M and M, Saturday, August 8

There was a plethora of riding opportunities this Saturday. The scheduled club ride was "Dr. T's Funky 50". Meanwhile a group was doing the Madison Double Century, riding to Madison on Saturday and back home on Sunday. There was also a charity ride, the Mother Hubbard Ride, that some club members planned to do. So many rides....so little time.

To complicate matters, some OWLS decided among themselves to do the M and M Ride up north, on the grounds that we had just been down south the week before and also didn't much want to ride on the still fresh chip and seal on 446.

Eight of us opted for M and M. Riders on the other options are encouraged to submit ride reports for the blog.


First regroup at the entrance to the Morgan Monroe State Forest.

(Click to enlarge.)


The first half of the ride was uneventful as we made our way in the cool of the morning up to our usual stop at the Shell Station in Martinsville.

Out of Martinsville we headed into the prevailing south/southwest wind in our traditional pace line while the road was flat.

At about the half way point of this sixty mile ride a dog suddenly darted out from across the road and CE ran over it and went down hard. Some folks came by in a car and helped when we at first thought we'd need an ambulance. But CE soon perked up and after cleaning up a bit was amazingly able to ride on, with only a skinned elbow, a bent derailleur and bunged up shifter.

Ron had been right behind CE and hit CE's bike, but did not go down. Maybe that's how CE's derailleur got bent. In any case Ron realized his wheel was way out of true and pulled out a spoke tool to work on it.

[Added 8/15/09: Ron subsequently explained better what happened. He wrote, "I was not behind him but rather even with him on his right side. When CE hit the dog I surged ahead of him. This was a combination of CE slowing down and me accelerating to get out of the way. After CE hit the dog he fell or turned to his right clipping my back wheel.]

Three ponies came over to learn wheel truing technique from Ron:

(Click to enlarge.)

The rest of the ride was mostly uneventful, although the afternoon was warming up considerably. When he got back to the park CE headed straight to a local bike shop to get necessary repairs done. I imagine he was pretty sore the next day.

There was little that could have been done by us to prevent this accident. According to the people who stopped to help, it was well known in the area that this dog was allowed to wander free. The owners did not present themselves. Altogether two things are certainly clear, though: You can't be too careful around dogs. And it pays to ride in a group in case something does happen.s