So far it’s been a sweet week on Springfield’s streets. School is out, traffic is down, and I’ve avoided the rain! I’ve been focused (OK…obsessed may be the word) this week on making the most of the hills on my way to and from work. I intend for my C0lorado trip in August to be a “walk in the mountains”, and riding hills is the means of getting there.
How about you? Do you have any goals you’re working toward?
God bless…
TW
If you missed the first part of this post, check it out here….
Well, what to do? We were 50 miles from the truck, and not a lot of attractive options to choose from. We called the B & B to see if they had any suggestions, and it was obvious from talking to them they didn’t have a clue what to tell a cyclist.
After I got myself calmed down and we started talking about the options, we decided there were three:
Option 1 – The B & B folks suggested we continue downriver on the Illinois side to Chester, cross the bridge there and come back to St. Gen. They thought it was about 15 miles from us to Chester. We didn’t have internet service on my phone out there, so we couldn’t verify that. If we had taken that option, we were probably looking at close to a century, with the same distance back the next day. In addition, we didn’t have a clue about how bike friendly the roads on either side of the river would be so we rejected this idea pretty quickly.
Option 2 – Turn around and ride an unplanned century back to the truck. With this option, we at least knew what we were getting into, and the wind would be at our backs. We calculated we would make it back around dark if things went well. If not, we didn’t have a headlight and we weren’t sure how much battery we had for our tail light. This was better than Option 1, but still not very palatable.
Option 3 – We knew if we were to have to do the century, we needed to eat supper at Prairie du Rocher, so we decided to ride back there, get something to eat in the motorcycle bar on Main Street and ask whether anyone knew of a hotel, motel, b & b or cabin within reasonable riding distance. Luckily, the waitress did! She said there was a hotel in Redbud. We still didn’t have decent internet, but we did have enough to see the town on the map, and she said it was about 9 miles away. That looked about right, so we set our sights on that, even though it was off route.
Actually, the ride over there was about the most pleasant miles of the day. It started with a long climb out of the river bottom, then consisted of rollers most of the way. The final approach into town was on a pretty busy highway, but with the vision of a bed for the night instead of a forced death-march century, we weren’t complaining too much.
We reached the hotel with 70 miles behind us, which was considerably more than we planned. Pam was just flat worn out. She’s not ridden that many miles this year, and 50 would have been her maximum for the year. Throw in the flatland riding, heat and wind, and I couldn’t blame her. You can click the map below for the full GPS track of the first day.
I used my phone to lay out a route for our return trip and we made a paper cue sheet for Sunday’s ride. It involved a climb back over the same ridge we came up Saturday, and back roads back into the river bottom where we connected with Bluff Road to take us all the way back to Columbia. We couldn’t be sure about the distance, but I estimated it to be about 45 miles. When we walked outside Sunday morning, we were immediately struck by how hot and humid it was, but pleased to see that the wind was still from the south and probably blowing harder than Saturday.
The first twelve or so miles were pretty nice riding again because it wasn’t pancake flat. We had to ride over the ridge we came over Saturday, then a few rollers followed by a really sweet downhill into the river bottom. When it was all said and done, we both agreed that we preferred that over the flat as a pancake river bottom.
After we got into the river bottom again, we only had one road to follow, we had the wind to our backs, and a destination to get to. Bluff Road was our friend for the final 25.5 miles. We got lucky at mile 22 when we found a fertilizer distribution center with a pop machine outside that sold sports drink. That and a Honey Stinger Waffle was just the ticket for me on a hot day and I could tell I really needed it in the heat.
We made sure to stop again at Valmeyer for our final snack of the day. We would have liked to have found a c-store, but my phone told us it was over two miles away on the other end of town. Rather than add another 4 miles to our trip, we made do with our last Honey Stingers and water. We could tell from the map that we were within 15 miles of the truck, so we knew we had it made from there. The road also changed from a rural country road to a highway at that point, but traffic didn’t get bothersome until the last couple of miles.
We pulled into the truck around 1:00 PM, cleaned up a little in the bathrooms at Subway, and headed for home.
Here is the map and GPS track of Sunday’s ride.
I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Pam. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had gotten really grumpy along the way, but she didn’t and I really appreciated her being such a good sport about the entire situation. The trip certainly didn’t pan out as expected. I guess at this point, I probably owe her a non-biking weekend somewhere!
God bless…
TW
When I started thinking about a weekend bike tour a few weeks ago, I wanted to come up with something that Pam would enjoy. I proposed we would drive up to St. Louis and ride from Columbia, IL down to St. Genevieve, MO, spend the night in a B & B, then ride back the next day.
I knew that ride was absolutely flat as a pancake, and around 50 miles one way. There is a lot to see and experience in “old town” St. Gen, so I figured we could eat a foo-foo dinner, browse some shops, take in a leisurely breakfast on Sunday, and still have time for a leisurely return trip.
We drove up Friday evening and spent the night in Fenton. From there, it was a 20 minute drive over to Columbia, where we attempted to get very early lunch before departing. We were disappointed to learn that the coffee shop/café we had chosen wouldn’t serve us lunch before 11:00 am, so we had to settle for a 2nd breakfast instead. The lunch menu looked better to us, so we left a little disappointed, but with our stomachs full.
Our ride would take us down the Mississippi River Valley from Columbia to Modoc, where we would catch the ferry across the river. The biggest part of the ride we were riding either on top of the levee, or just “inland” from it. There are lots of big time farming operations out there, and fields ranged from those in the process of being plowed, to knee high wheat, with a lot of 6-inch corn thrown in.
As we got settled into a pace heading south, it didn’t take long to figure out the wind was going to be in our face the entire way. We didn’t think much of it, but I did adjust my expectations down a little, thinking it would take a little longer and be more work than one would wish for a 50 mile ride.
Pam started with arm-warmers on but we also figured out quickly that it was going to get pretty darn hot before we finished the day. Things were going pretty well as we skirted the edge of the town of Valmeyer at about 17 miles. There was a nice little park there and we almost stopped for our first break, then talked ourselves out of it. It was kind of crowded with youth baseball going on, and we typically try to stop around 20 miles, so we opted to keep riding.
That was a mistake because we rode off into the middle of nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. Actually, let me re-phrase that. We rode off into the middle of the hot blazing sun, with not a spec of shade and no place to pull over for a break. Twenty miles passed. Then 23 miles passed, and I found myself wishing for a stop really badly. At 25 miles, I was muttering to myself, and by the time we finally found shade, we had ridden a total of 30 miles.
The cookie we had held back for our first rest stop didn’t go very far, so I supplemented it with a Honey Stinger Waffle for good measure.
At this point, we also had to go off our planned route. We had been riding on Levee Road, and planned to take it quite a bit further. Unfortunately, it turned to gravel, with a big ole’ sign warning it was for government maintenance only. To me, it wasn’t a big deal. I knew we needed to keep going south for quite a while, then jog east to pick up the next little town. The network of roads out there is pretty good, and I had pored over the map in planning the route so I was good to go. Pam, on the other hand wasn’t. It had been bad enough that she was blindly following the route I had loaded into my Garmin, but now we weren’t even following the route! I finally got enough cell phone service to pull up a map and show her where we were and where our next intended stop was. Fortunately, by that time we were just two miles from it because it was still hotter than Hades out there and we were pedaling straight into the wind.
I had planned to stop at Fort Chartres State Park for our second break. There is a restored French fort there that is open to the public. It’s actually quite nice, and made for a pleasant half-hour of wandering around and exploring.
We wandered into the museum, and began chatting with the State Parks guy who seemed to be in charge. As we talked, it became obvious that he was a wealth of knowledge about the place, so I finally asked him when he started working there. His answer was 1971! Good grief, he had spent his entire career at Fort Chartres!
As much as we enjoyed exploring the fort (and we practically had it to ourselves), we realized we needed to get moving if we were going to get to St. Gen at a reasonable hour.
The little town of Prairie du Rocher was our next stop, just about 3 miles down the road. It was the 40 mile point of our ride, so we stopped at the grocery store for a Snickers and drinks. They tasted so good that we added some ice cream for good measure, then set off in high spirits for the ferry. We calculated we should be rolling into our B & B between 4:45 and 5:00, so we didn’t mind the final 10 miles into the wind.
As we pulled down to the ferry landing, all of a sudden, I pulled up in shock!
The ferry wasn’t running due to high water! Let me tell you, that was enough to make a good Baptist cuss. Talk about disheartening. We were just two miles from our B & B after a hard afternoon of riding and no way to get across the Mississippi River. It wasn’t good…..
TO BE CONTINUED
As I was waiting at the hospital the other day to pick Pam up for our commute home, I ran into Cheryl.
We’ve known her for several years. She has a storied history in Springfield’s cycling community, and was a huge distance rider in the past. We first met her at Cox Fitness Center, where she continues to lead spin classes, and have ridden with her on the road few times.
It was good to see her again!
God bless…
TW
OK. I give. I can’t do it.
When I got my first road bike years ago, I read an article talking about some guy named Lance’s techniques. It basically said that the secret to his success was his use of fast cadence and lower gears to “spin” as opposed to “mashing” bigger gears (yeah, right…). I figured there must be something to that, so I set out to learn to spin. Over that first summer, I mastered the technique, and have blissfully spun my through thousands of miles.
What that really meant is that on the two road bikes prior to this one, I rode in the middle chain ring (they were triple’s) 99.996% of the time. That’s where I was comfortable, I could ride relatively fast and efficiently, and life was good. When we got the tandem, that continued to be the case.
Then, two summers ago, I won that bike from Fatty. I decided to go with a compact double instead of a triple. After all, I am a decently strong rider and climber, I never used granny gear up front, and rarely used the big ring. Besides…all the “serious” cyclists ride compact doubles.
Well, let me tell you, I almost regretted that decision. It took me a heck of a long time to get comfortable with that compact double crank. The little ring was too small, and the big one was too big. I was so relieved when I finally got it figured out and figured out how to spin comfortably without having to constantly think about it. Life was good again.
The problem is…I get myself into trouble by thinking. Last fall, I decided our average speed was dropping. I don’t know why, but it just felt like it. I decided to try riding in the big ring more, and gave it a try on a ride we did out to Strafford. It was kind of awkward, and seemed to cause my legs to burn a little more than normally, but I figured I could get used to it. Interestingly, as I look at the average speed from that day, it wasn’t actually much faster than we normally ride on the tandem, but I thought I was on to something.
As we’ve been getting the tandem out more the past month or so, I’ve continued my efforts to acclimate to the big ring, but the results have been horrible. I feel like I’m wearing myself out on hills and rides that were a piece of cake in the past. It’s not been fun at all. The straw that broke the camel’s back came Monday evening on the way home from our first tandem commute during Bike to Work Week. We had a little head-wind, but were riding across the flatness of our fair city and I was dying again. About half-way home, I gave up and shifted to the middle ring. It only took me a few minutes to start berating myself for being so stupid and hard-headed. That ride home started feeling nice almost immediately. Needless to say, I’ve been “stuck in the middle” most of the time since then.
I guess the good thing to come out of the experiment is that I’m now a lot more conscious about knowing when it makes sense to jump into that big ring for a few minutes instead of just blindly spinning along in the middle ring.
God bless…
TW
For the last several years, Pam has joined me in riding our tandem to work for Bike To Work Week. This year is no different, and based on our combined experience, getting both of us to work via the tandem is no big deal.
We both enjoy the week, and in the past Pam has continued on a part time basis through the summer, but in reality, both of us commuting by bike can get to be a little much (in fact, she would tell you that my commuting by bike full time can get to be a little much!), especially for her. Last night was a good example:
So, with that said, we’ll enjoy the week and the extra time together, but two full time bike commuters in the family just isn’t practical.
God bless…
TW
On Saturday, Pam and I met Mike for a ride out through Billings and Clever on a beautiful morning. She was feeling quite a bit better than the day before, but we still cut our planned route from the original 49 miles to 43 in anticipation that she might fade at the end. Luckily, that didn’t happen, but our shortened ride was still for the best because Mike had a work call to deal with and we ended up with an unplanned opportunity in the afternoon that we wouldn’t have wanted to miss.
We were feeling a slight breeze in our faces as we left Battlefield and passed by Wilson’s Creek. That breeze ended up getting pretty strong by the end of the day, which really plays havoc with us on that big bike. Luckily, it was a tailwind later in the ride, so it didn’t hurt us as bad as it could.
We started the day out by losing Mike within the first four miles. He was in front of us and missed a turn. We yelled and waved, but couldn’t get his attention. He was heading uphill, so there was no way we could have run him down, so we made the turn and stopped at the top of a hill where we would have a good view to see him when he figured out he was alone. That didn’t seem to happen quickly, so we decided to move on after trying and failing to reach him by phone. He knew we were heading to Billings, so we hoped he would find his way there.
Unfortunately we didn’t get very far before we found our path blocked by a low water bridge that had been taken out. I looked for a way over it, but couldn’t find a way to do it with dry feet so we headed back the way we came and followed Mike toward the next intersecting farm road that would take us over to County Line Road. Just as we were about to make the turn, here comes Mike with a sheepish grin on his face. I presume he went just about all the way into Republic before he headed back to look for us.
With those issues resolved, we continued our trek to Billings, but within 10 minutes we had lost him again! Same scenario, except this time Pam pulled out the air horn to try to get his attention. It didn’t work. Again, we kept going…this time without bothering to wait. Pam laughingly said she expected him to beat us to Billings.
By the time we got to Billings, I was glad to take a break. From the time you cross Wilson’s Creek until you stop at Casey’s (because we always stop at Casey’s), it’s generally a steady uphill grind. On Saturday, that grind was into the wind, so I was really glad to have that leg of the ride done! Then, as we pulled into the c-store, Pam was right! Mike had beat us. Since he doesn’t ride with a computer, we wondered how many extra miles he had on us. After that one, he seemed to learn the lesson: If you don’t know the route, don’t ride off the front!
From Billings, we turned to the south, then back to the east for a while to circle our way to Clever. I really like those roads out there, even though they can get kind of hilly. Most of the time they’re pretty nice rollers that the tandem handles reasonably well, and the wind was more favorable going south and east. We passed lots of pretty, rolling pastures, woods, and farm houses that were old when I lived there as a boy. Needless to say, those twelve miles passed all too quickly!
We made another c-store stop for good measure. I shed the last of my warm clothes and Pam finally started shedding hers. While we were there, Pam couldn’t resist the temptation to check Facebook for new baby pictures, but she was disappointed to find nothing new.
The final fifteen miles consisted of the steep and long climb out of the Terrell Creek Valley, followed by the rollers over County Line Road, the monster hill on ZZ, then the second crossing of Wilson’s Creek. We’ve ridden that so many times that it seems kind of anti-climatic, but there aren’t really any other reasonable options to get from Clever to Battlefield by bike. The only other way I know involves a long loop to the east that would add a lot of miles.
As we were slowly climbing the hill on ZZ, Pam spotted a deer just across the ditch. Because that’s the battlefield, they’re pretty used to people, but this one did something I’ve never seen one do before. It just stood there watching us as we went huffing and puffing by, but it also kind of squatted with it’s back legs. I don’t know if we caught it taking a dump or what, but I sure thought that odd. It never did run from us. Pam managed to grab a slightly fuzzy picture of it, and I think you can see it’s still partially squatting.
We finished the ride with almost 44 miles at exactly noon. You can click the map above for the full GPS track.
God bless…
TW
