Relative Something

I’m home! First things, first… Before I am able to compose some of the wild stories that played out over the previous week of this year’s “Jaunt with Jim” bicycle trip adventure, I will be saddled with chores of drying out and cleaning my tent and various other camping items, as well as trying to catch up with chores around the house. One thing that does happen without delay: I get to sleep in a bed again!

I will provide a sneak preview of bike trip images for you, in the mean time…

Bike camping on the campus of Winona State University

Rollin' down the road

By the last day, we are pretty prepared to finish. Many of our parting salutations begin at breakfast, on the chance our paths don’t cross again for the remainder of the day. There is a bittersweet feeling of the sorrow of parting and the interest in sleeping in a bed again and returning to all the comforts of home. There is a bit less meandering in our pedaling on Friday, as we have a strong pull in the form of a car waiting for us at the destination. The sooner we reach the car, the sooner we hit the road back home and the sooner we see our family again. I don’t know that I can convey how difficult it is to keep your eyes open during that car ride home. When you stop pedaling, sit in the soft seat of a car and just recline while listening to the drone of the engine lullaby your senses dull, the eyelids become too heavy to defy. As tired as I feel, I don’t dare give in and leave the driver, who is under similar pressure to stay alert, on his own to fend off the same pressure.

I dread the chore of putting up the tent at home to clean it out and sorting all my gear to put things away. I just want to collapse and enjoy living indoors again and having all my normal conveniences. The trickiest part is turning off the urge to continue to eat like we have been while riding all week. It has often been said of our group that we are an eating group with a biking disorder. It would be wonderful if I would be able to continue to burn as many calories a day as in the previous week, but it’s not going to happen. No more ice cream treats for a while, for me.

Thursday of the bike week seems to be the pinnacle of the whole adventure. The second to last day of riding, we are high on the rush of the friendships that have bonded over shared accomplishments as well as frivolous play and belly laughs we’ve enjoyed, yet as we are just a day away from the end, we know our moments together are numbered. We are scheduled to be riding mostly south from Winona to the last night of tenting in Rushford.

Thursday night often blossoms into a gala event with riders assembling a variety of silly things to wear or accumulated fake tattoos and then buying up whatever they can carry for appetizers and cocktails to celebrate together our accomplishments and good fortune of the adventures that Jim provides. One of the amazing things about this week is that there are very few decisions we need to make. It is all laid out for us to just enjoy doing. I like not needing to think about where to ride. The route is already determined. The food choices are made. The camping spots established. We just show up and ride. Jim does a lot of behind the scenes work to provide us with a fantastic adventure. That, combined with the friendships the experience give rise to, has everyone in a festive mood.

With just one day left to ride, a few in the group might just stay up a little later than normal. The rest of us hardly hear them and find sleep comes easy when you’ve spent days riding a bike.

We are back on our bikes again for a ride along the river to Winona and a stop at Winona State University. If it hasn’t been apparent, these posts chronicling the bike trip are all pre-written and programmed to automatically post each day. At the time of this writing, I have no idea whether we’ve been enjoying ourselves in sunshine and light winds or slugging along through gray and wet, or even lightning and thunder. It’s all part of the adventure. Something we will be able to talk about later, which I intend to do. Just like I did during the past trips, I intend to journal details as they happen using the archaic technology of pencil and diary. Upon my return, as time allows, I hope to be able to post actual details and support them with photos. That is, if my camera doesn’t get wet and stop functioning.

I wonder if we will be fed by the campus cafeteria while we are at Winona State?

If we have held true to the initial itinerary, last night we celebrated on the river with a pizza party on a boat cruise. I’m thinking the timing of this is good, because it is advertised as an all-you-want pizza party and it just so happens that today is an off day where we don’t have to pack up our tents and ride away. We can gorge ourselves and then sleep in this morning in vacation-worthy slothfulness. The rest day allows for time to do whatever suits our fancy. I like to stretch my legs with a lot of walking, but sometimes get talked into joining friends in a little bike exploration. Others look forward to the opportunity to shop. Jim often serves up options for a tour of local attractions. We have explored mines and paper mills, state parks, and dramatic geographic landmarks. Sometimes, we are in a community large enough to support a movie theater and plenty of us enjoy the chance to just sit for a couple of hours indoors and be entertained.

By this point in the week we find ourselves becoming picky about the options for public toilet facilities. As much fun as we are having, part of us begins to miss home.

It has only been one day off, but tonight, as we settle in our tents, it is a small mental hassle to get reorganized for the early morning, and the pack-up and move on it will bring. The mind is well into vacation mode.

By day 3, we begin to lose our sense of which day of the week it is. The start back in Chatfield on Saturday will feel like a week ago already. With luck, we will have discovered some sunshine by now. You will know if my wish comes true. The world around us is back into the work week and it truly feels like being on vacation to us. In the morning on this day, there is often a line waiting at the Penn Cycle support van, looking to top off the tire pressure and assure the least rolling resistance possible. I seem to recall this day often being one where I’m considering skipping breakfast because it feels like all I’ve done so far is eat! At first, there is concern about not having enough fuel to ride all day long, so we eat and eat. In addition to that, every time we stop for a break, Jim has arranged for a local service organization to raise some money by selling us snack treats, so we feel it an obligation to eat. Maybe I should consider riding harder to try and burn off the massive count of calories ingested.

Tonight’s destination is LaCrescent on the Mississippi River. Hopefully, Jim has devised a long roundabout route to get there, because it is just a stone’s throw away from our start. As the average age of participants continues to climb with each year we ride, shorter distance days are welcomed by those who find equal pleasure in the post-ride time each day to socialize. I wonder how many calories I can burn socializing?

Our plan is to ride south from Chatfield to Harmony, down close to the Iowa border. For the week prior to this trip, I had been watching the weather for these parts and all I ever seemed to see were large masses of rain on the radar. I wonder if we are getting a break. If you are reading this on the morning it is posted, you have the advantage of being able to check. Don’t bother. It will be beautiful and sunny for us all week, I’m sure.

Hopping onto the bike seat on day two is a bit of a test. Did I sit too much yesterday? Even if a tad uncomfortable, the body adjusts quickly and soon the rhythm of a long ride is established and we take in the scenery and enjoy the company of so many like-minded friends in the adventure for which we all signed on.

We are headed for Houston by the end of the day, just a short hop to the northeast.

This morning is the first day of this year’s bike trip, the 36th annual Jaunt With Jim –a product of Jim Kobuchar’s Adventures– and my 12th or 13th with the group. Even though the riding starts today, the overall adventure really starts the night before. On the afternoon of the Friday before each Jaunt, the participants begin to arrive in whatever small town Jim has selected, to camp together and park cars for the week. It is an interesting combination of excitement and anxiety that we experience, for a number of reasons. As folks begin arriving en masse, we discover each other again –for many, this is the only time we see each other all year– and learn who has come back and who won’t make it. Our numbers tend to approach 150 of late, a little under half as many as made it in the peak years, well over a decade ago. The energy builds as we reconnect and feed off each other’s excitement to be together in this shared adventure. At the same time, this is the point where we make final decisions about what we take with for the week and lock up the sanctuary of our cars to be left with only a tent for shelter for the next 7 days.

We’ll rise in the pre-dawn hours to pack our tents. Then determine what we will carry with us on the bike and what we stuff in the duffel to be shuttled by truck to the coming evening’s destination. Breakfast is served around 6 a.m. and then we receive advice on route details from the conductor himself. Rain or shine, it will be time to hop on the saddle and off we’ll ride into the first leg of whatever is awaiting to surprise us.

This year we will be in Chatfield to start, just south of Rochester in the southeast corner of Minnesota. The whole week is ahead of us. Excitement, and anxiety. Sounds like an adventure to me!

If ever weather, and its incongruity with what forecasters predicted, could impact a day, yesterday was a classic example. Our gang of cyclists were all prepared for a sunny day in the 80-85° F range, yet the day dawned with a hard-to-read white overcast. A glance at the satellite image had me thinking we were just on the edge of clearing and sunny blue skies would be appearing any moment.

Not long after we set off in the morning, the color of the sky began to take on a darker hue. It was hard to read, though. It didn’t appear defined enough to discern whether it was coming or going. We rode on. Then a few raindrops painted the pavement. It still wasn’t clear if we were going to dodge getting a soaking, or not. We were approaching a town near a logical time for a break and a glimpse of a flash in the sky affirmed our plan to head for cover.

We leaned our bikes on the side of a McDonald’s restaurant and stepped inside, just as the now inevitable deluge let loose. A lightning and thunder downpour became the center of attention for about an hour and a half of our biking adventure. Luckily, we had Sarah along who was a wonderful second, in terms of center of attention. We made good use of the shelter provided in the area of the McDonald’s play room.

Eventually, the rain moved on and we emerged from the shelter to resume our trek. We were entirely successful at avoiding riding in the rain, but we were at the mercy of riding in the wet that immediately follows a good downpour. The wet means more debris sticks to the tires which, in our case, led to 2 flats, surprisingly, to the same wheel of the same bike. Finally, the ultimate insult to having successfully dodged riding in the rain, the wetness of the road and the dirt and debris on the otherwise wonderful trail sprayed up, painting everything with grime.

Those relatively minor inconveniences were tempered by the eventual clearing blue sky, warm sunshine, the ease of rinsing legs, bikes, and trailer with a garden hose, followed by a fantastic homemade feast amid laughter and fellowship at the home of our lovely host, Laura. This cycle adventure goes down as another one to be measured as ‘priceless’ in our collection of many similar trips this group of amazing friends have enjoyed together.

No time to write, I gotta go bike! My friends are gathering for an extended jaunt and post-ride lunch today. Yahoo! I’ll take my camera.

Last night I finally got around to finishing the spring touch-ups on my bicycle, just in the nick of time. I had already given it an extreme cleaning, including scrubbing the drive train components to a brilliant shine. I don’t know why I bother. It doesn’t last very long. I also replaced both tubes and put on new tires.

So, last night I finally replaced the tape on my handle bars, snugged up the brakes a bit, and changed the cleats on my shoes instead of buying new pedals. I also adjusted the spring clip on my old pedals just a little tighter. A couple minor changes that I will interpret as feeling like having a whole new bike, …at a fraction of the cost.

Oh, and while I was at the bike shop, I picked up a new rain jacket, just to make sure it doesn’t rain, if you know what I mean.

Bring on the bikin’!