"IT'S 5:11!" announces the oracle in the tent behind mine. Yes, that is AM! No, I didn't want him to share that with me! My initial response was to burrow deeper into the sleeping bag. That was an ongoing process as the temperature dropped through the night. But that didn't last long and I was soon doing my yoga routine and packing more or less simultaneously. An hour later I was on the road looking for a place to eat breakfast. But there is NOTHiNG open in Findlay, Ohio on Sunday morning and that includes gas stations! The good news is the route passed a McDonald's which has the best breakfast for me. The bad news is that we went far to the west, but our destination was east! Go figure. As it was, the 51 mile ride was only 46 miles as measured by everyone but moi. I don't do measurements.
I left just as the sun cleared the trees and the first 10 miles were beautiful with the early morning sun casting long, long shadows. I had such a good conversation going at the western edge of Findlay that I nearly missed a turn. I yelled and swerved right, but the two with me kept on going. A group of riders behind me said they would have also missed the turn if I hadn't caught the turn at the last minute. The capital letter A marks the route. The direction of the point tells you to turn left or right or to continue straight. With the beautiful morning and the great conversation, I didn't see the turn right A's. But as I passed a street going off to the right, I caught an A on the side street out of the corner of my eye. A gift!
The wind was calm, but just as we started east to our destination, the wind rose out of the northeast. There are no hills to worry about in this part of Ohio. But the wind makes up for the flat terrain. There is a lot of wheat grown here, much more than is grown in Central Ohio. I passed the largest wheat field I have seen in Ohio since the 110 acre field was in wheat in the late 1950's. And there is less corn grown here. Interesting, I wonder why.
There seemed to be a lot of road kill on today's route. More than I have ever noticed before. One mischievious person stopped beside a dead raccoon and placed a water bottle under one arm with the spout near the mouth. I'm just as happy to have heard the story instead of experiencing the tableau personally. Lunch break was at 9 in Fostoria. It calls itself train city and that is fully justified. There were at least 8 sets of tracks on our passage through the center of the city. Where could all those tracks go?
The people were the most interesting part of today's ride. Rider #109 is an intrepid, white haired woman who has ridden on all 17 GOBAs. I rode most of the way with a man and his daughter. We averaged exactly 14 miles an hour for the 46 miles. That is faster than I would do on my own, especially with the majority of the ride being into the wind. They are interesting folks that live in this area. At 46 he is a strong rider and his daughter is no slouch herself. She was riding on her first GOBA and has all the strength and endurance of someone in their 20's. Leaving me as the old guy in that group. Tiffin arrived quickly and I was ready to end the first day's ride. It is Father's Day and I am ready laze about for the rest of the day.
Apparently pay phones are a thing of the past. There were none at the Findley fairgrounds. I can find none at fast food places now. They all used to have one for their workers to make phone calls. There was one at the Tiffin fairgrounds, but I had to feed it 50 cents to call home. In past GOBAs they have actually set up a temporary bank of pay phones. It seems I will pay a price for my refusal to own a cell phone. Even my cousin Slagle has one now.
The extra 1800 colories I burned on the bike ride were quickly replaced by the Chinese buffet for dinner. The pasta dinner at the campground was my first choice, but they ran out of food hours before they were scheduled to close. The biggest surprise of the day came when I turned in for the night... my air mattress deflated in less than an hour! I turned the fan on to reinflate it once, with the same result. Rather than disturb my neighbors, I did without for the rest of the night.
6:45 was the time display when I finally deigned to look. That is better than the 5:11 announcement yesterday. But any thought of virtue in sleeping in evaporated. I thought it must be after 8! The good news was air in the air mattress is optional. After yoga and another McDonald's breakfast, I tackled the leak. It was surprisingly easy to find and looked suspiciously like a knife cut. I must be more careful with that pocket knife!
Today is a layover day, free from any structure. Anything interesting on the optional ride was too far away for my taste, so I declared a shank's mare day and walked about Tiffin for the morning. Or part of Tiffin as this is a good sized city. I found a coffee/tea place near Tiffin University and a used book store beside that. That exhausted my to do list for the day. I rummaged the photography section of the store. I need to understand the formal designation for what images I make. I appear to be a landscape and still life photographer. My still lifes are not formal, but result from my love of the macro lens which isolates my subjects. Once back home, I have to prepare a B&W display for the 202 Gallery in Westerville. After 3 years of doing little but color work, this will be a challenge. I am thinking of concentrating on smaller work to draw visitors in to my display. I will also paint my five feet of wall white to call attention to my area. There will be 20 different artists there, so I need to somehow stand out from the crowd. And I want to stop people from doing the 5 mph walkby that I am so good at executing!
I'm watching a jump rope teaching session in one of the buildings at the fairgrounds. The little girl must be about 4 and has boundless energy, but little coordination! This reminds me of my guitar playing. I have much more enthusiasm than talent! And at the moment there is no guitar playing. I could not dig the Japonica thorn out of my left index finger, so I had the EMT folks do that yesterday. They made a mess of my finger, but did remove the offender. Ouch!
"It's 5:45" was today's wakeup call. Since I was mostly done with my yoga, it was okay. Today's ride is 57 miles and it will be warm. So everyone is getting an early start. The good news is the air mattress was fine. My decision to stop looking after finding the first hole was a good one.
The early morning ride was beautiful. We rode along the Sandusky river out of Tiffin. Just as we left the river, I caught a draft with a couple that passed me. In turn, we were absorbed into a larger group that totaled 12 riders. Even riding into the wind, we were going at least 20 mph, which is much more than I can sustain on my own. We were about 3 feet apart, so there was a lot of coordination, with everyone letting everyone else know what they were doing. At that speed we blew past everyone on the road. It was an exhilerating ride that I was sorry to end at the first snack stop.
Green Springs had the best stop so far on the trip. I loved the egg salad sandwich. That is such a perfect early morning snack. Lunch was much less inspiring and I didn't bother with the last stop. I tried a few more drafts, but we never duplicated that magic ride earlier. I think the flat roads helped make it possible. And there is a real power that comes from a large group like that. I have a better understanding of peletrons now. That is the huge mass of riders you se on the TV coverage of the Tour de France. With that extra help, I covered 57 miles in under 4 hours including stops. That is certainly my personal best!
There are two new style trends noticable this year. The first is outlandish hair styles and colors. The youngin's are responsible for this development, as you might imagine. The second is the wearing of sports bras as biking tops by some younger women. I had no idea that they came in so many colors. They certainly make some sense, as long as you are not worried about all the direct skin esposure to the sun. And this generation is not much different than mine. They are little worried about the problem.
I have been starting earlier than in past GOBAs, so I don't know if the early birds are less inclined to announce they are passing. It is noticeably less common this year. I do notice that it is much more beautiful when the sun has just risen and perhaps they are just in the thrall of the moment.
Port Clinton has a beautiful high school, and a population of 14,000. I would expect this to be high season on Lake Erie, but there doens't seem to be a lot happening. There was no one in the Chinese restaurant at the noon hour. This is not an auspicious sign, so I headed to Wendy's, which seems to be my official GOBA restaurant for lunch and dinner. Their manadrin chicken salad is great and if I have a value meal, I can substitute chili for the french fries. All that is missing is variety!
Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. My tent is only a couple of blocks from the Ottawa County Count House and the chimes are quite loud! This is the last layover day. After todays it is ride, ride, ride. But the first order of the day, after morning abulations, is to photograph the mayflies. They are everywhere and there can't be a trout stream within a hundred mile of here! What a waste! A bronze van is covered with them, probably because they are the same color and their only purpose in their one day of existance is to mate. They come from Lake Erie in incalculatable numbers. At the ferry shoreline their bodies were piled inches deep. I am told that they were much worse last week! My brain says "not possible". But I was not here last week.
My right knee is grumbling, so I abandon the bike for a shuttle to the Kelly's Island ferry. Kelley's Island is not a tourist trap. It is a very low key place. I think it would be a great place to spend a weekend at a B&B. That sounds like a google search to me! The ferry to the island runs from Marblehead. They have a small lighthouse there on a point.
Wednesday's entertainment was a bluegrass group that put on a great show. I could hear them well from my tent. I didn't last much past 9 pm.
I never heard the clock clangs, but birds and the rustling of packing finally got me out of bed around six. I left at 7 having done yoga, packing, panicing when I realized I put my wallet in the van, retrieving said wallet and taking breakfast that Magruder Hospital.
I caught a great group not far from Port Clinton and rode with them to the AM snack stop at Oak Harbor. I was really pushed to keep up and in the end I was really burned out too early. I struggled the rest of the way even after cutting 12 miles off the route today. Tomorrow is a long haul to Upper Sandusky and I will not start off so fast. I went a good 5 miles before hooking up with a fast group. The weather is turning increasingly hot, making the ride even tougher. I also ran out of water. That has never happened to me before. I'll make sure I am topped off before leaving tomorrow.
We stayed at another high school in Elmore. They open the common area to the group, making it easy to escape the heat of the day. And there is always a pay phone in the common room. Pay phones are vanishing before the onslaught of cell phones. I will be increasingly isolated by my refusal to have one. But if anything, GOBA makes me even more resistant. I hear cell phones going off in the middle of the night, and I hear more personal conversations than I ever wanted to hear.
Thursday was a quiet ride, as the short cut placed most everyone behind me. I did hear some complaints about how dangerous it is to ride amongst the hoi poi. Elmore is a delightful town that was well prepared for GOBA. I like this town and will return. The arboritum is first rate. Their dawn redwoods are the oldest on this continent. I tried some photos, but need to return with medium format cameras to do them justice. They also have art exhibits and I learned that they plan their 2006 exhibits in late fall. I need to bring a portfolio to them by mid-fall. I am not so sure I can qualify, but I ought to try! This could give me some wider exposure for my photography. I wonder if I could perhaps do a show in Oregon.
Some bad news. The unloaders broke an end off my travel guitar... oh poop! I stopped playing it at this point for no other reason than general discouragement.
The predictions for Friday came true. The 57 mile ride south be will into a head wind, 10 to 20 miles an hour. And there will be serious heat. So many people were up early to tackle the beast before both the wind and the heat seized the day. By the end of the ride I was whipped and wondering if I can do rides over 50 miles comfortably. But I noticed much younger and stronger folks in no better shape. I did stay away from fast packs, keeping in the 14 - 15 mph range. I lost the first pack to a pastry shop. They were youngish women and proved Zoe Williams brilliant riff on female bike riders uncannily accurate. After lunch break I joined Dwight's modest pack and shared the lead spot with him. It made the long slog into the wind a lot faster and more fun. We eventually grew to 43 bikes. But so much lead time really depleted my energy reserves. 14 mph was Dwight's pace, but a 10 to 20 mph head wind makes that serious work. It eventually fell apart from its success. It was quite a sight to see!
By the PM break (just after 10 AM), my Camelback was empty. I've never emptyied it before. The stops didn't help as most now only stock water or Gateraide and the latter is little more than high fuctose corn syrup, which is not an option for diabetics. So I drank my own water at stops. When I arrived at Upper Sandusky, I was thirsty and the Camelback was again dry. The combination of heat and wind was desicating. I think that is why I was so wiped out, as were many others.
Upper is a town of only 6000 people. The local folks do not use the full name. And to make thing worse, Upper Sandusky is far to the south of Sandusky! Go figure. Its claim to fame is that it was the last reservation of the Wyandot (also called Huron) indian tribe. And that didn't last long either. Their was no room for the native people here among the cornfields of the white men.
"It's 5 till 6... not bad" was the comment I heard as I finished my yoga. It is a lot quieter today than it was just last Sunday. Everyone wants to finish the ride, get out of this heat and sleep in a real bed again. I certainly do! Breakfast was simply out of the question for me, with pancakes the only option. I bought an outrageously expensive bagle and hoped for an early stop. And one appeared only 8 miles out. It wasn't an official GOBA stop, but I had an apple and some peanuts. That carried me to the lunch break 9 miles down the road.
The ride back to Findley was more interesting because it was rolling farmland. The only fly in the ointment was I could see the Findley water tower 8 or 9 miles from the end of the ride. That was VERY CRUEL. Not to mention the GOBA route added more miles. It was necessary to keep riders safe, especially because they take up much more of the road than they should. One pickup truck hit the gas and the horn to move an especially large clump of bikes on Route 37. The ride ended without any problems and I even turned the air conditioning on at 10 in the morning. It was that HOT! Oh, and did I say muggy?
"I believe in being nice, being good and being ornery!"
"We tried riding my tandem, but she said I needed to lose 20 pounds and I said she needed to pedal harder. So we ride our own bikes."
"I have to tell you that my husband dropped me off at the AM Snack Stop. I'm in my 70's and I do what I can." (Wonderful... editor)
"OH MY GOD!!" woman's reaction to the mayfly covered van
"Next time I'm bringing a book." -Spurs fan after game 6 of the NBA championship series
"I need a gonad adjustment."
"Sounds like a personal problem to me."
"If there is no dew in the morning, it will rain within 24 hours."
Best Message - Rider #986 - Baby on the way. Don't stop GOBA!
Best Brealfast - Magruder's Hospital, Port Clinton
Best Lunch - Village Inn, Elmore
Best Dinner - Italian American Restaurant, Upper Sandusky
Best Ride - Tiffin to Green Springs
Most Enthusiastic Rookies - Nick and Michelle
Biggest Surprise - Lake Erie Mayfly Hatch, Port Clinton
Hardest Ride - Elmore to Upper Sandusky, 97 degrees, a 10 - 20 mph head wind, and afternoon rain.
Best Convoy - Dwight's 43 bike monster on Friday
Weirdest Paint Job - Klein Bike that changes color as sun hits at different angles.
Best Shortcut - Salem Road to True Road, Thursday
Best Sign - Team Tortuse
Best Tshirt Slogan - "I know... on my LEFT"
Worst Tshirt Slogan - Approach, Pass, Laugh, Repeat
Best Irony: The wearer of the worst tshirt slogan was easily passed.