Drinking Problem

One day the Seyboro Cyclists decided to ride to the beach. This is a regular occurrence – you ride about eighty miles (or a hundred if you want to start from a more distant location), you eat a big meal, you get driven back home, and a good time is had by all.

A beach ride was scheduled, but there were a few of us unfortunate souls who couldn’t give up the entire day to a bike ride, no matter how fun it would have been, so we decided to ride part way with the group and then turn around and head back home. We’d get a lot of miles, we’d get to ride with friends, it would be great.

There was one teensy little problem: it was hot.

No, let me rephrase that. It was scorchingly blisteringly hot.

The heat is not really my friend, but I was doing fine when we set out. (Of course I was. It was early in the morning, so it wasn’t hot yet.) My problem came at the turnaround point. By this time I was starting to feel a little bit cooked, and my bottles were empty. That’s when I made the mistake.

Since we’d be driving back, that meant we had a nice little convoy of vehicles with us, so they sagged the ride, carrying food and drinks for the rest of us. I needed to get my bottles refilled, and, as I wasn’t paying attention, they were refilled with a sports drink that I will call CrocodileAde instead of using its real name because I’m subtle that way.

Now, being a biologist by training, I understand about hydration and electrolyte replacement and natremia and borborygmus and defenestration. (Okay, so those last two aren’t, strictly speaking, related to drinking, but the next to last one is certainly related to many cyclists I have known and the last one would be a form of exercise.)

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah.

Being a biologist by training, I understand about hydration and electrolyte replacement, but most sports drinks are just too thick and too sweet for my taste. I’d rather take an electrolyte replacement capsule and just drink water. I took my first sip of CrocodileAde, and it just sort of coated my mouth with sticky sweetness. This was not what I wanted while trying to ride in 90 degree plus temperatures. Gradually, without realizing it, I began to drink less and less.
By the time we got back onto home roads, I was dehydrated and fried.

We hit a road that I had ridden scores of times, and I figured I could do the ten or twelve miles home on that road under any conditions. After all, I had ridden that road in the wind, in the rain, in the group, after having been dropped…this was my territory, and I was comfortable. I was also wrong.

I was, however, not capable of doing more than about twelve miles and hour. We had a pick-up truck with us, and I could certainly have allowed them to pick me up, but I didn’t. I got some water from them and dropped some ice down my back, but the water was too little and too late. I tried to get the other riders to go on because I was afraid I was spoiling their ride, but they wouldn’t leave me.

So why didn’t I get in the truck? Well, it starts with st…

Stupidity? Stubbornness? Stupendousness?

Something like that, anyway.

Well, we slogged back home.

Slowly.

In fact, I think we gradually slowed down.

Well, I gradually slowed down out of necessity and they gradually slowed down so as to not leave me.

About two miles from the parking lot they left me. Finally. They wanted to sprint for home. I just wanted to crawl slowly. In fact, I think I was limping and crawling while riding my bike. I am a multi-tasker.

The driver of the truck decided to autopace me. This let me get my pace up to about twelve miles and hour, I think. I had never autopaced before. It might have been fun if I hadn’t been parboiled. I kept wanting to go faster, but all the driver had to do in order to speed up was press down on the accelerator, while I had to press on the pedals, and I just couldn’t press anymore. My path down the street was so wobbly that any passing police officer would have stopped me for a chat.

I finally dragged my sorry self back to the parking lot and pulled into the shade and stayed there.

Of course, I didn’t have my car and I lived three miles away from the parking lot…

No, I had my cell phone. I could call for pickup, and I did.

Finally.

A few days later, with a camelback strapped on, I went for a sixty-five mile solo ride just to prove to myself that my problems had been due to poor hydration and not to just being me.

That was good.

Drink drink drink. Water, that is. That’s the thing.

See you on the road.

Fresh As A...Flounder?

It was 85 degrees out with a heat index of 95 and 59% humidity. Is that the most boring beginning to a blog post ever, or do I need to try harder? I thought I’d do a little exploring but wouldn’t push myself too hard because of the heat. It was like trying to ride while wearing a warm, wet blanket.

Yech.

I decided to explore a little bit, which usually means that I’m going to get lost, and that is, in fact, what happened. The road I started out on has a few hills and a couple of dogs. Following some excellent advice left in a comment, I had a pocket full of rocks ready, but the two most troublesome dogs were penned up. They barked with deep regret as I passed, but other than vocally they were no-shows.

The county I live in has no signed bike routes, but I wandered into the next county and took bike route seven just to see where I ended up.

It was shortly after that I got lost for a time.

I had on a cap underneath my helmet, but, after a while, every time I had to stop for a stoplight or sign (What?! You stop at stop signs?!!! – Yes, especially when not stopping is likely to end up with me decorating someone’s front grille) the sweat would run down into my eyes.

I passed – and let us remember the temperature here – some people selling seafood out of a trailer on a corner, and not a refrigerated trailer, either. They had an umbrella over it, but that was pretty much it. I'm not sure how effective that was at keeping the fish fresh. Several items on their sign had been crossed off, either because they had sold out of it or it had gone so far bad that no one would possible buy it. I’m not going to try and figure out which.

The cars were especially bad at passing me. I don’t know why. Something in the air, maybe, like the smell of seafood that’s been baking in the sun all morning…

A guy on a motorcycle got behind me and honked at me. A guy in a flatbed truck got behind me and laid on the horn. Then someone screamed me in my ear and my heart rate went through the roof. It turned out that no one had screamed. I was being passed by a small truck, and the screaming sound was coming from it’s engine. I’m no mechanic or anything (in fact, I’m pretty much the complete opposite of a mechanic) but I don’t think it was supposed to sound like that.
I passed a school bus that had been converted into a flatbed truck. There are a lot of converted school buses around here. They must sell those things cheap.

I passed a road with a name I recognized (how do you forget a name like Titus Mewborn?) and turned on to it. A couple of miles later I was at an intersection that I knew well and, just like that, I wasn’t lost anymore. Nice.

After a nice thirty mile ride I was nearly back home when someone screamed in my ear again, and my heart rate shot up just like before. It turned out that the same truck was passing me again. Boy. I wish they’d get that thing fixed.

It was something of an eventful day, I guess. It was still a good ride, though I admit that I was kind of done in by the end of it, mostly due to the heat. And I hungry. I wonder if those guys selling the fish have any...no, never mind.

See you on the road.

Where Am I?

Wow. Fried by the sun and beaten to death by the wind all in the same day. Is this a great sport or what?! It was hot today. Everything was hot. Even the wind was hot.

At first I was going to say that it was like wind from Death Valley, but I suppose that a Death Valley wind would be dry, so, on second thought, this was more like a swamp wind. The wind blowing in your face (and it blew in my fact a lot today) was like having someone put a hot wet blanket on you. It was unpleasant is what I’m trying to convey.

Of course, where I ride isn’t actually swampy at all. You don’t hear the distant sound of a whippoorwill or the roar of an alligator. Around here, surrounded by corn and tobacco, by old shacks on the verge of collapse, apparently held together only by the kudzu, you’re more likely to hear the sound of a distant banjo being pluck by a young boy.

Ding-a-ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

Ride fast. Ride very fast.

I set myself a minimum pace to ride at, and I did finish the ride above that pace, but it was tough.

I passed a man who was all in brown – brown pants, brown shirt, brown hat, even his skin was brown. He was wearing green tinted sunglasses and had a big plastic tank on his back with a hose coming from it. As I passed him, he was vigorously pumping a handle attached to the tank. We each looked at the other curiously. It was a little weird.

I passed a subdivision which was clearly the place to find your thrill. If you’re old enough or your taste in music is varied enough, you now know the name of the place. If not, you’re probably confused by what you just read.

I got chased by a medium sized black dog. I was doing about twenty when the dog spotted me. Without even a second of hesitation, and paying no heed to the voice calling him, the dog took off after me. He was at a distant corner of the yard, so I wasn’t worried. The advantage was all mine.

Or so I thought.

From his first kick that dog started gaining on me., and I really had to lift the pace to leave him behind. I barely made it. The dog came out into the street after me, put his head down, and ran. I went up through the gears and pedaled as hard as I could, and I just managed to gap him. Once I got a gap, I was able to extend it and then the dog gave up, which is good, but I wasn’t going to be able to keep that pace up for any time at all.

And I got lost. Did I mention that?

I wanted to get at least thirty miles in, so I decided to explore a bit. I ended up exploring a lot and got well and truly lost. I had a vague idea which direction home was, so I started picking roads that looked like they might go in the direction I wanted, and I was eventually right, but only after an solid hour of wandering around with no clear ideas about where I was.

Why is it that riding roads you don’t know is harder than riding roads you do know?

I was tired by the time I finally got back home, but I felt great for having gotten some miles in.

Maybe I’ll manage to get some more tomorrow.

See you on the road.

241

I had a two for one sale today.

My Lovely Lovely drove me to work with my bike in the belly of the beast. I parked it in one of the classrooms because, well, I had to park it somewhere, and I don’t think the bike racks outside look particularly solid, somehow.

Seeing it, one of the students asked me how far away I lived. “Oh, just six miles is all.” The student was impressed by the idea of riding a bike six miles, while I was thinking that it was barely a ride at all. Same language, different worlds.

When it was finally time to head home, it was 92 degrees out. The sky was nearly cloudless, and the wind could have been unpleasant. Fortunately, however, it was blowing in the right direction.

I got stopped at road construction. There was the guy holding the sign that ordered us all to stop, there was the one car in front of me, there were the various cars lining up behind me. The guy finally turned the sign to the side that says, “Slow.” As I pedaled past him, I said, “Slow is the only speed I’ve got in this heat.”

“I heard that,” he said. I assume that was agreement and not merely acknowledgement that I was audible, but I could be wrong.

I took it easy all the way home, but the water in my bottle, filled up from the fountain but with no ice, tasted warm and flat. I cruised into the garage and then decided to go for a real ride. Since I had skipped lunch, I went for some instafood.

In-sta-food /ɪn-stə-füd/ - any substance sold in can which is designed to be plopped into a bowl, microwaved and eaten (not the can, the substance in the can). While it is marketed for human consumption, this should not be taken to indicated that it is either (A) palatable or (B) actually edible. Common ingredients include pasta, rice, a meat-like substance and (presumably) styrofoam, rubber bands, and wood caulk.

I followed this up with a couple of precautionary antacids, got kitted out and hit the road, covered in sunscreen. I figured I had less than an hour before my Lovely Lovely would get home from work, and I didn’t want to fry my brain in the heat, so I went for an easy fifteen miles.
The wind had other ideas about how easy my ride would be, but voicing my complaints, which I did, didn’t seem to have much effect on it.

I passed a giant farm machine spraying a mysterious fluid onto dirt. When I later passed that same spot again, the farm machine was gone, but it had left a cloying odor in it’s wake that make me wonder how much good breathing it in was doing my lungs. Hooray for the great outdoors.

The rest of the ride was quite pleasant, really, except for the heat. I'm not sure how much of my water I drank and how much of it I poured down the back of my neck. I do remember emptying my first bottle and grabbing the second, which was insulated. That water was still ice cold when it hit my back, and it was pleasant agony as it rolled down my back. I also cheated and took a break for a moment in the shade of a building.

I managed to make it home and get showered just in time to greet my Lovely Lovely as she got home from work. This was what I call a good day. Two rides. Not bad at all.

See you on the road.

Saturday Commute

This was a day of ups and downs, even though there weren’t a lot of hills on my commute.

It was Saturday and I had to work

But

I could go in whenever I felt like it

But

They had turned off the air condition in the building, so it was hotter and more humid (humidor?) inside than it was outside

But

Nobody else was there so I could crank up my music while I worked

But

My Lovely Lovely was going to be out of town all day with our only working vehicle

But

I would get to commute on my bike

But

Well, you get the picture. For every down there was an up and for every up there was a down. Which reminds me – don’t you hate it when you struggle your way up to the top of a hill only to find that the road levels out and there isn’t any down after all of that up.

No down after an up in life is good, but on hills, not so much.

My Lovely Lovely drove me to work on her way out of town. I pulled my bike out of the back and pedaled down the sidewalk toward my building, and that’s where I spotted another bike sitting near the elevator – a hybrid with panniers no less.

“I’m not the only one,” I said. I may have said it out loud. I can only imagine how that remark, coming out of the blue, might have struck anyone who happened to overhear me saying it to myself.

Unlike the mysterious stranger, I was not prepared to leave my bike outdoors unsecured. Unfortunately, the elevator wasn’t working, so I did my own version of cyclocross up the stairs. A hybrid is not made for cyclocross. It’s heavy, for one thing.

I had to carry my bike upstairs

But

I would get to ride it home again

See? Ups and downs…

As I noted earlier (down) they turn off the air on the weekends, so it was actually hotter and more humid inside than it was outside, and that’s going some. When I was finally ready to leave, I was glad to be out in the burning sun instead of locked up in the sweat lodge.

Because the campus was empty (the students have more sense than to be there on a Saturday) I took an unusual short cut across the middle of campus. As soon as I got out of the shelter of the buildings, it was made abundantly clear to me that I would have the company of a headwind all the way home.

It was really windy

But

Hm…

But

Um…nope. I’ve got nothing for that one. It was just really windy.

I don’t listen to music while riding out on the road – I like to use my ears to hear cars approaching from behind me, but I sometimes have a song in my head to keep me company anyway. It seems quite appropriate that today’s song was Burning Mirage by The Madeira.

I was determined today to take it quite easy. It was way too hot for anything else.

There was less traffic (hooray for Saturday) and a new stretch of road, as smooth as silk and a lot of fun to ride on. My computer wasn’t working, so I couldn’t have worried about the numbers even if I’d been inclined to. It was really quite peaceful – if you exclude the big furry dog who may only have wanted to play but who caused my heart rate to shoot up dramatically.

It was a very laid back ride, and a very pleasant one to boot. If I have to go in to work on a Saturday, that’s a great way to finish off the workday.

See you on the road.

A Passing Thing

When I got home Monday, almost the first words I heard when I walked in the door were, "Mom doesn't want you to ride to work anymore."

Hm.

The my Lovely Lovely said, "You're not doing this anymore." Since I was in the process of taking off my helmet, gloves and RoadId (not to mention having heard the previous comment - it's amazing how I can pick up on subtle clues like that) I gather that she was talking about riding to work.

"Why not?" I naively asked.

"It's too hot."

That one stopped me. I was prepared for "it's not safe," but I wasn't ready for that one.

Fortunately, a clever reply leaped immediately into my mind.

"No it's not."

Okay, so apparently it wasn't that clever, but it was all I had.

"Yes it is. And it isn't safe." Well, I rode in the belly of the 2000 lb beast yesterday, but we talked some more and I was able to ride into work today without any hard feelings.

It felt pretty warm this morning, though the weather report said it was only 73. I have a feeling the humidity is was through the roof. I took it easy since I didn't want to offend anybody at work. Of course, a good sweaty odor keeps people away so you can get your work done...

And I decided to count how many cars passed me and how many of them passed me safely. To be fair (in other words, to make sure I wasn't being overly sensitive) I only counted it as unsafe if it made say, "Yikes!" or some other expletive. If all I said was "Well...." I counted it as safe.

The tally - 63 of 84 cars passed me safely. I wheeled my bike into my office this morning and found this on my door:


I'm going to leave it there. It made me laugh out loud. (In case you don't recognize the strip, it's Pearls Before Swine.) Well, now I'm at work, so I'd better do some.

See you on the road.

The Wind Beneath My Wheels

I have been reading blogs of great social significance lately, written by people who have something to say and who say it well. This is not one of those blogs.

A well-known U.S. writer once said that while everyone talked about the weather, nobody seemed to do anything about it. (Of course, the writer is so well known that we aren’t actually sure who he was - Mark Twain or Charles Warner. This has been your literary digression for the day.)

Does complaining about the weather qualify as doing something about it?

Today was hotter and windier than yesterday, so, of course, I went out to do a longer harder ride. That makes perfect sense. Right?

Yesterday a dog threatened me verbally. I went by the same yard and saw him again. He was tied to the same chain, jumping about in exactly the same way and probably making exactly the same threats as yesterday, but he had inexplicably lost about sixty pounds, shrunken considerably and grown a lot of brand new long fur in three different colors. Most peculiar.

As I headed home, the dog was still there, but he had returned to his appearance of yesterday. I suspect there is some sort of leak in the space time continuum in that spot. Or, I may have been suffering from some sort of heat induced hallucination. Maybe there was actually no dog at all. (There may also be some other explanation, but I’m not interested in complicating matters, so I’m going to go with the space time continuum thing.)

I passed a lot of roads whose names had religious significance:

Church of God Road

Antioch Road

Big Daddy’s Road

Okay, I’m not certain that last one was intended to have religious significance, but you never know.

I followed nearly the same route as yesterday, varying it just enough to ride by the scenic dump which, curiously, has a sign on it that says, “No dumping at this site.” I'm still trying to figure that one out.

The cars were all very polite to me, swinging wide to give me plenty of space and passing me safely, but I found it interesting that , when a car whizzes past you at fifty miles an hour, you can still smell cigarette smoke coming through the open window.

Someone very politely said “Hi” to me, but I have no idea who it was, as I was pulling into a headwind at the time and didn’t really have the energy to lift my head up long enough to look around. I did manage to respond verbally. It pays to be courteous, after all.

It was baking hot out there. Even the wind was hot. By the time I got back home, I was red and sweating, possibly a little sunburned, but I was feeling good none the less. Two rides in two days. Imagine that. A little more of this and I might actually be a cyclist again.

Riding in the heat has never been my favorite thing to do. I'd much rather ride when it's 45 than when it's 95, but I'd much rather ride when it's 95 than not ride at all. Which reminds me of the time I nearly got heat stroke, but that's another post. Now I'm going to go get a shower.

See you on the road.