SpringfieldCyclist.com – Tracy Wilkins’ Cycling Weblog

Well, I left home intending to take copious notes and write up detailed entries of my adventures last week, but the notebook I took with me ended up a slimy mess of paper pulp in the bottom of my handlebar bag, and I was so disheartened that I blew it off.  The net is that I’m gonna try to give an abbreviated version of my week.

Day 1 – Saturday

After a three hour bus ride from Tulsa to Marrietta, I put up my tent and headed off into a strong head wind for the Texas border.  It was a struggle, even though the route was primarily downhill to the Red River, with my average speed over the really bad road into the head wind hovering somewhere around 14 mph.  I managed to draft for a while off the back of a recumbent who was obviously more aerodynamic than I was, but he sat so low to the ground that it wasn’t a good draft.

After the obligatory picture at the Texas border….(believe it or not, I guess the guy taking my picture didn’t actually take it – because it wasn’t there), I headed back uphill, and it was a sweet ride with the gusting wind at my back.  It made the pain of the trip down worth it.  I’m not sure of my average speed, but I think I stayed above 20 mph the entire 15 miles back.

Day 2 – Sunday

Sunday’s ride was pretty awesome.  The strong south winds were still present, and 50+ of the 63 miles were directly north.  The day’s ride was capped by a long climb (4-5% grade) to the top of the Arbuckle Mountains, and the blazing ride down.  Also of interest during the climb was the two big honking roadkill rattlesnakes on the way up.  Someone had posed one of them on a beer can and cut off it’s rattles (more than I would be willing to do).  I was also interested to see a bunch of tarantulas crossing the road early in the day.  By the time I finally decided to stop for a picture of one, I didn’t see another one the rest of the day.

After arriving in Sulpher, I headed off in search of the swimming holes we had been told about at the nature center.  I met up with Travis and Fran, and we ended up having a great swim.

Day 3 Monday

There is absolutely nothing good to say about Monday’s ride.  I’ve ridden 100 miles in the rain before, but it was not as miserable as this 64 miles in the cold, wind and rain.  Because of all the pushing into the strong head wind, by the time I got to Seminole, my knee was throbbing so badly I could barely get off the bike.

Our camping site was actually under about 4 feet of water when I arrived, and the Chamber of Commerce people had arranged for us to bed down in several indoor locations about town.  I chose the Senior Citizen’s center because it was limited to the fewest people.  Unfortunately, some of those people/idiots started talking about getting up at 4:00 am to get an early start on the next day’s ride.  Since the rain had ended, I decided to pitch my tent outdoors, and got a much better (but still an early morning disturbance from the early risers) night’s sleep.  As nightfall approached, the other guy outside (from Stillwater, but I forgot his name) and I tried to figure out how to turn off the yard lights, and a neighbor lady took pity on us by loaning us some dog blankets to throw over them.  There is more to this story…..

Day 4 – Tuesday

After yesterday’s knee wrenching agony, I decided to try to take it very easy on today’s 53 mile ride to Henrietta, but I really struggled with the ride.  I’m not sure if I was trying to take it too easy or what, but by the time I got to town, I was shot.

The day started with a near catastrophy.  Before I even got out of town, as I was turning on to the highway, I was a little concerned with what the car next to me was going to do and managed to ride right into a huge crack between two slabs of pavement.  The bike came to a quick stop, I pretty much had to bail and ran out of the pedals, leaving the bike standing in the crack.  There was a little bit of damage to the front wheel, with several deep scratches and burrs, and the wheel was knocked a little bit out of true.  As I pulled into Henryetta at the end of the day, I stopped at an auto parts store and bought some sandpaper and spent 30 minutes or so sanding out the burrs on both the front and back wheels.  I had my spoke wrench with me, and was able to re-true the front wheel as well.

As we stopped at a rest stop at Weleetka, a small hole in the wall place that looked like it was poor as a church mouse, we discovered that there had been a brutal murder on Sunday involving two young girls.  There were a few girls at the school trying to sell some baked goods to raise money to help pay for funerals, and they were invited to our evening campsite later to try to raise more funds.  At the end of the day, the Freewheel riders had contributed $4,000, prompting an emotional thank-you from one fo the fathers and the principle of the school the girls had attended.

Day 5 – Wednesday

Today was our longest ride, and really was my best day of the week.  The wind was favorable, and in spite of quite a few hills later in the ride, I felt really good at the end of the day when I pulled into Drumright.

At some point during the morning, I managed to run into Jason Kearney.  I found his blog while searching for Oklahoma Freewheel information, and continue to read him occasionally.  If he hadn’t introduced himself, however, I wouldn’t have known him.

In the evening, there was a crit in town that was called SpeedWheel.  It is not affiliated with Freewheel, but is traditionally held on Wednesday of Freewheel week in whatever town they are in.  It was interesting, but let’s face it, cycling is a hard sport to follow as a spectator. 

As I was waiting for the shuttle out to the bike race, I noticed two old blankets laying on the ground by the luggage truck.  When they came to pick up our luggage at the Senior Center the other day, they also took the two dog blankets we borrowed from the lady next door!  I had to laugh, but I really felt bad that we had taken the lady’s blankets.  I tried to call back later, but couldn’t find the right number for the Senior Center.  At least I tried…

Day 6 – Thursday

This should have been a fairly easy ride, but there were 30 miles smack in the middle where we had a really strong cross wind and really sucky roads sandwiched between two stretches of tail wind.  As with yesterday, today’s ride was kind of hilly, and had it not been for the final 10 miles into Perry with a strong tail wind and smooth pavement, I would have been really perturbed with the day’s ride.  The roads have been pretty bad all week, but today literally beat me to death.

We camped on the town square in Perry, and it was one of the nicest campsights of the trip.

Day 7 Friday 

Against the wind all day.  It was a nothing to do but put your head down and pedal kind of day.  All day long.  We had a few miles of light rain, but the big item of the day was the wind. 

At one point, two teenage boys caught up with me and asked how far out we were.  When I replied “Six miles”, they both groaned like they didn’t think they could make it.  I told them to jump on my wheel and rotate through a paceline with me and we would make it in no time.  They weren’t very good at it, but we did make it to town pretty quickly. 

Our campsight was on the campus of Northern Oklahoma College, which was a pretty nice little campus.  They had an evening concert of western swing music (not necessarily my taste), and a fairly nice dinner for us.

Day 8 – Saturday

The final day of riding was actually the best overall day we had.  It started out a little foggy, but for the first time this week, there was no wind.  Coupled with fairly OK roads and absolutely flat terrain, I managed my fastest average speed of the week at 17.9 mph.  The final 40 miles of the trip passed quickly, leaving me with nearly 4 hours to kill before the bus left for Tulsa.

I had no more than gotten started this morning when I noticed some sort of grinding noise/feeling coming from the bottom bracket.  It didn’t seem too bad, but when I got home and started cleaning the bike, I could tell that there is something amiss.  After taking it out and giving everything a good cleaning, about 1/2 of each pedal revolution still won’t spin freely, so it’s looking like the bottom bracket is toast. 

Overall impressions:

I’m really spoiled by the great road surfaces we have here in Greene County.  I can ride all over the county and rarely encounter the bad road surfaces that seem to be prevelant in Oklahoma.

Like most of these rides, there are a bunch of folks that participate in Oklahoma Freewheel year after year.

I was a little disappointed at the lack of stuff to see on this trip.  I’m not sure if it was just this particular route, or what….

Would I do it again?  Maybe… but probably not for a few years. 

Bus transportation was definitely easier to deal with on this ride than the Kansas ride where we had an 8 hour trip across Kansas.

Here’s a link to most of the pics I took…..

I’m looking forward to getting back on the tandem on Tuesday.

God bless….

TW