What a wild ride!

Back home again in Indiana to help shoot a wedding with a buddy of mine. It was a blast. We were running around the Indianapolis Zoo and White River Gardens taking photos of a lovely couple. Afterwards, I hustled home to grab some rest before jumping on my bike in the morning.

Today's ride, initially, did not seem much different than any other ride I've completed this year; however, it slowly turned into one of the more wild rides I've ever had. First off, my legs were not really responding normally. While this is probably due to the combination of running around the wedding, pushing my legs hard in prep for Superweek, and continuing to cut weight to get back down to race weight, it was a little frustrating that my legs were not listening. Oh well. My friend, who was planning on riding with me initially, backed out due to not feeling well, so I was suffering on my own. Or so I thought.

A few miles into my ride, I was ticking over the miles when I got passed by a group of 5 cyclists heading my way. Instinctively, I jumped onto the back and rode with them for a while. The two I met, John and Clayton, were quite nice and encouraged me to join them for the rest of their ride; however, I did not have the nutrition or the legs to ride down to Martinsville and back, a ride totally between 70-80. I found that most of this group was training for the RAIN ride. As I was just shooting for a ride of about 40-50 miles, this was a little longer than I really desired. When my turn came, I said goodbye and peeled off to continue riding solo through the cornfields of Indiana.

The temperatures were starting to climb and my energy was starting to get zapped. I knew that I needed to continue pressing on, because I had quite a ways to go. I climbed the two moderate climbs (the only real climbs on this route or in the area, for that matter). At the summit of the second climb, I encountered my first unexpected challenge of the day: gravel. Mind you, I rode basically this same route this past Monday when I was in town with Kari and her family; however, there was no gravel on this section of road then. Since Monday, there was a thin layer of gravel on a 1/4 to 1/2 mile section of road. I was thankful that I got off the road without too many issues.

I would like to title this next bit: man I'm tired, oh crap, there's a dog in the middle of the road. On this route, there are quite a few sections where we have dogs chase us; however, I successfully made it through all of those sections without a single four-legged critter taking chase. This next part, I was not so lucky. As I'm climbing a little bump, I noticed a very athletic looking black labrador retriever standing in the middle of the road. I also noticed that his owner was sitting in a truck getting ready to pull out of his driveway. I slow down to approach the dog to see what he's going to do. As I get closer and closer, the dog doesn't bug. I'm thinking, "Great! This might just be my day! Here's a dog that doesn't seem interested in chasing me! Woot!". I slowly start making my way around, in the ditch and grass to provide ample room to not piss off the dog. The next thing I know, he starts charging me and I'm in the grass. I accelerate through the turn; however, I'm accelerating so fast that I end up slightly off the road on the other side of the street. Watching the dog get up to speed, I start cranking it up as high as I get it. I look at my speedometer and notice 27 mph, and I start thinking, "Ok, this should be a little above his top speed". I glance back, and he's just a few feet behind me. Crap! I keep hammering the pedals for another 1/2 mile or so before he finally gives up and turns home. If only it would've been a little or fat dog, but no, I ended up with the athletic dog. The small amount of reserves I did have are now gone and my heart is racing. I took a second to thank God for making me a sprinter and helping get me away from the teeth!

Ok, so at this point, I really want to be off my bike, not have to ride for another 15-20 miles to get home. I continue trucking along and decide to take a more direct route home. Upon coming up to a stop light, I see the sign "Road Closed Ahead". During my short life on this planet, I've learned that this sign usually does not mean that the road is closed, but that they are working on it and would prefer not to have large amounts of vehicular traffic coming through. I've also learned that cyclists can usually sneak through most, if not all, road closed sections by walking or riding off road for a few seconds. I'm beat and do not want to take the detour, so I take my chances on going through the road closed section. Wouldn't it be that the one road that really is out is the one in front of me when I'm thoroughly gassed. Not only that, but the guys are actually working, thus making it entirely too unsafe for me to try to sneak through. I survey the situation and see a parking lot to my left and another parking lot that connects to a cross street that may be helpful for getting me out of there. The only challenge is that the two parking lots are not connected, but they have a decent amount of grass and geese between them. I'm too tired to turn around, so I hammer off into the grass, avoid the geese, and get into the other parking lot. I find myself at an entrance to a subdivision on the other side and ask a nice older couple for directions back to the road I want to be on. Success!

A few miles from home, I was completely out of fluids. I also had to direct traffic to pull up closer to me. I had some people who were jerks and tried to run me off the road and others who gave so much distance that we didn't trigger the traffic lights. Anyways, I'm sure you can tell that I made it. I was very happy to be off my bike, done with this crazy ride and get some fluids. Good luck to Chris during Pewaukee tomorrow!

Here's the data for those of you interested: Waverly Route