Yesterday I
completed a successful and merry century!
(I recently read
The Merry
Adventures of Robin Hood, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and think that merry
is a word that should be used much more often.)
I rode in the St. Patrick’s Century in Dublin, Georgia on behalf of my
charity for this month, Bicycles for Humanity.
This was the first time in a while that I’ve done a century as part of
an organized ride. I had signed up for
the century option on the Saturday ride of the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia
(BRAG) Spring Tune Up last April, but my crash was the weekend before. I forewent that BRAG Spring Tune Up century
and just raced in a time trial instead
J
One thing
that’s fun about organized rides is seeing the wide variety of bicycles among
the riders. Most people ride regular
road bikes, but you might see a recumbent, a tandem, a tandem with a trailer (which
might have a child or a dog in it), or even a tandem recumbent. Yesterday I saw a type of bicycle I had never
seen before: an Elliptical bike! It’s
essentially an Elliptical workout machine on wheels:
Together,
Yet Alone
Although I
was prepared to ride solo yesterday, I still hoped to find a group to ride
with. About five miles into the ride, I
saw a group of four guys that looked like they were riding at about my pace. I took that opportunity to glom onto their
paceline, and they welcomed me very congenially. Although these guys seemed like decent
riders, I quickly discovered that they were less experienced than most of my
cycling friends and don’t ride with the precision I’m used to. For example, several times when the front guy
was finished pulling, he peeled off to the inside right instead of the outside
left. Also, one of them erroneously
referred to the paceline as a “dragline,” which caused me to chuckle to
myself. (When I told Robert about the
“dragline,” he pointed out that when our friend Stoney, a super strong rider,
is at the front pulling, the rest of us are in a dragline behind him –
true!) Regardless, the main thing is
that these guys didn’t ride in a squirrelly manner, and so I was glad for the
companionship and group energy efficiency.
Alas, my
newfound friends left my life as quickly as they entered. We stopped at a rest stop around mile 15,
where the route options split. They went
on the 55-mile route, and I continued on with the century. I rode the remainder of my ride by
myself. It would have been nice to have
others with me, but I’m happy that I could ride as strongly as I did on my own. Compared to last month, I felt much better at
the end of yesterday’s century. The
difference is that last month I red-lined (went into the anaerobic zone) early
in that ride as I tried to keep up with the Peach Peloton, which affected me later
in the ride.
When I’m out
there solo on a long ride, I can’t help but get a little philosophical. If I do have a group to ride with and get a
draft effect, it’s easier, but I still have to make each pedal stroke on my own,
and it’s still up to me to finish my ride.
That’s like when I was recovering from my crash. The care and sympathy of so many people
certainly helped me get through it, but ultimately I had to work through my
healing day by day myself. Often when
I’m racing or doing a long ride, a snippet from a song will get stuck in my
head, serving as kind of a mantra to keep me focused. Maybe it’s because we’re in the contemplative
season of Lent anyway, but the song stuck in my head yesterday was the
melancholy yet beautiful hymn “Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley”:
Jesus walked
this lonesome valley.
He had to walk it by Himself;
O, nobody else could walk it for Him,
He had to walk it by Himself.
Spring
Has (Almost) Sprung
I love being
outdoors, and even on a bicycle you can notice a lot of things about the
natural world if you’re paying attention.
I particularly enjoy looking for signs of the season at hand. Right now we’re on the cusp of spring. Not too far into my ride, my eyes started to hurt
because something was getting into them.
Wait a minute…this is March, which can only mean…it’s almost time for
pine pollen! Sure enough, I checked the pine
trees growing close to the road and saw the burgeoning pine pollen sacs (which,
by the way, are the male pine cones). I
think this is a slash pine:
Every year
for about two weeks around the middle of March, riding my bicycle can be
difficult because the pollen bothers my eyes so much. (I wear contacts.) It’s this painful, gritty feeling that,
during this earliest onset of pine pollen, I usually can blink away as my eyes
water. However, I almost have to avoid
riding for about a week as everything becomes coated in yellow. Dublin is probably about a week ahead of Monticello
in the flora cycle, and so I’ll start noticing the pine pollen here at home any
day now. Fortunately, my other
observations of nature during yesterday’s ride were much more pleasant.
I love
frogs! It’s especially fun to identify their
calls, which are easier to learn than bird calls. (Incidentally, a lot of times people might
think they are hearing a bird when it’s really a frog.) I even have a CD of frog calls from the
Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
This time of year, one of the most prevalent calls is that of the upland
chorus frog. It sounds like running your
finger over a comb. I heard lots of
upland chorus frogs yesterday in swampy areas and even in pools of water left
from recent rains. Although frogs are
easy to hear, they can be much more difficult to see. To my delight, I did see one frog yesterday:
Yesterday I
had my first turtle rescue of the year. Whether
I’m in a car or in my bicycle, whenever I see a turtle trying to cross a road
and it’s not too dangerous for me to stop, I move it off of the pavement so
that it doesn’t get run over. The key to
turtle rescue is to place it on the side of the road toward which it is
crawling. If you put it back on the side
where it’s coming from, it will just try to cross the road again. Understandably, a turtle being rescued like
this usually will seal itself up in its shell while you carry it to
safety. Sometimes, like yesterday, you
can hear the sound of it sealing itself up, which is really cool – WHOOSH!
Turtle on the road
Turtle safely moved to the side of the road
Zen and
the Art of Bicycle Maintenance
I’ll admit that
I don’t have to think much about bicycle maintenance because Robert is my mechanic. It’s a good deal for both of us, though,
because I’m his nutritionist. Even
though I don't do much bicycle maintenance, I definitely get into the zen side of
cycling.
As I’ve been
doing during each month during A Year of Centuries, I think my highlighted
charity while I’m riding. I had a
wonderful reminder of Bicycles for Humanity on yesterday’s ride, a
bracelet from the Atlanta chapter that came from Namibia, the focus country for
its bicycle shipments.
Particularly
during my more tired moments of the ride, I gratefully reflected on the good,
paved roads available to me, considering that the people of Namibia only have
much rougher, unpaved roads. Also, I
thought about how any discomfort I might be experiencing is nothing compared to
having to haul water, wood, and everything else with only my own two feet to
get around.
Toward the
end of my ride, I laughed when I passed a highway sign unlike any I had seen
before:
It caught my
eye because I’m a civil engineer and specialize in stormwater. I suppose it’s a lot easier and cheaper to
put up a sign warning people of the problem than to actually fix the problem. As I rode along and thought about this some
more, it occurred to me that maybe there’s a little more truth to be learned
from this sign than I first realized.
One of the main things I’m trying to do with A Year of Centuries is to
raise awareness of certain concerns and the charitable groups that are
addressing them. Like the road sign, I
can point out the problem all day long.
That needs to be done, but what else can I do of real value? Giving money is certainly a good thing. But sometimes there’s no substitute for actually
rolling up your sleeves and meeting face-to-face someone in need. Maybe I already to this to a degree, like
coordinating the Middle Georgia chapter MATHCOUNTS competition. The challenge for me is to do this outsize my
comfort zone, to try to intersect with people whose orbits in life seem vastly
different than mine. I may not be able
to go to Namibia myself, but as I continue through A Year of Centuries, I’m going
to look for some different orbital zones.
So, overall
it was a terrific century yesterday; the weather was nice, the countryside was
beautiful, and I fueled properly. In
reality, though, any day I get to ride my bicycle is a good one, as this sign that
I passed reminded me. I’m glad I saw it
early in the day because it made me smile for the rest of my ride:
