Posts Tagged ‘biking friends’
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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Relentless Miles
During our return ride back to Hill City, we climbed for about 2 hours, mile after mile without any coasting. That means pushing pedals the whole time to in order to make progress.
Upon reaching the high point, the well-tended trail slants down and our bikes started rolling along without any help from us.
That seems like a chance to rest, but it’s not. In no time, we are flying along at 23 mph and hanging on tight to keep the bike on the trail and our bodies on the bikes.
Even though it only takes a fraction of the time, the fact that you are flexed in mostly one position throughout makes it feel almost as relentless as the climb did.
Somewhere at the bottom of one of those downslopes, we finally had our first close encounter with cows on the trail.
I received quite an education about the difference between cow and horse manure during this adventure.
I’m biased, but I definitely prefer what horses produce.
Today, Gary and I face relentless miles in the car as we cross most of South Dakota to get back to our homes.
That’s a small price to pay for the blast of a time we had. It was an absolutely fabulous adventure.
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Giggle Inducing
Several times during yesterday’s ride to Deadwood from Hill City on the Mickelson Trail, Rich and I found ourselves giggling over how much beautiful fun we were having.
Gary decided to take an extra day off to regain full strength, and drove his car to meet us in Deadwood.
We are impressed with the quality of this trail and the attention to detail in their trail stops. They are nicely spread out and offer shelter, seating, hand-pumped well water, bike tools stations, and pretty respectable toilet facilities.
There is a lot of historical information provided on signage at each stop, as well as along pertinent locations along the entire 109 miles of the trail.
The leg we rode yesterday has four tunnels that added nicely to our adventures.
The Mickelson Trail won’t meet every cyclist’s standards for level of challenge, but I found it to be an ideal combination of gorgeous different landscapes with respectable mile options that are being well maintained.
The cost of the trail pass is easily worth the giggle-worthy adventures available to a wide range of people with bicycle skills.
I’m excited to be able to ride back to Hill City on this same route today.
Even though we’re still not counting, the distance of this leg is 51 miles.
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Doing Little
My motivation for being productive in any physical way was seriously lacking yesterday. I suppose I drained most of my mojo on Saturday, accomplishing so many valuable spring cleaning steps that my body chose to take Sunday off. Actually, it would be inaccurate to say it was mainly physical because my mind was functioning at a fraction of its usual clarity and inspiration, as well.
I didn’t want to get out of bed at a respectable hour and failed to conjure up any useful agenda for the day beyond responding to whatever query came my way. The air quality was dodgy, and that contributed to a certain absence of motivation toward doing most outdoor activities.
I managed to perk up enough to join Cyndie and her mom on a walk down to look at the lodge that is well on its way to being prepared for a pending demolition of everything except the oldest octagon-shaped log portion with the stone fireplace. I took a brief swing on the swingset that won’t be preserved.
There shouldn’t be anything wrong with laying low for a day, but I feel the stagnation of my momentum becomes a hard thing to interrupt. My body at rest truly wants to remain at rest.
Now it’s Monday and the start of a new week. We are expecting delivery of a new oven this morning and hope to be departing for home shortly after it is successfully installed. Between today and Saturday, I will be counting down to my departure for the week of biking and camping on the Tour of Minnesota ride.
Since I just did a mini-version of three nights camping over four days in which be biked on three of them, I feel more prepared than usual. However, that also has me feeling at risk of being underprepared due to my perception that I should be mostly ready. There is a nagging feeling that I’m going to forget something I will regret.
Curiously complicating things is the fact that the ride has changed format this year, and bikers will need to drive their vehicles to the next campground every other day. On the surface, it would seem to simplify some concerns because we can bring along whatever we think we might want through the week that we can fit in our cars. However, I will be ride-sharing with Gary Larson, so I’d like to avoid bringing more than I will need so we can fit the gear of two people into his car.
It would mean a lot to me to accomplish a healthy minimization of the things I bring. It would simplify my experience and free up my energy to focus on the best part of the annual adventure: the people who choose to show up for a week of community camping and bike riding, endless silliness, and social banter.
Enduring friendships are a common result.
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Much Fun
The mental energy I allocate to the annual Tour of Minnesota biking and camping adventure takes up a lot more time than just the actual week of riding. I tend to have the topic of navigating trip details turning up in my nighttime dreams year-round. Physical conditioning before the start in June has me thinking about the event during April and May. For weeks after I get home, the energy and emotions of the fun times stay in my head well after real-life distractions have returned in full.
I don’t have any pictures from the great escape I participated in with seven others while in Alexandria. We solved the puzzles to open the locked door with twelve seconds to spare, freeing ourselves from becoming the next test subjects of the sinister Mr. Hyde. Luckily, the guide paused our clock when she had to enter the room to open a lock that wasn’t responding to our correct combination of numbers. Such excitement.
Obviously, the weather toyed with us a bit, getting the roads and trails just wet enough on the first day to cause a soaking spray off our tires even after the precipitation had ended. Later, the storms just happened to magically form directly overhead and linger at length without moving. Maybe we should auction our services to other area farmers who need rain.
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First, it happened in Sauk Centre and then the next day in Little Falls. If you can find the little blue dot pin in the images above, that shows our location each time. At least we were done riding by the time those downpours occurred.
Other random silliness:
Steve posing for me on the enticing relic of a bicycle-powered reel lawn mower. He’s gonna need to move the seat up on that one before using it.
At first, I had no plan of posing as a Viking warrior in Starbuck. Next thing I know, I’m right in the middle of the action between Joseph and Scott. My attempt at a grimace looks suspiciously similar to my usual smile. Also, my version of a Viking verbalization sounded more like a pirate than anything else. I assume there were some pirate Vikings so I was just reflecting that.
After someone gave Jennifer an ice cream sandwich while she was eating lunch, she began eating both at the same time. It was hot. The ice cream was melting. Problem solved.
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In trying to split the difference between authorized tenting location and shade from the sun, a bunch of us put our tents near the school in Alexandria. Lights from both inside and outside the school stayed on all night long. The picture above on the right was taken at 10 p.m. It was still that bright when I checked five hours later after my full bladder woke me. Luckily, bright light doesn’t stop me from falling asleep.
While on a pause from pedaling at a park in Glenwood, I noticed Tom, Rick, and Rod were all leaning back on their arms like I was. We were all mirroring each other. I handed my phone to Rich Gordon and asked him to take a picture. At the same time, Rick moved out of position to take a phone call. Close enough for me.
You can be assured, the week was fun, fun, fun.
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Relative Something 