The last few weeks in cycling….

 

Time has been short.  I have just been busy.  No time to sit down to journal or blog.  It is a combination of work being work, well work.  I had started a blog about my ride out to Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge and how I felt like Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring when the Fellowship was trying to get into Lothlorien.  The elves would not let them in and everyone in the Fellowship seemed to be hating Frodo and giving him the stink eye.  Well, that is how I felt climbing to and back from Muscatatuck.  Like everyone was giving me the stink eye because I can climb, it is just long, and slow climbing for me.  The short, steep little hills are kicking my ass around here.  The 30 some mile ride ended up being great.  I just hated the idea of having to go back up the big hill.  However, I made it, no quit in me. 

 

Then last week, I got in three rides outdoors.  I love to ride outside.  Well, most of the time I love riding outside. 

 

Thursday’s ride was a good little ride.  14 miles for one hour of riding.  I learned that highway 59 while driving might seem pretty flat, it is not really flat.  There aren’t hills on it, but it rolls.  Like so much of the southern part of this state does.  It just rolls up and down and therefore I must roll along with it.  I did get chased by one German Shepard too while I was out there.  Lucky for me it was an older dog and it couldn’t catch me as I cruised by at 14 mph.  I am pretty sure the last time road on country roads in Indiana I got a dog killed.  Well, I think, and well I am not sure.  I know a dog was chasing me.  I know that I had to ride fast to get away.  I know a car passed.  I know I heard a yelp.  I know I didn’t have the courage to turn around to see what happened.  Wow, now I just feel like an awful person.  Am I a dog murderer?  Well, who knows, I know this Shepard didn’t come into the road.  I know it was find when I road back by because it barked at me more.  Anyway, it was a good ride.

 

Friday’s ride was a fucking nightmare.  I traveled pretty much the same course, highway 59.  I made it only 8 miles.  Two reason for this, first, it was an easy ride, so I road mostly in my small ring upfront, and second the cross wind was trying to knock me off my bike.  I have never been bullied by the wind or the wind god as much as I was Friday.  She knocked me around something awful.  When I first tried to mount my bike I almost got blasted over by the wind.  Then the entire push out on 59 the wind kept pushing me off my line.  I think it was the worst cross wind I have even experienced.  Even worse than the San Jose Cross wind of the Devil’s Vortex.  What made it worse is apparently Fridays are semi driving through highway 59 day and I got passed by 6 semi’s.  The combination of the draft created by the semi and the cross wind really messed me up.  The wind god got her revenge in a big way last Friday and made me realize just how small I was. 

 

Sunday’s ride with the BBC was an interesting one.  As the Little Five Hundred was last weekend, the bike ride on Sunday was the Breaking Away Tour.  Breaking Away is the Outsiders of bike riding movies.  Where four Bloomington townies or Cutters as we call them now thanks to Breaking Away (They were Stoners before the movie) must come to grips with their place in life and end up riding in the Little Five Hundred and beating the evil Frat boys.  I am over simplifying the movie greatly.  It is a great movie, especially if you went to IU and love the campus, and if you love cycling.  It is a classic in my opinion.  It features a young Denis Quad, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earlie Haley.   So, a man in the cycle club, who has seen the movie way too many times leads a tour to many of the places you see in the movie.  I thought cool a 16 miles ride.  All good.  Get to see some historic places.  That is a pretty decent little ride that will take a couple of hours.  FOUR hours later, we completed the 16 miles.  We literally stopped everywhere.  This guy showed us houses of people who just showed up in the movie for like 30 seconds or had some through away line.  Hell, we even stopped by a new brew pub in town, and he is trying to start an urban legend that Dave Stohler (movies main character) started the brew pub.  I mean I am a man who can obsess, and I am sure if I could take people on a tour of my favorite movie (Star Wars) I would.  However, since we can’t travel to a galaxy far, far away, I won’t be doing that any time soon.  Couldn’t you just imagine it though… anyway.

 

It was a fun ride.  I did enjoy it.  I just didn’t know it was going to be four hours long.  There were a couple of times I wondered if and when it would end.  I mean I had fajitas to get home and cook.  I also had a puppy to get home and check on.  I am super glad I went.  I got to meet some new people.  I got to ride around campus.  I even got to ride up and down fraternity row and since I used to live on fraternity row, it was pretty cool to do that.  Although as it should be with a Sunday afternoon in Bloomington after Little 5 there was not a soul on fraternity row.  I think everyone had partied themselves out. I say good for them.  I remember during 1996 little five I drank for 13 consecutive days.  I like to think that is what brought the team the victory.  Well, that and me leading a cheer in front of the crowd with my shirt off.  However, we all know it was just we had four badass riders in the house, and they kicked ass!   I did get to ride on the little 500 track.  It was pretty cool.  The track makes a neat sound when you are cranking on it. Some good photos from being under the start finish line. 

 

Lots of riding going on now that Spring has sprung.  I am loving every minute of it!