Washing Away the Pain

Saturday's forecast called for rain. Sometimes, unfortunately, the weather guys get it right.

I got up early -- before dawn, actually -- and took a long walk around Inverness. Eventually, I ended up back at Little Italy for another morning of capuccino and little cookies. Alfredo also had this wonderful pastry that he called a clam shell -- thin dough filled with sweet cream cheese.

Although I cannot give you an online taste of how good this pastry was, I can give you a look at this morning. Vida and Lynn Greer are there with Britton Kinnard, starting their recovery ride, and yours truly is there briefly in street clothes. Chuck Dunn filmed Alfredo in his kitchen working on a wedding cake. Alfredo had been up since 4 am working on the catering for this wedding, plus our dinner Saturday night.

Max Watzz is going to be so pissed when he gets his body back and finds that I have made it fat.

By the way, as you watch Alfredo, tell me if you don't think he looks like Stanley Tucci. RandoGirl said this, but I think he looks like Elden Nelson (a.k.a., The Fat Cyclist).

Not to say that Alfredo is fat. Of course, neither is Stanley or Elden. "Fat" is just a different concept for cyclists, who often suffer from body dysmorphic disorder ... or need excuses for being such slow climbers.

Following Friday's sufferfest, Saturday's schedule called for a short recovery ride ... 35 miles or so at an easy pace. RandoGirl and I rolled out from the hotel about 10 am, stopping again at Little Italy for a couple of sandwiches to go. We headed north, planning to have a picnic at the top of the trail.

Within a few miles, it started to rain. A few miles later, it really started to rain. Soon, RandoGirl was drafting off to one side to keep from becoming an example of that most forlorn of birds: the speckled yellow-jacketed wheel-sucker.

It didn't work. She and I were pretty soaked and muddy when we reached the end of the trail in Dunellon. There, we ran into two fellows who were doing a self-sagged century, and were waiting for the rain to end to begin their return trip. They -- very wisely -- gave up soon afterwards, but wanted to chat with us for a while. I told them that we were looking for the Dunellon Beach Park, which Alfredo had told us about that morning. They didn't know where that was, or even where downtown Dunellon was. I got the feeling that they would have wanted to share our sandwiches had we opted to stop and eat there at the trailhead, so RandoGirl and I started back south.

We stopped about midway back and ate the sandwiches, watching the rain fall while we dripped puddles under a picnic pavillion. Then, cold and still wet, we hammered the last few miles back to the hotel, where we showered and took a nap in preparation for that evening's festivities.

Saturday night, Alfredo does a huge dinner at Little Italy. Here's what we had:

Clams, shrimp, oysters, calamari, and mussels. It almost made me wish that I liked seafood.

Pasta filled with pears in a white sauce, with (I think) nutmeg. This may be the best pasta dish that I have ever eaten ... and I've eaten a lot of pasta.

An Italian wedding soup. If the spoon looks dirty, it's because I slurped a bit before I remembered to take a picture. Sorry.

Pork shank with broccoli. The meat literally was falling off the bone, and the gravy was so good I was sopping it up with bread.

Wine. Lots of wine. Some of us probably had too much wine, so that I failed to get pictures of the gelato that came before the pork shank, and the cannoli for dessert.

All I can remember was that it was very good Italian wine. There was this Something di Something Something that was really tasty, and a Something de Tutti Whatever. Brunello sticks in my head somewhere, and maybe Tattaglia or Corleone.

Fredo de Stanley Tucci?

Yeah ...

Why People Think I'm Crazy (Because I Am Crazy)

They closed schools where we live in Tennessee because of the snow Friday, and a lot of flights were cancelled in and out of Nashville airport. It took many people hours to get anywhere on the snowy roads. The 200K out of Murfreesboro was postponed.

It didn't seem that bad here in central Florida.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Okay, I felt guilty enjoying myself when so many people back home were in obvious straits. Just a little guilty. It lasted 20 seconds, when I checked The Weather Channel, and they kept going on and on about the ice in Memphis and what to do when your power goes out and blah-blah-blah. What a buzz kill. Just show me that the temperature here in Tampa is 65 degrees and shut the heck up.

We got in to Tampa airport Thursday before noon, gathered luggage, and jumped into the van with Clayton Grindstaff. After a quick lunch at Moe's on the way, we were in Inverness before 3 pm, where we quickly changed clothes and jumped on our bikes. A quick trip down to the Ridge Manor Trailhead and back, and we had done almost 50 miles. That was enough to knock the rust off the legs, and burn sufficient calories to get eat dinner at Papa Joe's.

We had originally intended to go long Saturday, but the weather that was making Tennessee a mess was actually going to bring rain to Florida, we we swapped the long day to Friday. We started the day right at Little Italy in downtown Inverness, having capuccino and cookies.

The owner, Alfredo was glad to see us ... as usual. He always takes great care of us on these trips, keeping us properly fueled morning noon and night. I'll write later this week about the incredible feast he fixed for us Saturday night.

Since this was RandoGirl's first time on the Gran Fondo Florida Excursion, Alfredo also took great joy in showing her the special picture of him in the restaurant bathroom. You'll just have to go to Inverness someday to appreciate it.

I had originally planned a long route of 120 miles, but when we did not roll out until 10 am I made some quick thinking and decided how we could curtail things into a nice century. It would get us down to the "hill country" of Dade City and San Antonio, but not allow us to get cuban food at the Las Palmas Cafe near Pebble Creek. Doing the original route and getting back before dark would have required us to average almost 20 miles an hour -- fighting a headwind for about 50 of them -- and nobody was up for that.

I certanly proved that I wasn't.

Lynn and Vida Greer, Michal Miller, Vic Rodgers, Britton Kinnard, and myself nonetheless averaged about that down to the south end of the Withlacoochie Trail in Trilby. Once on the rolling "real" roads there, we found the going much harder, since we were not as sheltered from the strong steady southern wind. After five miles of this, Lynn, Vida, and Michael decided that they would rather finish their century on the Trail, and headed back.

This left me with Vic and Britton. Vic -- who was the Tennessee Bicycle Racing Association (TBRA) champion for five years -- and Britton -- who used to race professionally in Belguim and talks nonchalantly about doing training rides with "George" (I think he means Hincapie, and not Hiscox).

Help me, Momma.

This was my view for most of the next 40 miles. Since things are not tinted red in the pictures, I can only assume that my eyeballs really were filling up with blood.

Britton, and then Vic, would pull us into a steady Florida 20 mph headwind doing 25 -- which those of you who understand physics and combined vector calculations know is roughly equivalent to riding in dead air at 136.37 miles per hour (maybe I should say those of you who understand physics as poorly as I do, since I still don't get why we all don't go flying off into space). Then I would go to the front and kill myself to keep the speed close to 20 mph for a few seconds, tap out, and hope to hang onto the end again when it came by. I kept hoping to summon up Max Watzz, but just like the way the Hulk never gets there before Bruce Banner gets a fat lip, Max stayed away.

Fortunately, as I led them further towards Tampa, I was the only one that knew the roads. Vic and Britton had no choice but to keep me around.

Once we started north, though, and the wind was behind us, I realized what a whipped puppy I was. Vic and Britton were easily able to take the pace up to 30, and all I could do was watch them fade away. Of course, this happened before we turned left onto Handcart Road, so they missed the turn. I waited at the corner and let them enjoy a few bonus miles to teach them a lesson, and they were then willing to suffer my prescence again.

Yes, I am a mean S.O.B.

In San Antonio, I recharged my batteries with a great sandwich from the San Ann Market, and was then able to pull again for a few miles. Of course, we still had the tailwind, so it was no big deal.

That's Britton clowning around in the back. It is really wonderful to ride with someone as strong as he is ... someone who can take these pulls, sit up, eat a cliff bar, and basically be one with the bike. If you thought that you could actually transcend to that level, it would give you something to aspire to; instead, it just lets you know that these things actually are possible.

This part of Florida, by the way, is rife with orange trees like these.

We rode through miles of groves. For those of you who are worried about the effect that the early January freeze might have had on the crops: Fear not. We saw trucks full of them. You will still have orange juice this year.

Once we got back to Trilby, I sent Vic and Britton on their fast way and rolled back at a more leisurely pace. I even stopped to take pictures of the bike shop in Hampton.

And the solar-powered bathroom in Istachatta.

Back at the hotel, I downed a chocolate milk and then crawled into the shower. I had to lay around a bit moaning in pain and rubbing my legs before I could get cleaned up and crawl over to Walter Thompson's room for a dinner of antipasta from Little Italy.

Much like the woeful tales trickling in from friends in Nashville buried beneath snow had cheered me earlier, listening to everyone else describe their long hard ride during the day made me happier here.

Misery loves company ... particularly when that company is able to take long pulls into the wind for you.