By: Annie Phan
Due to a clerical error by the route coordinating team, AKA me, we were supposed to cover 155.3 miles today. Armina, Steve, and their daughter provided us a plentiful breakfast of toast, avocado, eggs, jam, various spreads, coffee, protein shakes, fruit, and countless other luxuries of the road. We had our wheels down by 4:30am to make the mileage before sundown. Just kidding. This is a joke. We were/are in no place to bike 150 miles in a day. We decided to ride to Columbia, KY, and to drive the van for the remaining 75 miles to Mammoth Cave in one trip. This was made possible by some excellent bike tetris-ing and load optimization by Alex and Bethany. Here are four truths confirmed by today's ride, in no particular order:
1. McDonald’s is the BEST place to take a break, hands down.
Free cold water, clean restrooms, plenty of seating space, and the employees don’t mind a big sweaty group of cyclists stomping around. For the purposes of this tour, I'm more than willing to overlook the plethora of moral and health reasons advising me to steer clear of the golden arches. There are no further requirements for a rest stop.
2. Changing a tire is difficult.
Especially when you forget to replace the punctured tube with a new one.
3. There is a Hidden Valley somewhere between London and Columbia that will strike fear and despair deep into the hearts of any cyclist who dares approach it.
It was late afternoon by the time we reached this valley, and we were heading directly west, so the sun had turned a deep, penetrative, blazing orange which painted the surrounding sky. We started at the top of the valley, at the bottom of which lay a small river, and the road behind it seemed to stretch directly upward like an enormous fortress, dramatically backlit by the setting sun. By the time you realize you want to turn around, you’ve already hurtled halfway down into the valley, so the only choice is to pick up as much speed as possible to bring you up the other side. Eventually the residual speed dies, and you will be left pedaling at your lowest gear, holding on for dear life, on the verge of tears and telling yourself not to stop until you’ve reached the top. This small section of the ride will forever be known in my memory as “The Great Hidden Valley.” I did not see any ranch there.
(I tried finding a photo of this valley on Google Maps, but it doesn't look impressive at all so it has been omitted from this post.)
4. The body is capable of more than you think,
or at least more than I thought. There were stretches of mileage where a small voice in my head screamed, “What are you doing, this doesn’t feel good, please stop, stop, stopstopstopstopstop I need to stop!” With great effort and concentration, you can ignore this voice and continue pushing and pulling the pedals with your little leggos. I still think I haven't quite reached the point where my body was actually unable to continue - my weak brain simply could not handle it. Training is the answer.
After the ride, we settled in for a cozy and sweaty drive to Mammoth Cave, where we stayed at Serenity Hill, hosted by the lovely Richard and Stephanie Shull. They treated us to a fantastic dinner of slow cooked chicken sandwiches, potato salad, pasta salad, and salad salad, along with the fudgiest pecan brownies I’ve ever tasted. Major props to the Shulls.
P.S. Still floundering to maintain the "daily" personal blog at https://squeeksqueek.wordpress.com/ but I'm not doing a good job at all. Enjoy the struggle if you so wish.
Comments