for one short moment, my Wahoo tells me the grade is 18 per cent, but since I am not hurrying not really painful.  I should be pushing myself to go faster, but instead just go at my own, slow, steady pace.  I think of how I used this hill and the next to help train for the hills in the Virginia 1000 K a few years ago.  It seems so long ago, and yet not.  Sometimes things are like that. 

I crest the hill and debate how to get to Borden. I know that Daisy Hill Road will take me to Borden, but I am pretty sure that Jackson Road also leads there and is the other hill I am looking for.  I am right.  I "thought" I was right, but I could as easily have been wrong.  When I turn onto Jackson, I tell myself if I am not descending within six miles, I will turn around.  But descending I am, and at quite a clip at one point.  I think yet again to myself that I need to get new brake pads in front. The back are fine, but the front definitely need replacement.  I think about what type of brakes I will get if I get a new bike.  So many of the new bikes have disc brakes.  The guys said it is overkill on a regular road bike, but the people that have them seem to like them.  Oh, well, it will be awhile before a new bike comes my way.  I remain glad I bought titanium.  It  lasts. In fact, the only thing new on it since I bought it in 2011 is chain, cassette, cables, bar tape, and saddle.  Oh, and one shifter, one that Steve Rice helped locate for me on line. Everything else is what came with the bike.  I did buy new wheels this year, but I have not yet put them on. 

That leads me to think of how I feel  like  I upset the bike shop by wanting high spoke count wheels.  I don't think he understands how I ride, that I may be one hundred miles out from my daughter or may run into gravel that I don't want to take the time to go around despite it being a road bike.  That bike has been on some pretty rough roads in its time.  "Why," I ask myself, "do I sometimes feel guilty getting what I want for myself when someone else thinks I should want something different but don't."  I have no answer for this.  Of course, as long as he makes money, it should not matter to the bike shop, but it either does or it is my imagination that it does.

Soon, I am sitting eating a small twist cone that seems pretty large but tastes pretty darned good.  I don't know how it will sit with the big climb up Jackson, but for now it is fine.  The biggest problem on the return is getting across the road.  Cars zoom and those that turn seem not to use turn signals, but finally I am across and ready to climb.  As I pass the elementary school, I giggle to myself remembering the look on the faces of the kids at recess when they realized that I was about to climb that huge hill on my bike a few years ago. 

Halfway up the steepest part of the climb, a bug flies into my open, gasping mouth and rather than being swallowed, it lodges in my throat.  I try to ride through it, but end up stopping and taking a few swigs all the while wondering if I will be able to turn the pedals and start back up or will have to walk. The road is wide enough to allow me to go sideways, much stronger because of the additional protein I just unwittingly downed, and finish the climb.  The grass alongside the road is still green despite the fact that we are starting to need rain.  Daisies, black eyed Susan, and lilies line the road in places. Later on, I see bales of hay lay waiting to be dragged to barns. Last year there was such a shortage of hay due to the drought. 

On the ride home I think about the company yesterday and find myself with a wide grin on my face.  I have blessed with many friends in my lifetime.  How much poorer would my life be without them?  How much richer are experiences when shared?  Sometimes we talk, usually we talk or at least I talk, but sometimes it is enough to ride in companionable silence.  It is nice to have friends like that.  It is nice to have friends that will drive quite a distance just to be with you and to share a course that you put together. I am truly blessed.  They listen at times when I feel they must think, "Will she never shut up?"  They bear with me at times when I have nothing to say but feel the warmth of their company.  Thanks to those that came.  It was a good ride.  And today is a good ride today.  Life is good despite COVID, at least at this point. 

The First TMD Century Stage: 2019

"One thing about the cold weather:

it brings out the statistician in everyone."

Paul Theroux

The first Tour De Mad Dog Century stage of 2019 and I am in terrible shape.  Yes, I have gone to the gym.  I have done Pilates and Barre classes faithfully other than the months a couple of broken toes were healing.  I have squatted and lunged and crunched until my squatters, lungers, and crunchers were sore, but I have not really ridden my bicycle much and I know it will show on a 100 mile ride.  Once, I think with disgust at myself, I have been on my old stationary trainer once this winter. So I actually go back and check to ensure that it was not a dream, that I did receive an e-mail saying the course is changed due to flooding and will be a much flatter course than the course originally scheduled.  I intended to ride anyway, and even with the change I know it will be painful, but I also know this course, one I normally will not ride due to the danger of high traffic volume and the lack of any significant scenery, will be less painful by far. I'm in.

The ride will go from the Outer Loop down to Lincoln's boyhood home and then return along the same route.  I know there will be memories, but I am unprepared for how they haunt me throughout the ride.  Many of my friends from those first years have given up the century rides for shorter, less demanding rides, but here I am.  Newer friends are not returning opting for shorter rides, but I am here.  And I decide it is time to evaluate why I am here and if I truly want to be here. Dave is the only one present today from the original group that rode the series starting 2004.  We were really not friends that first year, at least not in the way we later became friends, a friendship forged through countless miles on countless century and brevet courses.   Still, I doubt we will ride together and I am surprised to find we spend quite a bit of the day together.  Gayle is the only other woman present.  Again I think how last year there were, I don't believe, any new women to finish the tour.  But things lose their popularity, and the numbers definitely seem to grow smaller.  And it is hard.  Riding all these centuries is hard and seems to become harder.

I think about the brevets and how I purposefully did not do the Kentucky 200 this year.  The decision was abetted by a wedding I needed to attend the evening before that kept me out until midnight, but one I perhaps would have made anyway.  I keep hoping my desire to ride the long brevets will return, but just the thought of being that tired makes me tired.  Still, I am glad that I was that tired.  Personally, I don't believe that until you have ridden a 1200 K, you really to know what it means to be truly exhausted. 

I know how to dress for this ride, but I shiver at the thought.  This is one of those days that, while not really cold, will be one where you sweat and are chilly at the same time.  To prevent that, I would have to overdress which would not only mean a slower pace than the snail's pace I anticipate, but greater dehydration.  It is supposed to be in the low forties all day with a mild wind, and so I bite the bullet: thin wool base layer topped with a wool jersey, vest, and very light jacket, booties and my bar mitts, something I left on only because of the cold weather prediction for next week, a decision I am exceedingly grateful for throughout the ride.  Age, it seems, whether mental or physical, has lessened my tolerance for discomfort.  As my friend, Lynn, has told me, it does get harder to be mean to yourself as you age. 

Dave heads off before me, and I leave the parking lot in the middle of the fast group chasing him, for he pulled out on his own.  I hang for a few miles before dropping back knowing that I do not have the endurance to hang there the entire ride but pleased to keep up for as long as I do.  As with running, one thing I am good at is pacing myself, a valuable skill for anyone who does endurance activities. Indeed, it turns out only three riders do, but that happens further down the road.  When I drop, I am ride by myself for a number of miles before being caught by John and a rider I don't know when I stop to adjust the cue sheet.  I giggle to myself as I hear them chatting behind me expressing their gratefulness for the flooding because it caused the route change.  It is good to know that I am not the only wimp in the group.  But then, I think, other than Larry, I probably am the oldest of the group.  As I thought to myself last year, "You old fool.   You're 62 (now almost 63) and can't expect to keep up with 40 to 50 year old men." But today, for the most part, I do. 

While I am by myself, I ride a road where I remember Mike Pitt having a flat 14 or 15 years ago.  I remember how we lazed at the side of the road while he changed it, laughing and joking, easy in our friendship.  I remember the warmth of the sun beating down on us, the greenness of the grass, the sweetness of the air.  I pass the gas station where Mike stole Tim's wheel and hid it. I remember Vickie, camera ready and then stealthily put away, no photo taken, when Tim became incensed and rode off by himself leaving everyone stunned by his unexpected reaction.  I remember another time, all of us sitting at the picnic tables, warm and sweaty in the summer sun, eating sandwiches,  and Mike Kammenish lying on the pavement easing an aching back prior to his spinal surgery.  Across the street is the restaurant we used to eat in where a toy train ran along a shelf at the top of the room near the ceiling, the restaurant where I got my first Mad Dog (removable) tattoo.  "Where," I think,"did the time go?"  "Where did the people go?" Yet still I ride.  "Is there," I think,"something wrong with me that I have not moved on as others do?"  But even on this cold day, a day where I chill and am uncomfortable any time I slow or stop, there is no place else I would rather be or any other activity that I would rather be in engaged in than riding my bike.  Curse or gift?  I don't know.  Perhaps a bit of both. But thank God for the health that allows me to continue to participate.

At the first store stop, Gayle and Dave are waiting and we share the road until Dave needs to make a pit stop.  Gayle thinks it is morbid when I am talking about the divorce of a friend and lamenting that he had not found the woman to live out his days with as I had hoped. My daughter tells me I talk of death too openly, and I can't say I am not afraid of death or that I look forward to death, but I also am not afraid to talk about it and have accepted that it is inevitable.  But she is right and people do find it unsettling. Still, I did not look at my statement as morbid.  I envy those who have life partners and I miss my own. And it is something that I wish for my friends:  loving and being loved. Even now, when I see something Lloyd would have liked, I think how I miss telling him about it or buying it for him.  I miss fixing his favorite dinner for his birthday.  I miss having a life partner.  I miss loving and being loved, and if I have another romantic relationship, I will wish for an enduring one. The words of a favorite song by James Arthur come to mind, "I want to stay with you until we're gray and old......I want to live with you even when we're ghosts."

The man I don't know behind me  has been complaining about his toes.  Sympathizing,  I give him the toe warmers I have stowed in my handlebar bag and he is hesitant but grateful. I ride with John and this fellow until the turn around. They stop but I roll onward.  I decide not to stop at the Subway that is the traditional lunch stop but to ride on until the third stop as it is still early.  At the turnaround, John asked the fellow riding with us our average.  He replies in kilometers, but that is not what John wanted, so I tell him we are at 16 mph.  Not fast, certainly, but not too bad after months without any serious riding.  As stated above, the cold has turned me into a statistician.  Throughout the ride, whenever I notice my discomfort, I calculate the anticipated finish time. 

Dave and I stop to eat at the third store stop.  As we sit there for what seems like forever, I realize I had forgotten how slowly Dave eats.  Never have I seen anyone who enjoys his food as thoroughly as Dave. It is a source of amusement, delight, and frustration. Though I enjoy hearing about the new bicycles he has bought (and have been lusting after the one he is riding), it seems an eternity as the statistician again takes over calculating the additional time it will take to finish.  My thigh muscles are tightening and I am chilling by the time we leave.  As often is the case after a stop, especially a prolonged stop during a colder ride, it seems colder than it did prior to the stop.   I wonder if I have another thirty miles left in my legs and realize I better have as I have no sag wagon.  Dave said the sun was supposed to pop out, but it never does.  Everything is dark and gray and chill, a chill and grayness made worse by the previous taste of spring.

Dave tells me about the brevet, about who rode, about the challenges of the course.  I ask if he is going to ride his new bike at PBP and he says he is not:  he is going to ride his green Kirk.  I ask if he rode with Steve and he says he rode mostly alone.  A part of me wishes I had ridden, but as much of me or more is glad that I didn't, particularly after feeling how tired my legs are after 100 basically flat miles. And then we are pulling into the parking lot, a lot that holds my car that has seat warmers that will be on high all the way home.  Unlike in the warmer months, we only hug briefly and don't hang out long afterwards before heading home.   I grin as I pull out calculating how long it will be before I am submerged in a tub full of hot water.  But I am glad that I rode. I am grateful for the time alone and the memories that surfaced.  I am grateful for the time with Dave.  Life is good and so is bicycling.  And spring will come. 

Blackberry Winter

"Blackberry winter, the time when the hoarfrost

lies on the blackberry blossoms; without this frost

the berries will not set.  It is the forerunner of a rich

harvest."

Margaret Mead

I have not ridden a century for three weeks now.  I don't like this.  My body does not like this, and my spirit certainly does not like this.  But sometimes responsibilities and work interfere. Then inertia sets in.  The less you ride, the less you want to ride.  It seems my work always picks up a bit this time of  year, robbing me of time on the bike just as the spring arrives. This is extremely unfortunate as spring is so short lived. Even more unfortunate,  after day after day of nice, sunshiny weather when I had to work and could not get out, the time I have off is predicted to be chilly with little to no sunshine and possible rain.

For some reason, I find it harder and harder to drag myself out the door  on chilly mornings in the spring unless the sun is shining.  Something in me resists.  But I am determined to get my May century in.  No, it is not like it is in the winter when the urge to get it completed is made more essential because of the possibility of really bad weather where you simply can't safely ride.  It is more a weariness of the spirit, of being tired of wind and gray and chill.

I decide to chart my course to Vernon all the while hoping that I don't find flooding that blocks my return and adds an extra 15 or 20 miles.  I think briefly of how now there will be nobody to chide me if I cross the flood waters wanting to get home. With the extra daylight, I should be okay if I do find flooding and not have to wade,  (I do not find the water over the road) but being without a rescue team, I throw  a light on the bike just in case.  I also give myself permission to return after thirty miles if I don't feel better, but as usual once I get my lazy rear out the door and actually on the bike, I fall back in love with the world, with the awesome beauty that surrounds me.

I have always found it interesting how winter sweat differs so from summer sweat.  There is something about a summer sweat that seems cleansing.  Winter or indoor sweat just doesn't, it is clammy and seem to have a subtle but pungently foul aroma. It leaves you cold, not cleansed.Today, I fear, will be a winter sweat, but at least my soul will be cleansed.  I will, as the saying goes, get my yayas out.

My sullenness subsides as I sudden feel the green beginning to penetrate seeping through my eyes and heart into my very soul.  I begin to feel young and strong again, not at all the old woman who looks out at me from the mirror sometimes.  There are still hints of some of the early spring flowers,  though the red bud has vanished.  Dog wood white still laces the world, bearded irises raise their lovely heads, waving in the wind as I pass, and I know it is truly almost Derby Day when I first smell the subtly sweet aroma and then see the honeysuckle.  I remember how as children we would pick the bloom, pulling the stamen through the smaller end of the flower and sucking the ambrosial droplet that was left behind as children must have done for thousands of years.  For the first time in a long time, I think of childhood friends, Brian and Mark, and some of the adventures we shared.  How sad that we lose touch with those whose company we enjoy, but it inevitably seems to happen, usually without our taking the time to thank those people for how they enriched our lives.  I suppose thank yous leave us vulnerable.  Or perhaps we are just lazy.

I am startled as a deer crashes through the brush and bounds across the road in front of me.  Something, I remain unsure what, obviously startled her.  Her fear is almost palatable and I wish I could comfort her, assure her that things are alright, but I have learned of my own powerlessness the hard way.  If I were truly powerful, I would not be a widow, so all I can do is sympathize and wish her luck on her journey.

The day never seems to warm, and while I take off my rain jacket for a bit, I quickly put it back on and am glad I did not leave it at home as I thought of doing.  In May, one does not usually think of needing arm warmers, leg warmers, wool socks. AND a jacket.  As I do every year, I have washed my wool and put it away countless times wishfully thinking it will be fall before I wear it again, only to find myself pulling it back out for "one last time."  And then I realize, it is what my husband, born and raised in the country, always called a "blackberry winter."  I remember him telling me how each year it would get cold for a bit just as the blackberry's bloom, and as happened so often, he was proved right.  Oh, there is that exception, but normally we do have a cold snap, and perhaps it serves a purpose that I, with my feeble mind, do not understand.  Because there is much that I do not understand in and about this world.  But I do understand that I am glad I rode today, that I got my May century in as I have gotten my century in at least once a month since November of 2003.  That is one of the beauties of riding a bicycle:  even when a part of us does not want to ride, we normally find ourselves pulled back into the love of the wind on our face and the freedom of the wheel powered by our own strength and desire and imagination.  

Spring in February

"May God grant you always

A sunbeam to warm you,

A  moonbeam to charm you, 

A sheltering Angel so nothing can

harm you. 

Laughter to cheer you.

Faithful friends near you.

And whenever you pray,

Heaven to hear you."

Irish blessing

 It is one of those rare and magical winter days that is a gift from above: mid-February yet it is predicted to be at or near seventy degrees by days end instead of the typical thirty degrees.  It is one of those days where you aren't sure if it lessens or intensifies your longing for spring by gifting you with one less day of true winter, yet leaving you yearning for the surely impossible:  more.  Perhaps it is my nature to be greedy and want more for I am but human.  I only know that I yearn for spring and for sunshine, blessed sunshine, warm, brilliant, and somehow or other uplifting.

And what is more, another gift, it is a week-end.  I do not have to work and I can ride my bicycle.  Not only can I ride my bicycle, but I am meeting friends for a century ride.  And if I have my guess, it will be one of my favorite kind of rides:  roads I don't normally travel with nobody in the typical hurry of a true winter day when weather hounds and chastens you to quicken your pace.  Time apart means there are new stories to hear and to tell as we catch up. 

And it is just such a ride.  All of us, so changed yet so much the same.   Soon enough we fall into our old patterns.  There is laughter and a few shared memories.  The first chorus of frogs timidly splits the air sounding as glorious as a symphony and so full of promise as to what is to come soon.  The  strict, harsh, clearly defined edges of tree branches beginning to blur with the promise of leaves to come.  The promise: sometimes I think that is what gets me through these last cold, dreary days that follow the Christmas holiday.  The appreciation of the ride and the weather honed to a fine edge by the understanding that there is always the possibility that this could be our last such ride.  Life has taught me that as well as that I cannot love them well enough, and I do love them for what they are and what they have been to me.

 If only the brevets could have such glorious weather, but this is Kentucky and I have come to expect wind, rain, and cold for the brevets.  Oh, well, I suppose it toughens you.  Looking back, those rides, the difficult and challenging ones, are the ones I remember best if only in snippets.  Wind blowing snow sideways and so loud that we could not break up the tediousness of our journey with conversation with a sudden magnificent and unexpected lunar eclipse.  Another ride shivering while a friend helps me put on fresh gloves that my hands, so cold, are unable to manipulate.  Another feeding a friend a gel because his hands would not work.  So many memories, more than I could ever relate.  And I suppose if I am truly honest, not all of them are memories of hardship for there are memories of rides with jokes and laughter.

Perhaps we will have good weather for the brevet season this year.  If you can sit outside a store stop by choice in February because it is warm and the sun feels delicious, perhaps you can occasionally have weather for an early spring/late winter Kentucky brevet that is not so challenging.  Perhaps this year, heaven will hear me.  The words above may be an Irish blessing, but they are so suitable for brevets.  May all have a successful, memory making brevet season, a season that toughens the legs, but warms the heart and makes you aware of your blessings.  Rides end.  Memories don't. 

Riding in the Fall: Can't Get Enough

"Fall colors are funny.  They're so

bright and intense and beautiful.  It's like

nature is trying to fill you up with color, to 

saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter

turns everything muted and dreary."

Siobhan Vivian

I am home and I am physically tired, but despite back to back centuries this week-end, I am not sated.  I do not know if it is possible for me to get enough of these beautiful, sunshiny fall days, days that start cool but that warm near or into the seventies and winds that do not yet chill me to the bone.  Siobhan Vivian is right.  I am trying to stockpile this weather and all the little details for I know it cannot last.  Soon the world will turn gray and dreary and life sounds will fade away until the spring. Already the insect sounds grow fainter and sound frail rather than brazen and robust as they do in the spring of the year when the world is awakening and mates are being sought.

Morning is as crisp as a cracker calling for arm warmers, knee warmers, vest, and long fingered gloves, painting my cheeks red to match the changing maple leaves, but morning also breathes the promise that you eventually will pay the price for your morning comfort by carrying all those extras for part of the day: perfect if I am riding my Lynskey with the carradice attached, but not so nice on the Cannondale where I end up stuffing pockets until I look stuffed to the point of pregnancy.  Either way it is extra weight and bulk, but this time of year it does not matter.  Fall is not a time for speed despite summer mileage hardened legs.  And frankly, the older I get the less I care about what people think of my looks. 

Near the end of my ride today, I think that I am lucky that vacation is almost over since rain is not predicted or I might ride myself to death or back into some semblance of fitness, whichever happened first.  Even when I reach home a part of me wishes I were just heading out, that the sun was not heading west toward bedtime,  but that it was in the east just rising and that the day could go on and on.  I think about how riding the first century with company gave me things to think about and digest, smiles to relive and tears to shed, during the second century when by myself even though earlier this morning when I started out my legs said, "You've got to be kidding me. Again? One is not enough?   "

Yesterday was the Medora Century, and I shared the day with club members and friends, including two new century riders.  The pace was relaxingly slow, the day languid, and the scenery spectacular in places.  There is something about the sunshine this time of year that makes even the harvested fields, already brown and dry, scenic.  It was not the kind of pace where you wonder if you will ever sweep people in or if you will be out shepherding riders until midnight, but a pace that allowed conversation to flow and laughter to float through the air, and it was not the pace where you gasp and your sides heave as you attempt to  hold on to the wheel in front of you as some sadist presses the pace, but  the kind of pace that allows you to savor the day and hold it close for those times when you feel alone and if there is no joy in the world.   It is the type of day you will remember when you are home snow, wind, and ice bound longing to be on a bicycle without wearing layer upon layer and to see color in the world and hear something besides the man made sounds of automobiles.

The town of Medora was having their "Medora Goes Pink" festival to support breast cancer research.  Kirk R. came up with the idea of having riders wear bras for the bra judging contest thus starting the day  with giggles and laughter at the elaborately decorated bras worn, of course, outside of jerseys.  One couple on a tandem  had a bra with ghosts on one said saying boo and honey bees on the other cup saying bees....  boo bees....get it:-).  The other on the tandem had owls on his brassiere. Bras had lights in the middle, tassles in the centers, writing, and were colorful.  Regardless of the color, style, or the sex of those who wore them, they brought a smile to everyone's faces.  I wished I had taken the time to participate as I intended and had made a bra that said, "Grow a Pair," but things seemed to get in the way.

Riders rode the children's barrel train at the festival and posed with cartoon characters getting their pictures taken.  It just was the type of day that makes you feel almost inebriated, perhaps because it is a closure:  the last of the tour stages for the year and for some, indeed most, the last of the club centuries until 2016 as many do not ride distance throughout the winter.

On the way back, we pass the mobile home Lloyd and I lived in until the children were older and we had saved enough to buy a house.  So much love in that place that it had to have seeped into the soil and permeated the atmosphere. Surely it can not be entirely gone.  Deep sobs racked my body shaking my bike for just a moment as we passed.  I remain amazed at how quickly this can happen and how quickly it can pass, but then this has been a new world for me the past few months and a new me is emerging.  Sometimes it is hard to tell what is temporary and what will be permanent.

I am far enough behind the other riders that nobody can hear, and I am determined that nobody will.  I do  not want my temporary longing and sadness to taint anyone on this glorious day, but I cannot help how I feel.  Would anyone understand that part of us is still there, that ghosts linger in the shed that he built, the trees that he planted, the memories?  The ghosts of children flit  through the yard, a tangle of giggles and silliness, and I think of a  poem my mother-in-law once gave to us, a rare gift for she was always struggling just to make ends meet and gifts were a luxury:

Are All the Children In?

I think oftimes as night draws nigh,
Of an old house on the hill,
And of a yard all wide
And blossom-starred
Where the children played at will.
And when the night at last came down
Hushing the merry din,
Mother would look around and ask,
"Are all the children in?"

Oh, it's many and many a year since then,
And the old house on the hill
No longer echoes to childish feet,
And the yard is still, so still.
But I see it all as the shadows creep,
And though many the years have been since then,
I can hear mother ask,
"Are all the children in?"

I wonder if when the shadows fall
On the last short earthly day;
When we say goodbye to the world outside
All tired with our childish play;
When we step out into the other land
Where mother so long has been,
Will we hear her ask,
Just as of old,
"Are all the children in?"

by Florence Hadley

My sadness passed quickly and I chatted with others as we neared the end.  The ride ended at the forestry and I finished my century up there alone after stopping to chat for a bit more before the others take off for home, for the route is a bit shy mileage wise.

Today I decide to head toward Story, Indiana to continue to savor the colors and feel of incredible fall weather.  Story is located in Brown County, a county known for its fall colors, artists, and quaint shops.  But to get to that color (I am not interested in shopping), I first have to pass miles of farm land.  Most of the fields have been neatly stripped and are bare of all but stubble.  I pass a home that has a circle of ghosts dancing in the yard. I then reach the covered bridge that I came across during previous ramblings, but there is a surprise:  it is being repaired.  It is bare bones, the lovely support arches showing, and I celebrate that it will be restored and not demolished.  So much of our history bows before the pressures of progress or is destroyed through maliciousness, but perhaps this piece will remain.

 

Birds are beginning to flock together and gather in the gleaned corn fields. Disturbed by my passing, they swing into flight, wings graceful against the blueness of the autumn sky, bowing to the wind and landing in another field a bit further away.  Leaves fall and swirl as the wind is a bit stronger than yesterday.  While I miss having company, I also relish having the chance to concentrate on the scenery.  I am desolate when I come to one of my favorite roads and find it pillaged and raped by the lumber industry.  Yes, like most people, I love wood and know it is necessary, but like any red blooded cyclist, I wish they would get their lumber from places other than the roads I ride on.

I think about going back to work and how I wish I could retire.  Just a week at home has convinced me that I would never fade from being bored.   I know, however, that while I could retire and live even more conservatively than I do presently, I need to work if I want to enjoy more activities when I retire.  And of course, I do have need of another bike.  At least I don't detest what I do, I think.  I am not unhappy working, but I look forward to having my time as my own. And I enjoy the extras the working brings.

I think about certain conversations yesterday and I think how difficult it can be to have a spouse or mate that does not understand the lure of cycling.  It interests me that while many of these people met their spouse through cycling, what was an acceptable activity becomes not acceptable and a point of contention.  My husband always told me that marriage changes people, and I think he was right.  Even he had his moments when my excessive cycling caused a squabble even though he bought me my first bike, but somehow he knew it filled a need and that without it, I would no longer be quite the same me.  Mostly he encouraged me, and I was grateful for that.  Not everyone is so giving or thinks of the other person's needs rather than just his or her own.  Maybe, I think, it takes years of marriage to make that happen. 

A few miles outside of Story, I impulsively decide to stop and try an eating establishment I have passed numerous times but never stopped at before.  When she brings the sandwich: it is huge. She even brings  a fork. Oh, well, a girl has to ride to eat.  It tastes so exquisitely good that it is not hard to eat all of it. The potato chips get stuck in my pocket to be eaten later and I am off.

All too soon, I am home.  As I said previously, I am spent but not sated.  And perhaps that is a good way to end a ride or to end many activities, wanting more.  I know what is coming and I am glad that I did not waste the sunshine and the color and the sounds that filled the ride, for Sibohan is right:  soon the days will become "muted" and "dreary" it will become harder to drag myself out the door and onto the bike.

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

Kentucky 300K Brevet 2014

" I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.

 It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. 

It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. 

It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease.

 It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. 

You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, 

if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget,

you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you

 never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I am not ashamed to say I am afraid of this brevet.  While I often enjoy riding in the rain, particularly a light drizzle in late spring or summer or early fall, riding 192 hilly miles in rain with temperatures that will start near 50 degrees and end in the thirties is an altogether different matter.  Particularly with the additional prediction for strong winds.  It is not so challenging to stay warm for shorter distances or when it is not raining or when the wind does not play with you like a cat with a mouse. It is not such a challenge if you are by yourself and can head home at any time you find yourself becoming the least little bit uncomfortable or bored because you really have set no goal for yourself mileage-wise.

 I have a great respect for cold and rain and wind on brevets and I do not take these conditions lightly. All too well I  remember being caught in a frigid, heavy, all day rain during a past brevet, unable to get my gloves back on my hands without help, helpless in the cold and dark, relying on the kindness of a friend who was caught in like circumstances, and I am afraid.  Could I have coped on my own?  Possibly.  I will never know for sure.  But I would not have wanted to. I remember riding other brevets in similar conditions, and I know they are potentially dangerous and certainly uncomfortable.  And I am afraid.  And yes, I even think of staying home.  But Martel is right, if I stay home I open myself to further, more paralyzing attacks. Because fear is insidious and feeds upon itself, arches its spine, puffs its fur until it appears twice its real size, metamorphosing into something it was not to begin with, something more than itself.  And unless it is defeated, it always returns.  Even defeated, it sometimes returns to try yet again, though not as fiercely as before because I know I won once and might just do so again.

Still I think of going elsewhere to ride a 300:  Tennessee, St. Louis, Ohio, anywhere where it might be easier.  No 300K ride is easy, but some are certainly less demanding than others.  Even the same route can be much more difficult at certain times. Weather, route, personal issues, company, fitness level .... so many things that affect a ride, some controllable and some not.   I decide that I will not let fear conquer and I will cope as best I can.  If I finish, I will have accomplished something, and if I fail I will have learned something. It helps that my husband, as usual, encourages me to make the attempt.  Win or lose, he will be there waiting for me, his eyes and arms my anchor, my safe place.  And while he never has been able to grasp this passion that I have, this need for challenge he will love me regardless.

Experience has taught me that the core can stay warm, even when wet, even when the temperature drops and rain turns to snow, with the use of wool and a Showers Pass jacket that blocks the wind.  It is getting the right combination of layers and not pausing too long at controls. Feet can chill easily,  but they can be kept reasonably warm with wool socks and neoprene booties.  It is my hands that concern me the most. As Eddie Doerr told me when I first started riding, the challenge to cold rides are the hands and feet.  And it would take pages to tell you the experiments I have done to find what works best for me.

 I ponder different options for my hands.  Some people use just wool.  Other people use goretex gloves.  Some use dish washing gloves over wool or a liner.  Suddenly my Bar Mitts come to mind. I know what they can do in cold, how they can keep my hands toasty and warm with the lightest of gloves.  What I don't know is if they will help in rain.  I Google this, but I don't really find much other than reviews about their use in cold weather.  I decide to use them.  The worst that can happen is that they will make my bike heavier by soaking up water.  I know that my clothing will be sopping wet and I will carry so much water along on this ride that a few more pounds will be meaningless. Experience has taught me that chemical warmers are pretty well useless in wet weather.  (Later, during the ride, I wonder if they would work if enclosed in plastic sandwich bags after being opened, but I will have to leave that experiment for another day.) During the ride I do learn that the Bar Mitts keep my hands from being markedly uncomfortable. In fact, my hands barely chill at all.

When I arrive at the start, the rain has not yet started. This is always a good thing for while I have often done it,  it is much harder to begin a ride in the rain than to continue to ride when you are caught in the rain.  21 people are signed up to ride, but only 13 are at the start.  Jacqueline Campbell tells me right from the start that she and her tandem partner are only riding part of the route in preparation for the Ohio 300.  Of these 13 starters, only 8 will finish. The rest DNF. The temperature was around 50 when I left home, but it is a tad colder in Shelbyville and it is predicted to drop throughout the day and end in the thirties.  Rain chances are 90 per cent.  Still, it is warmer and less windy than I expected it to be at this point.  I  take my blessings where I find them:  each mile ridden in comfort today is one less ridden in discomfort.

I have decided to wear a wool base layer, a wool long sleeved jersey, and my Showers Pass jacket.  I have placed extra gloves, a winter hat, and an extra light base layer in plastic bags and stuck them in jacket pockets. I am sure I quite look like a chip monk, a fat chip monk at that,  with all my pockets bulging, but this type of riding is not about fashion, at least for me. I am slightly overdressed, but I do not want to  have to add a carradice to carry additional clothing.  While I am making final decisions, I chat a bit with Tim Argo, an Ohio randonneur who  just seems to be quite a nice man and climbs like an angel, and I find he too has decided it is best to start the ride slightly overdressed. I respect his words and use them to validate my own thoughts.  If given a choice between being a bit overdressed and being cold, at least for a distance ride, I will take overdressed every time. 

We roll out and the lead group speeds off into the night.  For awhile I see their tail lights, like beacons in front of me, tempting me to ride out too quickly; but they soon fade to nothingness and it is just me, the dark, and a long road that needs to be traveled.  I don't note who or how many are in the lead group today, I only know that they are not riding my pace. When you are riding 192 miles,  you have plenty of time to pick up the pace down the road if you decide you have it in you.  And the wind is going to be our enemy on the way back today, not the way out. It is much harder to find more energy for that battle when you have  headed out too quickly.  Not that I was ever much of a marathoner, but the few I did run I always was the last to cross the start line as it was much more fun and satisfying to pass people than for everyone to pass you.   I am not sure who, if anyone, is behind me.  I will either find a companion to ride with or I will ride the ride alone.  Most brevets are normally a combination of the two. The return journey will be much more difficult if I have no help with the wind, but I have faced it before and can do so again if necessary.

I am not sure how I will feel today as I have not slept well for two days.  Lizzie, one of my cats, has been pretty ill.  Luckily, it turned out to be a virus of some type rather than an ingested object that caused an obstruction.  Unfortunately, Lucy, already immune impaired from kitten hood, picks it up as well though not as seriously.  But I find I am feeling fine, not particularly strong but not weak either. Compared to the 200K, I feel remarkably well.

Before Southville, I almost have a collision with a young possum.  He crosses the road in front of me, a silvery streak, sees me, and darts back in front of my wheel.  My front wheel is close enough for him to kiss it as we dance, both trying to avoid the other, and I hope he will not bite me as I pass or cross between my front and rear wheels.  I think for awhile about my cataract diagnosis and wonder how much it will affect my night riding.  So far, I can't tell much of a difference, but I know that will change as my world continues to dim little by little.  If I had seen the possum even a few seconds later, I fear I would have been on the ground.

Around me I hear the frogs awakening, celebrating the long awaited birth of spring, and I realize how much I have missed that sound during winters stark, dreary stillness.  Birds begin to stir.  And always singing harmony in the background is the sound of my wheels and pedals.  Despite still having only my headlight to guide me because there are no street lights here, I see worms on the road, and I am happy to see them although they will make cleaning a dirty bike afterward an even more onerous  task. I hear rustling noises from alongside the road, just out of my range of vision,  and my imagination takes hold conjuring a stalking dog, a wolf, a raccoon.  My headlight illuminates only the road, not what is happening beside me.  Deer bound across the road in places, white tails bobbing, startled by my unexpected passing,  melting into the darkness like ghosts.

Rain begins to mist as dawn sleepily opens her eyes, gently echoing off my helmet in a crazy rhythm, and I find I am quite enjoying myself, the blanketing darkness, and my solitude.  And for at least this part of the ride, I am glad I came. While I like riding in the dark at any time, riding in the dark before dawn is somehow different than riding in the stale dark after light has laid itself down to rest in the evening.  Perhaps because there is less traffic, as if the whole world of people is sleeping and thus the world belongs just to me and I can form it to my liking.  I think of words by Oscar Wilde, "Veil after veil of thin, dusky gauze is lifted, and by degrees the forms and the colors are restored to them."   And I eventually do note that the scenery is unsettled: in some places it is the gray and brown and neutral tones of winter, but in others it is changing.  It is not yet the rich, fecund,vivid green of a Kentucky spring, but a green haze is starting to creep across the fields, promising and hinting of the glory that is yet to come.  In spots there are patches of the wild daffodils that my mother-in-law called Easter flowers, their bright yellow also an affirmation that there will be color in the world yet again. I glory at the thought of warmth and color returning to the earth, at the thought of short sleeved jerseys and shorts and actually being thirsty on a ride.

The branches of the trees are no longer so sharp and well defined, but blurred with the promise of leaves. Cows and newly born calves are enclosed in fences along the route, and shaggy horses and ponies eager to throw off their shaggy winter coats and dapple out in the strong, summer sun snort wearily as I pass.  Dogs chase. Everyone and everything seems to have tired of winter and to be ready to move on.

Turning a corner, I come across Tim Argo fixing a flat.  I pause momentarily to ensure he has everything he needs and then move on.  It seems I could not have helped anyway as I ride a different tire size than he.  Dustin, a very speedy young man, passes me, and I wonder where he has come from because I thought he was in front.  I asked if he had gone off course, thinking how terrible it would be to have to do those extra miles.  He tells me no, he stopped to buy gloves at a store.  Always the mother at heart, I worry momentarily if he is already having problems this early in the ride, then assure myself it is not my concern and there is nothing I can do about it.  Young or not, he is a grown man.

Controls pass, and as I near the turn around, I think how glad I will be to turn on my "return to start" control on my Garmin.  I downloaded the course, but unfortunately it is not showing on my Garmin.  As always, I am sure I did something wrong, for I long ago accepted that I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Thankfully, the Kentucky course is always marked.  (Thank you this year to Mark, Steve, Steve, and Dave).  I pass a store that reminds of another nasty brevet in the rain where Chris Quirey jokingly told me that the rain would stop in 4 minutes and 38 seconds or some other such nonsense.  And while I knew it was nonsense, there was a part of me that wanted to believe.  And I realize that I would like to believe that when I turn around the wind will have stopped and will not slow and chill me. I think that these are the rides that I remember best, those rides that presented a challenge or a complication or where something special happened, and I think of the bonds I have from these occasions even with people I rarely or no longer see.

When I reach the store, I am surprised to find Steve Rice and Ken Lanteigne still there.  Both of them are shivering, not the tiny little shivers you have when you first begin to chill, but the  racking, body shaking quivers that signal a deep coldness that could be dangerous if they continue and can drain all your energy right out of you leaving you spent. They serve as a reminder that I must not pause long or I also will chill no matter how carefully I have dressed today.  The rain has started to come down harder, and the temperature has definitely dropped. A man outside the store jokingly asks how much I will pay him to go get his truck and take me back to Shelbyville.  No sir, not after having come this far.  I almost cry as I head back out and found that not only can I not use the "back to start" feature on my Garmin, it has broken.  Yet again I give thanks that the course is marked.  I later find that Ken's odometer also stopped and Steve's Garmin stopped working.

Ken takes off into the rain and wind alone but Steve waits for me, and I am grateful thinking that we might each occasionally take the burden of the wind from the other, but it was not to be.  The cold rain continues until the very last little bit of the ride, and neither of us have fenders on our bicycles which means that drafting also means eating road water thrown up from the leaders tire.  Still, it is nice to have company in what is no longer an enjoyable ride but a misery.  Even though we talk little, we have ridden together enough to be suitable companions for such a journey, and I consider Steve to be one of my best and most reliable friends. I often wonder why we are friends as he is much smarter and moves in a much different socio-economic circle, but we are and I think once again about how equalizing bicycles are  bringing people together as friends who otherwise would have died not knowing the other existed. As we pass those who have not yet made the turn around, the looks on their faces match how I imagine my own: pale and stoically determined with no trace of humor or a smile.  And I worry about them and about myself.

The wind becomes even more wicked as I ride, slapping my face, ired at my presumptiousness, frustrated at attempts to chill me.  Her icy tendrils wrap around me seeking openings in my armor and the rain begins to sting as it falls.  Much earlier I took off my riding glasses so I try to shield my eyes by squinting and keeping my eyelashes partially over them to protect them.  Then I have to laugh to myself when I see tiny white balls of hail begin to bounce off of Steve.  Luckily, they never grew in diameter and were of short duration.

 Kenis waiting for us at the control right before the finish, and I am glad he decides to ride with us.  It is cold and rainy and it is getting dark and this short stretch of road is very busy right outside of the control.  I will feel safer with three of us.  Again I think how weird it is that I feel less safe in the evening dark than in the early morning darkness. I wonder what cars think when they first spot this weird conglomeration of lights.

At some point, my thighs begin to cramp and my right knee begins to ache and I begin to despair of ever finishing. I suspect the cold is part of the problem with my knee as well as muscle demands and salt needs, but that is pure conjecture and there is nothing I can do about it.  I am wet, the rain has not stopped, and it is cold. And it is not just me that is suffering. Steve is asking me to get him an energy gel because his hands are too cold to function properly.  I try not to think of what will happen if one of us has a mechanical issue or a flat tire.

This is where the mind games truly begin, and those who ride brevets know that much of it is about mind games.  God and I have a standing joke with each other where I tell him that if he just allows me to safely get to the finish with no flats and without being run over or dying, I will be good and never consider doing another brevet or even riding a bicycle.  Being omnipotent, of course, he knows I am lying, but thus far he always gets me to the end safely. And being omnipotent, he knows that I know that he knows I am lying and that it has become our personal joke.  I briefly smile thinking how I have had some of my best conversations with God during my rides.

Ken jokes and says his wife knits and maybe that could be his new sport.  And if you ask me if I will ride the 400 and 600 and the Maryland 1000, I will tell you no, that it is time to leave brevets to the young folks.  I am not having fun.  This is hard and it hurts. I briefly wonder what there is about distance riding that draws me back, what mental deficiency or psychological  need spurs me onward when I could be safe at home with a good book, a cat, and a cup of coffee listening to the rain and the wind instead of battling with it.  Instead of spending my money this way, I could be spending it to walk on a white, sandy beach somewhere and be serenaded by sea gulls and waves.  Or I could spend it traveling and seeing great museums and all the things I have never had the good fortune to experience. I begin to dream of being warm, of bathing, of soft beds, and of sleep.

As we near the last final stretch after turning off Zaring Mill, Steve asks if I would take a ride if Dave showed up right there and I tell him no, of course not.  But if it had happened at the last control, who knows.  Because like all humans, I am unpredictable.  And at the end Dave is waiting with hot chocolate and a smile and it is over.  And I am no longer afraid.