Posts Tagged ‘bike trip’
Spectacular Solution
The Sunday of our ride falls on “Father’s Day.” After breakfast this day, we received a special treat: the daughter of our baggage handler and her friend sang a song they composed for the occasion. It brought tears to the eyes and received an immediate and emphatic standing ovation.
It wasn’t raining when we started out, but it was soaking wet from non-stop overnight thunderstorms. We were provided a police escort out of Worthington which moved so fast ahead of us that we could hardly keep up. Out on the open road, we eventually ride into heavy rain again.
Our lunch destination was far enough away that two rest stops were established ahead of it. The 20-plus miles to the first stop seemed long. The 20-some miles from there to lunch felt even longer. I think it was the wind. Rumors could be heard that flooding was causing road closures
Despite the hardships, I had several opportunities to visit with other riders, which is one of the most precious aspects of this ride, and helps toward achieving miles unnoticed. By the time we arrived at our lunch stop, the sky cleared and we were able to enjoy warm sunshine. It felt disorienting, because all around us there seemed to be standing water, and rumor had turned to fact, as news of a dam breaking on the Rock River was confirmed as the cause of roads being closed.
Under the beautiful blue sky, our freshman leader was forced to ad-lib a solution to a very fluid problem. Roads that might be open one minute, could close in an instant. He plotted solutions with 4 different agencies simultaneously, sometimes receiving conflicting reports from each. For a while, even the interstate highway was shut down.
In the middle of that drama, an isolated squall passed by, making sure we stayed aware of the fact we remained at the mercy of momma nature. Then a most spectacular solution unfolded before our eyes. One of the local support people called in a favor and rousted a brother with an 18-wheel tractor/trailer rig. They would put our bikes in the truck, and the riders in buses and cars, to shuttle us around the flooding in order to get us where we needed to be.
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I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been standing right there. The truck arrives and the trailer has “Cycle Country” painted across the side. The driver didn’t seem to notice, reporting that he bought the used trailer simply to haul junk and scrap that he rips out of demolition jobs. A random few of us hop up to catch bikes being lifted up, handing them forward to others who took initiative to delicately position the precious cargo for best protection and fit. A hundred-some bikes, tangled together so there was nowhere for them to fall, filled the trailer right to the end.
The truck pulled away to a smattering of jokes about the probability of the cargo being sold off to the highest bidder in some other town down the road. 
Someone showed up with beer to add to the festive feeling of the unfolding events, and we awaited the arrival of shuttles.
Even before it had completely played out, this day was becoming legend. No matter what else happened to us during the rest of this ride, we already had one very unforgettable event that would join famous stories from the prior 39-years of this biking/camping group.
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Riding Wet
Last week I posted little snippets that describe some aspects of my annual June bike/camping trip. Much about it is the same every year, in a general sense, but each trip has its special moments that go down as memories that stand apart. I will attempt to describe my adventures of this year’s Tour of Minnesota, looking back at it from the comfort of now being warm and dry.
It was a wet year. Here are some headlines for the week from my favorite weather blog, Updraft: “Warm front sets the stage for stormy period,” “Flooding rains drench parts of Minn.; more on the way,” “Severe threat unfolding tonight; tornado watch west,” “Epic flood threat and severe risk continue,” “Uncle! 2014 is wettest year on record so far.”
I have done this ride when there was no rain for the entire week. Other years we have been able to ride dry every day, and rain fell only at night. Often, there will be one or two days when we must endure the inevitably wet day. It was overcast on the Saturday that we started our ride from Jackson, MN, heading for Worthington. I didn’t put on a jacket because I tend to overheat when covered up. It didn’t exactly rain on that first leg, but you could feel a sprinkle of wind-blown wetness that was falling. The sky ahead conveyed the obviousness of the source.
I was thoroughly enjoying chatting with another rider about my new adventure with horses, as the wetness increased and our first rest stop loomed an unknown distance away. She stopped to put on rain gear, but I elected to push on. Real rain was just beginning to fall as I navigated my way beneath the pavilion. Everyone after me was riding in a soaking rain.
During our rest stop, the thunderstorm rolled over us in full force, unleashing a bolt of lightning and crash of thunder that elicited shrieks. We extended our stay under the roof at this rest stop for a bit longer. Ride leader, Bob Lincoln, was monitoring radar and knew there would be no ‘backside’ of this system. He held us in place until the first hint of a reduction in intensity, and then sent us toward our lunch stop.
There are portions of this year’s ride of which I will have no photos to offer. For much of the trip, my camera was bagged and buried in my trunk to keep it dry. We rode through a blustery downpour that continued to be peppered with startling bolts of lightning and cracks of thunder. At this point of soaking wet riding, you suck it up and just accept it. Once you get wet, you don’t need to worry about getting any wetter. You hope to get it over with, paying these dues in search of drier days ahead. Little did we know at the time…
Lunch was under another pavilion, but sitting in the breeze, soaking wet, people were getting chilled. They opened a school for us. There wasn’t as much lightning, but the ride from lunch to Worthington was still pretty wet. The wild weather had forced a change in venue from camping in the park to getting refuge in their school. As I led a small group in search of the new destination, we came upon the National Championship Windsurfing regatta and witnessed all the vendors that had been forced to close down their booths.
Following directions from locals, we pedaled into neighborhood roads that were flooded, forcing us to ad-lib alternate routes. It was only our first day, but by the time I settled into my sleeping bag, perched on the landing of a stairway in a dark hallway in the school, I felt like we had been battling for several.
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Headed Home
As the route for this year’s bike trip came together, the last leg ended up being the shortest of all, at roughly 22 miles, to get us from Windom back to Jackson where our cars are parked. That’s okay with me. By Friday, my mind is on getting home to my own bathroom and a real bed again. One of the hardest parts of the transition from this vacation back to a normal routine is ratcheting back my diet to a normal calorie intake.
When your vacation involves riding a bicycle all day long, every day, you can pretty much eat whatever you want and justify it as fuel for the next effort ahead of you. My past experience tells me that I won’t be riding much bike when I get home from this trip, so it behooves me to cut back on the daily ice cream treats and what seems like a week of non-stop eating.
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It’s People
From Slayton to Windom, MN today. The Thursday of our annual ride has a special energy to it. It is the second to last day and the bonds that develop through the week are strong. We’ve shared the accomplishment of riding through good weather and bad, living in close quarters and enjoying relaxed time together in vacation mode.
At this point, we can feel the end is near, and it induces a sense of urgency. I want to absorb as much of the energy of communing with these fine people as possible. You wish you could bring them all home in a pocket and include them in the rest of your life, showing them off to friends and family at home.
It is not possible, except in small fractions, and I have successfully done so with a precious few. Gary Larson and I have traveled to Nepal together to trek in the Himalayan mountains. A dozen others have become year-round pals who gather for a variety of other events, not necessarily bike-related.
The biking is nice, but the reason I come back to this trip every June is the people who I have come to know, some by first name only. I see them once a year for a week, and I still regard them as some of my favorite friends.
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Middle June
Today is actually the first day of riding for the Tour of Minnesota bike trip I am on. After camping in Jackson, MN last night, we will be riding to Worthington where our visit coincides with the 2014 U.S. Windsurfing National Championships.
To give you a taste of what this ride is like, I am going to re-post a video slide show I created to a song that I wrote about the annual week of bike touring and camping we have been doing for decades. It’s a bit long, but if you don’t have time now, it will still be here when you check back with time to spare.
I figure I should update the lyrics this year to reflect the change in leadership. It is no longer “jaunting with Jim,” but it could easily be sung as “biking with Bob.”
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Double Whammy
Wow, am I ever aware of a wave of melancholy that is washing over me presently. Today is the day when the annual bike and camping trip begins, and I ended up needing to withdraw at the last minute. I say it is okay, but my heart is letting me know that “okay” glosses over some deeper feelings that don’t quite jibe with that description.
A horse would let me know that I am not displaying congruence.
I would like to have a tantrum like a two-year-old, but I’m pretty sure that I have developed more constructive ways to respond. I just need to muster the energy to enact that more constructive response. Unfortunately, I am exhausted. I think this role of responsibility, filling in for the owner of the company where I work, is taxing even when things appear to be going smoothly. I haven’t really done anything, but I am feeling more drained every day.
That week with friends, cycling, camping, laughing, and being on vacation outdoors for a week was going to be my shot of healthy energy. Not only have I lost that opportunity, I have stepped into a role that increases my need for what that would have given me. It’s a double whammy, thank you very much.
No wonder I want to stomp and cry and flail about.
I will rally my energies, and choose to find the as-of-yet-unseen surprisingly valuable lesson/growth opportunity/reward that awaits on the other side of this experience. I don’t mean to be a doubter, but I find it difficult to imagine anything that could be better than being with the precious friends who show up at this bike trip every year. I will miss them immensely.
I already do.
Relative Something 