Putting the "Whee!" in Weekend

The RandoDaughter graduated from high school this past weekend. We had lots of family in town, and dinners, and cake, and big breakfasts, and more cake.

RandoBoy goes slow uphill when he is fat with cake.

It was a blast, though, and I was so proud of the RandoDaughter ... but, then I almost always am. She is smart and pretty and funny and talented, of course, but mostly -- as my mom once said -- she "has a good heart." I enjoy being with her, and there aren't too many people that I can say that about.

Riding the Rapha Route

Anyway, after all that cake, and spending Sunday afternoon waiting for the rain (which, of course, never came), I was soooo ready for a long ride on Memorial Day. Fortunately, Gran Fondo (a.k.a., The Greatest Bike Shop in the Universe) had a doozy: Vida Greer's "Killing Me Softly" route in Leiper's Fork.

Vida meticulously created this route to submit to Rapha (makers of some uber-nice cycling stuff) as one of their Rapha Continental epic rides. It does some of the usual roads that we ride down that way, plus a few of the unusual ... and unusually hard ... roads.

Although we started with a bunch of racers, somehow fellow randonneur Peter Lee and I ended up off the front after about 20 miles. He had just done a sub-five-hour century on Saturday -- the Clarksville Rotary Annual Metric (CRAM) -- but you would never have noticed as we swapped off pulls at just under 25 mph. We slowed a bit going up such roads as Ragsdale, which is short but steep, and I slowed down going into corners with gravel.

A few other riders caught up with us as we ate lunch at Fly, but none of them were interested in doing the full 105-mile route. Three tandems rolled in just before we left, but we had been sitting too long by then and needed to move on.

We kept expecting it to start raining, but as we headed south the sun came out. Peter and I missed a turn somewhere in there, so we didn't get to climb up the hill with the cell tower, and then later climb up to Theta. We ended up with only 100 miles, but that was enough to burn off at least two pieces of graduation cake.

Three more rides like that and I'll be able to climb again.

Meanwhile, Further South ...

While we were enjoying short rides (yes, a century is a short ride ... comparatively), Jeff Bauer and Alan Gosart were finishing the new route from the Audax Atlanta sadists: The Long Hammer 600K. Fourteen started ... eight finished (three of them RAAM racers). Need I say more?

If you want to read more about it, RBA Andy Akard posted a great write-up on their site. I talked to Jeff about it last night before the Harpeth Bicycle Club's ride in Cool Springs, and he said it is the hardest 600K he has ever done. It probably didn't help that Jeff had a broken spoke on his rear wheel. He didn't notice it until last night, but sleep deprivation will do that to you.

Jeff described the new route this way: "Imagine doing Six Gaps, and then a 300K, and then doing Six Gaps again."

This one is destined to be epic ... maybe too epic for a Rapha Continental route. I can't wait for next Memorial Day.

The Red Band

If you read my blog from Wednesday, I’d like to know how you did that. There weren’t any words, so there was nothing to “read.”

But, if you perused my blog from Wednesday (self-satisfied smirk on my face here – yes, I know: It’s not my best look), you may be wondering about the red thing wrapped around my vestigial right biceps in the top picture. That was supposed to be an armband, although it was really a red pocket silk.

Anybody else out there old enough to remember when pocket silks made a brief comeback in the late 80s? Wasn’t that fun?! Ranked right up there with socks with weird designs. We were all trying to spice up the gray pin-stripe uniform in those days.

But, I digress … which should come as no surprise.

At Wednesday’s Ride of Silence, we were supposed to wear armbands: Black to honor cyclists who had been killed in automobile accidents, or Red if you had been killed in an automobile accident yourself.

What? Oh, sorry. Red if you had been hit by an automobile yourself. That makes more sense.

RandoBoy Got Run Over By a Reindeer

So, when was I hit by a car? Well, it was back when I was 14 years old, just before the Early Apoplectic Period. And, to be fair, I did hit the car first.

As a youth, I loved to ride my bicycle everywhere. So, naturally, I was one of those geeky kids that rode his bicycle to school any time the weather was halfway decent. This is, of course, in stark contrast to my life now, when I am one of those geeky adults that rides his bicycle to work even when the weather totally sucks.

It was fall, and the weather was great. I had ridden to school that morning, doing the gentle one-mile climb out of my neighborhood, looking forward to the return trip that afternoon. What 14-year-old boy does not love a long downhill on a bike?

As I started into the neighborhood that afternoon, a telephone company van passed me. I was just getting up to speed, spinning fast, but he was easily doing over 25 mph and I figured he would get out of the way. He disappeared before I started over the steepest part of the descent – a mild right turn where some high-tension wires ran through the neighborhood – so I kicked the speed up a little more.

I was probably doing about 35 mph when I got around the turn and saw the van stopped in the intersection about 200 yards ahead of me. He had not turned on his turn signal, so I assumed that he was turning right. I moved to the left.

He turned left.

I hit the brakes and turned more left, going up into the yard of the house there, hoping that he would make his turn slowly or I could scrub the rest of my speed.

He picked up speed. I didn't scrub.

Blammo

The bike smacked into the driver’s side door, and my head bounced off his window. I flew over the hood, rolling on the pavement in front of him. He hit the brakes and my bike went under his wheels. I remember getting to my feet as soon as I stopped rolling, thinking he might still be coming. I don’t know if that kept me from getting squished or not.

Once he stopped, the driver jumped out and asked if I was okay. He led me over to the curb and made me sit down, and one of the neighbors on that street came out, followed by all of the neighbors on the street. It was a block party!

Somebody called an ambulance, and somebody else called my house. My grandmother was staying with us, since my parents were out of town, and she soon came by. I kept telling people not to call her, that I was fine, but I really didn't want to scare her.

They took me to the hospital and X-rayed everything. Oddly enough, nothing was broken. I had a few scrapes and a big knot on my head. For some reason, my legs swelled up.

Considering the fact that I was not wearing a helmet, I was pretty lucky. Of course, this was 1974 and the bicycle helmet had probably not been invented then, but that would not have been much solace to my parents if I had been killed.

What could I have done differently? Not much, really. Maybe hit the brakes a little earlier, or figured that the telephone repair guy might not know the neighborhood and could get confused up ahead. Ultimately, although we cyclists should have the same rights as automobiles, we lack the protection of that steel cocoon. We have to be smarter – and sometimes a little more nimble – than cars are.

And having a hard head doesn't hurt, either.