Archive for the ‘bicycling’ Category
Flash Flooded
Wednesday, we reached Marthasville, MO, where we had reservations to tent in their ballpark after a 55-mile pedal on our fourth day of extreme heat and humidity. Their tractor for grooming the infield had me missing home a little bit.
Before we retired to our tents for the night, we were aware of an approaching thunderstorm. Having tented through many storms, we weren’t overly concerned. We had been told we could set up our tents anywhere except within the field, so we opted for just outside the fence. I was looking forward to some moisture to settle the dust and maybe calm the triple-digit heat indexes.
Despite my overly full stomach from too much pizza for dinner and the sauna-like conditions keeping me sweating in my tent, I was able to doze into a short slumber before the storm fireworks started. It was a doozy. The frenetic flashes of lightning and heavy booms of thunder were the side dishes to the main course of incredibly heavy rain.
Bob was the first one to bail out of his leaking tent to stand under the solid roof of the pavilion, followed soon after by Rich and Steve as they became aware of the rising floodwaters. I could hear some commotion of their rearranging of picnic tables and noticed their lights occasionally hitting my tent, but I didn’t notice any drips and was dry on my sleeping pad, so I planned to fall back to sleep and ride out the storm.
When I saw my phone light up with a text from Bob asking if I was dry, I reached out to feel the floor before replying. The floor of my tent felt like a waterbed. With barely contained panic, I grabbed my sleeping pad and neck pillow and wrestled my way out of the two zippers of the tent door and the rainfly to join the others under the pavilion roof.
They kindly offered to join me in the few steps to the tent during the downpour to collect the rest of my belongings. Moments later, the experience was repeated for Curt. Our tents were sitting in about 6 inches of water in a new lake that covered much of the outfield.
The rest of the night was spent trying to get a modicum of sleep on top of picnic benches. We were all a good measure short of a proper night’s slumber. Morning allowed us to get a better view of the previous night’s drama. Although the water had receded significantly, the lake on our tent side of the outfield fence hadn’t completely disappeared.
With more heavy rain on the way and the likelihood of the Katy Trail being littered with branches and washouts, we opted to pack up our wet gear and end our trip a day early.
After a long shower last night, I slept in my own bed again and thoroughly enjoyed being cool and dry all night long.
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Not Sticks
I was warned long ago that snakes are frequently reported on the Katy Trail. Not being a fan of snakes, it wasn’t the best message I’ve ever received, but figured the talk might be exaggerated a bit.
Riding in a group, the common practice is to point out hazards in the road/trail to alert riders behind you.
There were a lot of sticks littering the trail all week, but the only snake we had come upon was a dead one …until yesterday.
I was on the left side, just ahead of Curt, rolling along at 14 miles per hour. At that speed, there’s really only a fraction of a second to make decisions when something suddenly comes into view.
The stick was about 5 feet long and lying perfectly across the trail. By the time I sensed it might not be a stick, there was no choice but to hold my line and try to avoid panicking.
As my wheel met little resistance, I screeched “SNAKE!”
Curt announced that it was alive because it instantly picked up its head and turned toward me. Luckily, I was moving fast enough to be already gone. My adrenaline boosted the bike speed to escape velocity.
Follow-up research points to it being a black rat snake.
A short time later, another snake was more to one side and I had changed my thinking to see any stick as a threat. I dodged it with a quick zig-zag maneuver.
Why did I have to be the one to have the closest encounter? The Universe is keeping me on my toes, I guess.
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Making Connections
On an adventure like the one we are on, it is not uncommon to find kindred spirits out enjoying all that comes with days-long bicycling trips.
I volunteered to be the sag driver yesterday, which gave me plenty of spare time to fill.
That gave me extra minutes to visit with a couple of bikers that tented near us at the Katy Roadhouse campground in New Franklin.
Both are on their first long distance bike trip and riding together for only a portion of their cross-country journeys after meeting by happenstance a few weeks ago.
Sharing stories with Gabriel Atkins quickly revealed a kinship for wanting to help others find ways to improve their mental health.
Gabe started his ride as a way to bring attention to the plight of veterans after the separation from military service.
The average of 22 veterans a day lost to suicide is 22 too many.
Gabe is riding to keep this tragic statistic known among all the many distractions that clutter our attention on a daily basis.
I hope you will consider supporting his effort.
My day started like the images above and then switched to looking more like this:
Driving sag isn’t a bad gig. The truck has great air conditioning.
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Cicada Cacophony
Between the leaves being crushed by our tires, and the racket made by throngs of cicadas, there is a lot of noise on this ride.
My phone started slipping from my hand for this video but I caught it just in time to include Bob coming past me on the left.
To Sedalia
Yes, it was hot. We reached Sedalia before noon, as planned, despite a brief delay to deal with a puncture in my tubeless rear tire. The sealant prevented disaster and got me to our finish, but we put in a plug and added sealant for added protection after we were done riding for the day.
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Directionally Challenged
For all of the effort I have put into striving for optimal health, mind-body-spirit, there remains one frailty that I have yet to address. I am prone to getting turned around so that I don’t know which way to go when faced with a decision about direction. This was demonstrated anew yesterday while out on a bike ride that I intended to be a simple loop.
I started at the red dot in the image above and rode with the wind due east on Twin Lake Road. That took me to County Road A, where I turned right and rode south to Chief River Road. After a right turn there, I pedaled west until I reached Tiger Cat Road. Another right turn there and I looped around to McClaine Road. That should have led to a right turn again to bring me back to Twin Lake Road, but I confidently made a left turn and rode south in the opposite direction from what I thought I was doing.
A couple of things clued me in to the situation playing out. It was taking longer than I thought it should to get back to Twin Lake Rd, and then the road made those two right-angle turns that I thought were wrong. When I came to the intersection with the south end of Tiger Cat Road, I knew I’d made a mistake, but I still couldn’t shake the perception that I was looking north.
I tried using my shadow to clarify, but the sun was too high, and the shadow was not helping to confirm my suspicion. I pulled out my phone to look at the map to reorient my brain. From the spot where I had stopped, I could have continued south to County Road B, but I really didn’t want to ride that more heavily trafficked road. Instead, I turned around and backtracked to get back to where I intended to be and then finished my ride, thoroughly resigned to having freshly confirmed my tendency for my sense of direction getting flipped.
It bothers me that I didn’t hesitate for a second when I made that wrong turn to the south. It felt completely correct to me.
Right up until it didn’t.
A guy could get a reputation for repeatedly doing things like that, and deservedly so.
The moral of this story? If you are ever on a bike ride with me (or a car trip, or walking indoors somewhere and coming back out again), don’t let me lead unless you enjoy putting on extra miles.
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Eating Well
Our last day of riding on Sunday involved one primary goal beyond the joy of riding: breakfast at Greenwood’s Cafe in Reedsburg. It’s not very difficult to imagine you’ve stepped into the world of The Andy Griffith Show when greeted by the small town diner atmosphere, friendly service, and delicious food.
We jumped on the 400 State Trail near the north end of Wonewoc and rode about 15 miles to where the trail ends in Reedsburg. That stretch of trail is pretty flat. All of the trail riding we did over the last four days was railroad grade, so I didn’t even bother adding the weight of the motor and battery pack on my bike. I have a cover that fits over that space on the downtube.
It would have been blissful except for the click that developed somewhere in the vicinity of the bottom bracket as I pedaled, similar to the problem I encountered last year while riding in the Tour of Minnesota. I ended up having the bike shop deal with the situation last year. This time, I’m hoping to see if I can figure out the source myself and solve it by tightening any screws that may be vibrating loose.
At least we didn’t need to stop and remove downed trees from the trail on the last day of our adventure. However, the easy riding we did –the wind was at our back on the return leg to our cars– failed to balance the breakfast calories consumed. Well, and all of the other excellent restaurant meals we enjoyed and augmented with a bounty of snacks and treats we munched on back at our campsite each day. (Cyndie sent along some of her caramel rolls and walnut chocolate chunk cookies with me.)
It was an absolute joy to share the adventure with some of my favorite people, but returning to a full night’s sleep in my own freshly made bed just might be an equal experience on the scale of joys.
Home, sweet home.
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Storm Debris
We made it into our tents just as the storm front arrived Friday night. It was noteworthy, but we’ve slept through worse. However, the area the trail crossed just to our southeast must have experienced much stronger winds.
We risked our wellbeing to move what we could, and crawled over and under anything too big to lift.
The thick fog from morning dissipated as soon as the sun appeared, but lingered near the cool openings of the tunnels.
A good time is being had by all.
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Tunnel Vision
We didn’t get rained on while riding, but the 3,810-foot tunnel out of Norwalk that was cut through Summit Ridge, and its natural spring that constantly drips and flows to this day, might as well have been a rain storm.
Relative Something 