It's Getting Late (A Photo Journey)

So I went for a ride last weekend.  Not too unusual for me really.  This time though was a little different.  The weather is getting pretty cool and I left before the sun found it's way into the valleys so I bundled up a little.  Long, thermal riding pants and a couple extra layers of shirt under the windbreaker.  I wasn't really in a hurry so I figured I'd go uphill first to get above the low fog and warm up along the way.  I picked out a road I haven't been on in a while with about a 2 mile climb to reach the top.  The sunshine was waiting when I popped out from between the ridges and the cold misty stuff fell behind.

I remembered doing this same hill on my old Raleigh Record one day when it was about 90 degrees after I got home from work.  Why I took on a climb like that when I was already shot escapes me.  I think I stood up most of the way but never stopped until I made it.  Seems like it was a lot tougher going on the steel 10 speed but maybe it was only the heat.  Anyway, since I wasn't out to overachieve on this fall day, I dropped into creeper-low and just spun until the familiar right-hand curve announced that the climb was done.  The view was worth it.

I'm usually glad when I remember to stuff a camera in my bag on one of these little forays and this trip was no exception.  As they say, sometimes you can see forever if you just look.

My travels led over the next ridge line and after a screaming downhill that reminded me that the ambient temperature was still only in the 40's, I stopped to regain the feeling in my fingers at a small lake shore campground and recreation area known as Park Station.  It's a booming place in the summer with a man made beach, ball diamonds and all the other normal warm weather goodies but now, sneaking up on November, it was mostly deserted.  I like places like this when it's so still.  There's something about that quiet that's good for my soul...

I think this guy probably would understand...



As is the usual way with these things, after I left the lake, I just kept pointing the front wheel wherever the notion led me and changed my mind about a destination maybe ten times per minute until I finally ended up on another back road semi-headed toward home.  The sun was up high but still cool and teasing me to peel a layer or two but unzipping the windbreaker was enough to convince me otherwise.  I still had to climb back over a ridge line to get looped around so it was middle-ring and spin once again.  Going slower on a long, steady uphill and without the wind to drown out everything, I caught the sound of a big red-tail hollering at me from about a mile above and turkeys arguing with the crows two hedges away.  I knew who was doing laundry on a Sunday when I'd get a sniff of dryer sheets from houses I passed.  For some, it was trash or leaf burning day and then the smell of an angry skunk somewhere followed me for miles.  I wound up at a crossroads on top of a hill that I've only seen once in my travels.  You'd think I'd have seen them all a couple of times by now but...not quite yet.  The downhill sign is not kidding.

The layers were too much after the climb but I knew the descent would be cold again so I grabbed a Clif and a stretch before the drop back down to the valleys and home.  As I remembered, the drop off the hill was steep and twisty but I didn't know the local highway guys had sprinkled the corners with loose stone.  A couple of tense moments later, I made it down intact and headed out on the last leg for the Wayward Home.  I had to take one more look over my shoulder and catch one more shot.

I know the season is winding down and soon it'll be snow and salt again which takes the Trek off the road till spring but I'll take what I can and see what I can see while there's still a little sun.  I'm already wishing for May.

So What Else Is New? (Long Delay)

There really is a reason (or maybe a couple) why I've been going so long between posts these days.

Life around the NWH (New Wayward Home...for the uninitiated) is still and always an adventure.  Along about the end of August after a spring littered with tornadoes (in upstate NY for crying out loud), a sideswipe from a hurricane and an earthquake (again...all this in upstate NY?), I made the mistake of asking myself what could possibly be next.  Really?  Remind me never to ask that again.  I thought laughingly of maybe a volcano or perhaps a minor asteroid strike (since I had just watched a re-run of 'Armageddon' in the hotel) but what did I know?

The floods came shortly thereafter.  The slogging-wet remains of Tropical Storm Lee plodded up from the Gulf of Mexico, stalled over the northeast and just sat over our heads while all the water drained out of it.  It rained like the proverbial cow pissing on a flat rock for days.  We were already soaked from Hurricane Irene's near-miss so the inches-per-hour downpour from Lee was more than the ground could handle.  The rain fell straight down in sheets and curtains hour after hour until the little creek under my driveway was roaring like a monster.  I figured the OWH (Old Wayward Home) would have water in the basement before long and sure enough, our tenant called to say there was suddenly 6 inches and it was climbing fast.
Connor and I saddled up with boots and rain gear to start the pumps and hopefully get ahead of the rush.  I had two sumps running and figured we had it when the floor re-appeared about 3 hours later.  I was actually thinking about calling it a night when I noticed the slowly-but-steadily dropping water level very suddenly reversed itself and started back across the concrete and up the wall.  This is not good.
I called my sister and she brought over another big pump.  I even rigged the little one we use to get the water off the pool cover to do it's little bit to help.  The water continued to climb regardless of all efforts.  My Big Sis made it home but later said the road had disappeared on her way there under a black, fast-moving sheet studded with tree stumps and a possible cow or two.
In the meantime, the basement pool was now back to square one and still rising.  We had four pumps running and we were losing.  I killed the power to the water heater and furnace but could only watch as the pond got deeper and the rain came on like I've never seen.  My tenant and I tried digging diversion ditches to funnel the surface water away from the cellar steps but the rain was coming too fast and too heavy for it to make much difference.  In desperation, we decided to call the fire department for a pump-out but they too had surrendered for the night or at least until the deluge slowed down.  They had whole towns disappearing and my basement was the least of their worries.  The crews were exhausted and most roads impassable anyway so there was no hope of seeing them until daylight at the earliest.
I eventually tried to rig a swimming pool pump as a last resort but couldn't make it work and so finally, for the first time, I gave up.
I had the tenant keep an eye on the rising water and told him to call me when it got near the breaker panel, then headed for home to catch a nap.  An hour later, the power went off.

Without pumps running, the flood level came up fast so John waded through the thigh-deep water to reach the panel box and shut off everything before the inevitable wiring disaster when the box went under.  Luckily, the juice came back on before the breakers submerged so I stripped to skivvies and waded back in to turn the main on and get the pumps running.  Nothing like flipping a 200 amp breaker connected to pumps through a web of extension cords while standing in water up to my...well you get the picture.  My procreating days are long over but the idea of getting jazzed to death by that route was worse than the freezing-cold water.  Some things I'd just rather not think about.

Finally, dawn came and the rain subsided enough for the pumps to catch up.  The floor re-appeared but to stay ahead of the leaking foundation required two pumps all day long.  We took a drive around town and found we couldn't get very far because most of the roads were fast-running rivers and a sizable chunk of the valley was a lake.  In actuality, we got off easy.  It seemed like a crisis doing battle with our one little cellar but almost everything to the east of us was simply demolished.  Whole sections of towns along the rivers went under in a matter of hours.  When the crest came, it was the worst flooding in this area since 1972 and some said it was close to the 1936 monster that just about wiped out the whole region.  That makes two "Floods of the Century" in less than 5 years for us...I think that'll do for now.

The wreckage is slowly disappearing around the area and the mud-lines have finally washed off from halfway up the tree trunks but it'll still be months, if ever before anything resembling normal life comes back for those who really got hammered.  It was quite a fight at the OWH but I can't help but thank our lucky stars we got out as lightly as we did.

I'll never again ask..."What's next?"

The Rain

It's another dark and rainy day at the Wayward Home.  And I mean pouring-straight-down, all-day-soaker, enough-is-enough-already rainy.  It's the last gasp of tropical storm Lee blowing itself out and dumping half the Gulf of Mexico into my swimming pool.  There's flooding all over the area and travel is getting a bit tricky even for vehicles.  The first day of school in my district is closing early due to high water and closed roads.  There's no bicycle weather in sight.  It's a great day for ducks and bloggers.

Looking out the back door at my overflowing pool I've reached a conclusion.  Since I'm old and have certain prerogatives befitting a man of my advanced age, I've chosen to stay mostly dry, ignore my good intentions and decline the semi-planned, celebrate-my-birthday-late-Century bike ride that I had in the works for today.  As is common in my line of work, I missed the actual day of my birth and noted it's passing from the right-hand seat of a locomotive.  I did fully intend to make up for it by putting another hundred miles on the Trek as soon as I got home however.  Then along came the rain and washed the spider out...
I had it in my head this morning to go anyway despite the downpour but there's not much incentive to drown myself pedaling through a monsoon just to prove I can.  Younger hammerheads who haven't been beaten half to death riding a Harley in the rain are welcome to earn their stripes today but I think I'll take a pass.  There's dedicated and then there's lunacy.

And man is it raining hard.  This next catastrophe courtesy of the weather will undoubtedly lead to track closures due to washouts and downed trees for days if not weeks.  The lines have only been reopened for about a week now after Hurricane Irene took out sizable chunks of roadbed and dropped about a thousand trees across the ROW.  I guess I shouldn't have asked after the earthquake and hurricane what was next. 

It was pouring the whole way home on my last trip back from Harrisburg so the ground is already saturated and rain rates of inches-per-hour is certain to bring down the hillsides and take out the culverts yet again.  I hate working when this kind of crap is going on.

Long stretches of my route are 'dark territory' meaning trains run on paper 'Warrants' that grant authority to occupy the track instead of signals on the wayside.  The 'dark' part is means more than just that there's no signal lights along the way.  It also means there's no way the dispatcher or a train can tell anything about what's out there until somebody gets eyes on it and reports in.  This has led to some pretty awful events in the past and the potential is still there.  Moving water is a powerful thing and since most my run follows river grades for miles, I get a little bit uneasy when conditions get like they are today.  Mudslides studded with stumps and rocks are a real possibility and fallen trees are almost a certainty.  Darkness and fog only make it worse as you can't see far enough ahead to even slow down before you hit something large and leafy or drop into a hole full of fast-flowing water.

My first brush with a washout taught me quite a bit about what heavy rain can do.  A homeward trip in flash-flood weather brought us down to Restricted Speed along the river that the track parallelled.  Restricted Speed means that you have to run slow enough to be able to stop in half the distance you can clearly see.  When it's pitch dark and raining in sheets, that's not very far or very fast.  Good thing.

I tiptoed along for many miles until at one point something out in the headlights didn't quite seem right.  It almost looked like the track was moving.  Track is not normally supposed to move.  I stopped and the conductor and I walked ahead to take a peek at what I was pretty sure was an optical illusion brought on by staring intently into the dark too long.  Again, good thing.

What we found was water rushing down a steep bank like Niagara, then using the rails as a guide to change direction and shoot along about a hundred yards straight at us before diving under the ties and taking the roadbed with it.  While we stood there, the hole got visibly bigger and the washout moved appreciably closer to the front of the engine.  This is certainly not a good thing.

I happened to have two brand-spanking new Canadian National engines on the train that night and it was shaping up like they might find them and us in a Pennsylvania river along with half the cars by morning.  I was pretty sure the CN would be most unhappy if I destroyed a pair of engines that still smelled of fresh paint by sinking them in a flood.  A quick try on the radio found that the relay towers were down which left us unable to contact anyone with our predicament.  I started thinking about how much I hate swimming in cold water.

We were out of options so the conductor suited up and started hoofing it for the rear end of the train to protect road crossings behind us so hopefully, I could shove the thing back.  He didn't get far before he found more knee-deep, fast-moving water swirling toward the river blocking the way.  He resorted to hanging onto the cars and trying to work his way along without getting washed downstream.  It was slow going and we really didn't have all that much time.  I left the headlights on and watched the hole in front of me eat it's way under the rails, steadily getting larger and closer.  I could hear rocks rolling down the newly formed rapids in front of the engine and the rain just kept on coming.  Finally, as the ballast stones started dropping away about twenty feet in front of the snowplow, I called my half-drowned CO and told him to get up on a car and stay there while I backed up and away from the abyss.  A few more minutes and those shiny units would be in the drink and that new-car smell in the cab would be only a memory.  I could only hope the track was still intact behind us or we'd be pushing cars into the river.  The rails in front of me were visibly drooping lower as the support under them disappeared so the choices were pretty limited.  There's times when you just have to do what you can and hope for the best.  I pushed the train slowly back about 50 yards or so until it looked like the ground was solid again and the water wasn't over the top of the railheads.  Safe for now.

For some reason, the radio towers came back to life and we were eventually able to reach the dispatcher just about the time the conductor got to the last car.  We got permission to back up a mile or so to clear the road crossings of a town and that was all she wrote for that trip except for a van ride home.  A MOW foreman came out to assess the damage sometime after we got safely parked.  He set his pickup on in front of us and hi-railed to the washout for a peek.  He must have made some quick phone calls because while we waited for our taxi, a string of dump trucks loaded with big chunks of rip-rap stone and gravel started to arrive and soon a mountain of fill was growing beside the track.  The dispatcher came up on the radio and asked the foreman how long he thought it would be until he could run trains again.  You could almost hear the track man shake his head when he answered, "I've been dumping rocks into the hole since I got here and we still can't find the bottom.  It's gonna be a while."  And so it was.

I found out I should have a bit of respect for high water that night.  We kind of get used to thinking of trains as the biggest and baddest things going but something as simple as a couple days of no-kidding  rain can bring the tough guys to their knees.  Lesson learned.

I already know I'll have burning eyeballs from staring into the rain when I go back out again.  Maybe next week I can do that Century unless...I won't even ask this time what could be next.

The Tour of 2011

Holy Lost Month Batman!

August came and went in a rush of busy days and full-bore craziness.  The lead-up to the Tour de Cure, the Office Car Special, an earthquake, a hurricane...where to begin?
I lost track of the Wayward Home somewhere around mid-month as the Tour closed in, sometime after my vacation in July.  I guess that's as good a place as any to start picking up the pieces.

I was off for a little over two weeks and blissfully unaware of RR doings as is my wont when I don't have to worry about going to work.  I try to forget everything track-related for as long as possible to the point of having to be re-trained when I go back.  It's good for the soul.

But this time around I had to keep my mind just a little bit on the railroad...in a non-engineering sort of way. A pretty good chunk of my vacation was spent working on our corporate Tour de Cure bicycle team for this year so I had a different sort of training on my mind.  Since I somehow fell into the Captain spot (my wife caught it last year because neither of us knew any better) I was doing a constant running dance trying to make it all happen and make it successful.  The closer it got, the busier I was.

Backtracking a little more, sometime last year I agreed to help lay out new routes for the Tour since we had a change of venue for a starting line.  This led to much Google Mapping and driving around the countryside checking and re-checking mileages, conditions, hills, hazards, etc.  It also entailed doing a bunch of arrow-painting all over about 5 counties during the week before the ride.  It used up a lot of my available time off and even more of my wife's patience.

So as the event got near, it was crunch time.  We'd done a ton of fundraising, a bunch of riding, a few events, volumes of emails and hundreds of phone calls to get the team to Tour day.  I spent Friday packing up all our assorted stuff and putting the final tweaks on my faithful Trek but found I couldn't fall asleep despite the ridiculously early hour I had to be back up.  I finally dozed for about 3 hours before the alarm went off for showtime.  I slithered out of bed, took one last look for what I might have missed and hit the road long before the sun came up.

It still wasn't even hinting of daybreak when I got to the site but there was a bunch of other early-birds already putting up tents, traffic cones, tables and all the other paraphernalia that such an event requires.  I blundered around in the dark for a while but eventually found the spot for our team tent and started unloading.  By now I realized that as expected, I'd forgotten stuff and called my still-snoozing wife with panic-stricken requests to bring said stuff with her.  The response was predictably unenthusiastic but as always, she found what I had missed and tossed it in the van.

As it got a little brighter in the east, the team started showing up and more hands made things come together a bit faster.  The tent and tables were suddenly up, the banners hung and it looked almost like we were ready...

Our dedication family was there soon after and the pace picked up.  Before I knew what hit me, it was 7am and time to go. I was still meeting people as the pack rolled out and hit the road on the northbound leg of the Century.  How did this happen so fast?  I'm not ready yet...I've still got stuff to do...I don't even know some of my team...never mind for now...just pedal.

Our resident hammer-heads took off like a shot not to be seen again until much later while my old riding partner, the Good Dr. Annabel and I took up positions with some of the not-so-fast-and-furious.  The tradition we started on our first Tour is that no one on our team gets left behind to ride alone.  That's something I'm pretty proud of and work hard at maintaining.  I can't see asking someone to ride with us and then blasting off to leave them in the dust so Doc and I formed a cheering section and spun in the little rings.  It's worth it to see people conquer that 10 mile climb out of the valley when they doubted they'd ever make it.  It's quite an accomplishment for a new teammate to look back and see that long hill behind instead of in front the first time!

From there on out for fifty miles, we just rolled along taking in the scenery with Angie, one of our original team members from last year who was attempting her first Century.

I haven't met too many people more determined than Ang.  She walked a few hills, dug in and climbed the rest, gritted her teeth and fought the bonk like a champ for 50 honest-to-God miles before the shakes finally got too bad in Geneva and she had to get off the bike.  She never surrendered though, just took a rain check on the 100 and vowed triple digits next time.  A lot of people got around the lake faster but not too many can claim they tried harder.

The Doctor and the Captain were now the dead-last pair on the Century.  This had certain advantages in that we had our own personal SAG truck and no waiting in lines at the rest stops.  We tried to send the sweeper truck ahead in case someone else needed them as Doc and I are pretty good at taking care of our ownselves on the road but they wouldn't leave and so we became a two-bike parade for the second 50 miles.  The turn south for home brought a headwind so we pace-lined a while until we hit the hills again and progress slowed considerably.  The big guy was in a fix.

Doc and I have ridden together for years and so we know a thing or two about doing distance.  We both did our first Century on the 2010 Tour and have thrashed mountain bikes and roadies to exhaustion more often than I can remember.  Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to ride much lately and the lack of miles was taking a toll.  You have to understand that Doc is quite frankly a huge man who's hands could probably cover my whole head with his fingers locked.  He also has legs that routinely snap spokes off the hubs and that have been known to twist high-end frames to destruction.  The catch is, being that strong burns a lot of calories and sometimes he can't replace them fast enough to stay ahead of the bonk.  The shortage of pre-Century saddle time also had him somewhat at a disadvantage for the fight and so our average speed continued to drop. 

I was almost starting to think he'd give up for the first time in our long acquaintance but then he glared at me on a steep uphill, told me to shut the **** up and stopped talking.  I knew he was now angry and so all doubt of his eventual success evaporated.  We were long overdue off the loop and the Tour was officially closed but I wouldn't have wanted to be the one to tell Doc we couldn't finish.  It wouldn't matter if it took till midnight, he was mad and come hell or high water, we were making it back.  We put in at the last rest stop and Ang got back on her bike to finish the homestretch 20 miles while I poured ice water over Doc to recharge him for the final leg.

It was kind of a blur from there on until my cell rang at about 10 miles out.  Chris wanted to know where we were and if we were going to make it.  Since Doc was now a speck in the distance ahead, I allowed as how we'd definitely be along fairly soon.  He said his computer topped out at near 50 mph on the last downhill and so with that screaming descent, the tail-enders staggered into town.  We turned a corner about 4 miles from the finish and to our delight, there sat a big contingent of Team NS waiting for us and cheering.  Doc was near collapse and didn't dare even stop lest he not get started again so the pack fell in behind and we made for the finish line.  True to another team tradition, we held up traffic at the last stop light to make way for everybody to get through together.  I don't think any vehicle drivers were anxious to debate the short pause with the glaring monster named Doc who was stopped in the middle of the lane with his hand up.  Without a hitch, everyone made the turn and so, whooping and laughing like maniacs, Team NS rode for home.

Doc and Ang led us across the line...true to form, dead last but still a team.  A bunch of red, white, blue and yellow jerseys wheeling in long after the crowd was gone.  The only ones still around were the clean-up crews breaking down tents.  We didn't care.  We brought in our last riders and no one was left to finish alone.  That my friends, makes me proud to be on this team above all else.

I guess that's the reason I decided I'd take it on again for next year.  We done good guys!

After loading up the remaining stuff under the tent at Camp NS and discovering that I'd lost my truck keys, a large train of vehicles formed up in a caravan for the Wayward Home.  Chris's Mom had the grill going and burgers on when I finally made it in the driveway (Whew...Thanks Ann!).  I suddenly realized that I hadn't eaten anything but dry peanut butter sandwich quarters and Clif bars since about 4 am.  A mattress was calling like the Sirens but I tied myself to the mast (well, the picnic table anyway) and held off until the few remaining die-hards surrendered to exhaustion and headed for home. I'm not sure I was exactly coherent during any of this but everybody else looked a little glassy-eyed and wind-burned too so I don't think it mattered much.  Doc survived it all and in Doc fashion, recovered enough to swing in and yuk it up with us for a while...almost like his legs weren't really on fire and he wasn't looking at driving to Virginia in a few hours.  I lasted long enough to make a pass through the shower before succumbing to an earth-shaking collapse into the sheets that brought down the curtain on the 2011 Tour de Cure for well and all.  I found my keys a day later.

We wound up at the end of the day with people from 5 states, we raised a lot of money for the  American Diabetes Association, made a pack of new friends, rode a bunch of miles and learned a lot of things about being a team.  It was stressful, sometimes frustrating, sometimes wonderful, always interesting and a ton of fun to the very end.  It was an amazing experience to lead this bunch and so I can't sign off this post without...

Many, many thanks to all of the incredible Team NS...to our long-haul travellers, our monster fundraisers, our distance record-setters, everyone who pitched in when I asked and others who helped even when I didn't, to all of you who did so much just because...

But especially my thanks go to Chris for putting up with it all...

To the Cardone family for our inspiration...

And of course, my behind-the-scenes, couldn't-do-it-without-ya people...

Karin Stamy from the home office in VA...my head cheerleader and sounding board for my craziest ideas...always able to answer,  "What do I do now?"

Jess Bottoms, our Energizer Bunny Tour Manager...if ever there was a right girl for the job...

The guys from Kingsbury's Cyclery...Paul, you ain't seen nothing yet...

Tanner's Bar and Grill...Good thing Woodie's around 'cause John never answers his phone...

Big Footes Sporting Goods...Now those are some kinda GREAT shirts...

Thank you all!

Now let's talk about getting you guys signed up for next year...!!

Where The Hell Have You Been Mister?

I've been a little bit....busy.  Somewhere in the last couple of weeks I lost all my extra minutes and for the life of me, I can't figure out where I left them.  I'm still here but burning the candle at both ends with a torch.

Do not adjust your set.  We will return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly.

100 at 100

If anyone out in my little corner of the electronic world was watching yesterday, you might have caught my latest adventure in bicycle lunacy...I put on a little experiment in heat exhaustion and sweat production which will go down semi-officially as "The Hot 100". With a nod to the famous Billboard chart, this actually had nothing at all to do with the pop countdown. Although now that I think about it, my iPod did die about 40 miles out for lack of charging so I guess there's a tenuous music connection there somewhere.

The festivities began when I decided I was due for another Century while I was still on vacation. I'd been wanting to go when I didn't really have to worry much about how long it took or when I had to be back but scheduling conflicts meant that Thursday was the only chunk of time available for such an undertaking. I know my long-distance pace is pretty low so it's likely to be an all day thing once I leave the driveway.  I can't get underway at noon and have any hope of returning before dark at my less-than-impressive average speed. These things take time.

So to planning...something I do very little of except in the most vague and general way.  But having done this distance thing a few times now, I peeked at the National Weather Service site with a wary eye. Mostly this exercise is to check on whether I should figure on getting wet or not, which then determines if I need to pack extra zip-locks to keep electronics dry but this time it was not rain on the radar. The weather guys made it pretty clear it was going to be unabashedly, miserably, viciously and maybe dangerously hot. Yeah, yeah...it's July people, so noted. In my typically cavalier fashion, I was mostly undeterred by the big red EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING headline at the top of the page. It's going to be warm? Surprise, surprise.  Pack an ice bag baby...I'm going.

I was actually more interested in the fact that the wind was predicted to be out of the south at first and then swing to the west with gusts up to 25 mph. 25 mph in the face of a 15 mph rider means you're going backwards so there was some changes forthcoming in my planned general direction of travel. I figured if I headed west at the outset, I might be able to make the turn for home with following seas and a boost from the wind instead of a kick in the teeth when I can least afford it. Score one for the Gipper, that part actually worked out but more on it later.

I got up with Chris and the sun, loaded the frames and pockets with liquids, saddled up and was gone while the shadows were still long and deep in the valley. As predicted, the wind was at my tail at first and miles rolled away easily on fresh legs and cool temps. My semi-planned route was to go almost due west to Hammondsport and then up the west shore of Keuka Lake. From there it was a crapshoot depending on how hot it actually got and how much leg I had left. The one detail I forgot was that to get to Hammondsport from home requires a Cat 2 climb over the ridge between the lakes. With the wind on the bow and a hill under the tires, my speed dropped to about zip.



Eventually though I headed down out of the hills, picked up some speed and only had to dodge one idiot passing across the double line into my lane on the way to a rest stop in a park.



I noticed the temperature was getting a little above the comfort zone when a sip of Gatorade went down hot and a Clif bar came out of the wrapper like melted butter.  The world was getting hazy and everything looked like it was dancing.



There goes the alarm bells again.

I looped Keuka Lake and started fantasizing almost continuously about a cold vanilla shake.  20 more miles went behind and out of the heat shimmered a mirage-like vision...an ice cream stand!  I pulled in and suddenly realized I was probably in over my head again when I almost couldn't unclip before I fell over.  I wobbled into the air-conditioned interior and customers parted like the Red Sea.  I probably smelled like my junior high gym locker but didn't care.  My goal was something cold and no glares from cool, freshly washed vacationers was going to stop me.  A uniformed EMT passing me at the door made a comment about her desire to not meet me professionally along the road later in the day.  I agreed wholeheartedly and retired to a corner stool to nurse my core temperature back down within human limits.

Things get a little loopy from there on out.  I know I hit a mini-mart and reloaded all my bottles before the climb back over the ridge.  The ascent was lengthy but I did catch the wind as I'd originally hoped when I left home.  The breeze astern helped push me up the hill but unfortunately, it also created a stationary bubble of super-heated air that surrounded me all the way.  I put my leg against the top tube once and damn near got a burn.  This cannot be good.  My hot Gatorade was disappearing to no avail so I finally took a break and stretched out in the shade of an oak tree by an old cemetery.  The symbolism seemed fitting.

Barely 15 miles later, I put in again at an Amish roadside farm stand and begged to use the garden hose I'd spotted coiled next to the building.  I let it run till it got icy and then just poured it over my head until I stopped steaming.  It felt wonderful.  Much refreshed, I pushed another 20 or so.  The computer was reading about 80 miles gone at 4 pm and even with the sun now past the zenith, the air was still sizzling.  The breeze felt like the exhaust of a blast furnace and smelled like hot metal, burning grass and asphalt.   A guy out in his yard yelled something about how stupid I was to be out riding as I passed.  Yeah well, thanks for the insight buddy but how about handing me a beer instead?

The descent into Watkins Glen should have felt pretty good but knowing I had one more climb to do sort of took the fun out of it.  I stopped in the park at the foot of Seneca Lake and stretched out on a shaded picnic table bench to recharge for the last push.  I seriously wondered if I'd be able to get off that bench at all.  The climb was all I expected it to be...toasty and steep with the end hidden in the haze and heat wiggles.  The mileage turned over 100 about three quarters of the way up and the wind went out of my sails just like that.  I trudged on up to the top and sort of fell into the lot of another mini-mart to reload the bottles one more time.  I know I looked like the wrath of God.  I got some really strange looks as I downed a whole bottle of water in three swallows but couldn't have cared less.  The worst was over.

I eventually saddled back up and headed east but knew there wasn't much left.  Chris had by now announced her intention to come and get me and to be honest, I was glad of it.  I probably could have made it the last few miles if push came to shove but I was about out of heroics for one day.  I loaded the Trek in the van and collapsed in the seat with the A/C knob turned all the way around.  Another one bites the dust.
I'll never learn.

Score for the day:
101.7 miles
108 honest-to-Fahrenheit degrees (at Watkins Glen)
8 or 10 bottles of Gatorade (I lost count)
1 vanilla shake
1 jumbo iced tea
1 orange juice
1 humongous water
1 near-miss
2 hecklings
And 5 lbs. off my body weight.



I promise I'll make the next one about the Tour de Cure.  Really.  There's even a connection to this post in it.  I'm still on vacation you know. 
One thing at a time.

Time Off Continues...

Vacation is rolling along nicely.  It's hot, muggy and summer so I'm mostly content.  The RR is a distant memory for now and tomorrow I'm planning another long jaunt on the Trek regardless of the predicted heat index above 100.  No fear.

Hey, I ride a triple ring anyway so triple digits seem only appropriate.  I'll load up the bottle cages and jersey pockets with water and Gatorade and have at it.  I've been out in real hot before and have learned to take it in stride.  You just have to be aware of the signs you're burning out and not push quite so hard.  The Great Dismal Swamp adventure taught me a healthy respect for heat and humidity so I won't be easily caught off-guard again.  Besides, not much can scare me after the mountains in Virginia where Doc and I were playing earlier this week...

 

We only did about 15 miles on top of  Skyline Drive but it sure went uphill for an awful long way, in percentages us sea-level riders aren't used to all in one shot.  Creeper-low was the order of the day.  The reward was going back down.  I admit it, I cheated and rode ALL the way down the hill and back to Doc's place from our parking spot after he blew a spoke up on Skyline Drive.  I know, it's against The Rules to descend a hill unless you've climbed it first but this was a special case and I'm not sure when I'll ever get the chance again.  So sue me, I'm not shaving my legs either.

Ten-plus miles of twisty, fast descent was just too much to resist when the opportunity presented itself.  The 2.1 got pretty twitchy and my neck cramped up but I was going fast enough coming down that I couldn't bring myself to stop and load the bike on the rack so I just got low in the drops and sprinted until I hit the driveway.  It was like icing on the cake.

Riding in VA was certainly an eye-opener in more ways than one for the old guy...the terrain was much different than my accustomed upstate NY haunts and I learned a thing or two about attacking the climbs but more than that, as you might have noticed from my new cover shot, the view from the top was spectacular.

I won't go all Zen on you so let's just say it was worth the admission price in leg-burn and leave it go at that.

We might have been able to go further up the mountains if we hadn't ridden 40 miles of continuous rollers the day before and if somebody would design a spoke that can absorb Docs pedal stroke without snapping.  I think we've ridden a couple times without his rear wheel going out of true for lack of spokes but I'm having a hard time remembering when.  He popped one on each of our road days so we were left with only his mountain bike still rideable after Skyline.

Never ones to quit while we're ahead, we loaded up the off-roaders again and took in some nice single track until the sun went down.  Dark-thirty found us grimy, whipped, sweaty and unfit for human companionship at a KFC trying to buy extra-crispy through exhaustion and hoping we wouldn't get arrested as vagrants.  We looked like we'd just parked our shopping carts out by the dumpster.  The counter help was happy to see us pack our bird and go.

So at the end of a three day excursion south of the Mason-Dixon, the total was about 30 miles on the mountain bike between a mid-journey detour on the C&O Canal Trail and the dirt adventure somewhere near Ruckersville with maybe 60 horizontal and a couple of vertical miles on the roadie.  Not a lot as these things go but it was enough.  We got out with no bloodshed or even poison ivy, just some broken parts and blown tires so it was all good.  Photos taken, mission accomplished.

Now it's back to my familiar stomping grounds and still I'll be riding.  I'm toying with another Century in the morning before the road gets too scorching.  We'll see how that goes.  And I know I said I was going to post more about the Tour de Cure too...just hang in and you'll see it pretty soon.  First things first...miles.

Who said I was crazy?