Clay City True Century with Updates

This route grew from Joe's 96 mile "almost a century" to 98 miles by the time an alternative route was picked between Spencer and Patricksburg Road in order to avoid STR 46 entirely. With at least a mile each way between home and park, I ended the day with 100.4 miles, my first true century of the season.

We had 12 eager riders show up at 8 AM for the early start. Of those one, Ron, turned at SR 43 in order to get back to town in plenty of time to attend the Taste of Bloomington, where he expected to engage in advocacy activity, with the large number of city and county officials in attendance. In addition Ron rode the entire route by himself on Tuesday and thanks to him we had the alternative route out of Spencer. Ron is adopting a plan of appending to official club maps a page of alternate routes and updates. That's how he shared the excellent alternate route for today's ride.

Three more, including Andy, Tim, and Ben... came on into Spencer but departed another way to do a 63 mile "short" option.

The remaining 8 of us embarked on Ron's proposed detour route. It was a nice road, but did seem to add significantly to the hill climbing for the day, 5800 feet of ascent according to my GPS/ The rest of us stuck pretty well together.

We had lunch at the A and W in Clay City, where "refills are free" on the root beers in cold mugs.

From there we engaged in some of the traditional pace-lining, over the next 10 miles or so averaging over 17.5 mph. (This OWLish group averaged about 14.2 for the entire 100 miles.)

By this time the day was seriously heating up and we were starting to feel it. We stopped again in Worthington for drinks and AC

By the time we got to Solsberry and Yo-Ho's around 2 PM we were all wilting some more. Dana needed to be sure to be back home before 4 PM so she took off on her own (and ultimately made it home by 3:35 she reported). The rest of us lingered in Yo-Ho's over cold drinks and ice cream. By the time we were leaving around 2:30 a cold front and clouds were coming through, and we began to feel a little better. We made a last short regouping at Whitehall and took off for the last 10-12 miles home. But by the time we got onto Vernal Pike it was sprinkling and soon turned into honest rain for the entire rest of the ride. (Dana reported that she, too, got caught in the rain just as she was crossing 37.) The Taste of Bloomington was pretty empty when we went by close to 4. We all agreed that rain is better than 90+ degree hot sun. But we were all quite soggy in the end. Allan, Dan, and Steve were the lead group in the end, with CE, Ken, Tom and Thom just slightly behind.

We got home before 4:30, dripping wet in steady rain. After a warm shower the next task probably should be to wipe down the bike and oil the change. Check and check.

We never saw any folks from the 9 AM group. I guess that means they got caught in the rain even further out than we did. I hope to add their report of the day's events.

Added Monday, from John Bassett:


 It sounds like the 8:00 group fared better than we did.  I was kind of mid-pack in the 9:00 group riding with Bob DeGroff and Dana Fielding.  All told, after lunch at Clay City we got rained on three times and hailed on twice.  Hail was a new experience, but was OK until the lightening started.  So, we took shelter in a barn south of Coal City and were soon joined by a farmhand who had been planting beans.  There we were, all dripping wet.  For the next hour, we heard a monologue all about the wet spring weather as it pertained to corn, beans, and hay.

Bob and Dana were itching to get started again so we took off south for Worthington when the rain had almost stopped.  But we hit another big storm that hailed on us again and was accompanied by a fierce crosswind.  We raced through the storm to a convenience store in Worthington.  The temperature had plummeted and Dana was shivering uncontrollably.  Inside the store was cold, but there was no wind.  Outside the store was a little warmer, but the wind blew you sideways.  My bike that was leaning against the building blew over and my helmet rolled away.  I thought somebody had stolen it, but I found it about 50 feet downwind.

When the lightning stopped, we headed out east on SR 157.  One mile east of town it had not rained at all!  Soon however, another black cloud rolled up from the south.   We discussed whether or not we could get to Yoho’s before we got pounded again.  We did not.  We did the Three Sisters and all that stuff south of Newark in the rain, and arrived at Yoho’s saturated. I called my wife and told her we were a bit delayed due to storms but would be in Bloomington in an hour or so.  She said not to hurry because Bloomington was under a flash flood warning!

Bob suggested we take a short route back and not even try to ride back to the park.  Bob usually does not say this kind of thing, but these were extenuating circumstances.  We all agreed and decided to follow the Hilly Hundred route to Hendricksville and Gardner Road back to the south side of Bloomington.  This last 20 miles was in continuous rain, making this a pretty epic day.  But, we all had in excess of 100 miles for the day and that was worth the effort.

There is something to be said for leaving early.

Donation TO the BBC!

The club has just received a donation of almost $400 from Bloomingfoods, together with the City of Bloomington and Upland Brewing Company, as an outgrowth of the National Bike to Word Day Block Party in May. Read their letter! And then think how we can work together to advocate and promote safe and enjoyable biking in our community.

Double Century 2013

by Jim Schroeder 

Six BBC members started from Bryan Park at 6am on Saturday to attempt a double century, i.e. 200 miles in one day.  They were Dave Tanner, Paul Toth, Tammy Berger, Sid Tongret, Jack Ketchum, and Jim Schroeder.  This is a once a year type of ride so we didn't know what we were getting into.  Thanks to Sylvia Schroeder and Jen Miers with Jackie O to assist us in two support vehicles.  We started off with a very cloudy morning going southward on the familiar route to Springville and some sprinkles kept us cool but not wet!  Dave, Paul, and Tammy powered ahead with Jim in the middle and Jack & Sid pulling up the rear.  This was to be the line up for the entire day.

After Springville, the route turned westward on IN-58 all the way to the present terminus of I-69.  It flattened out to mere rollers, and downhill speeds reached 40 mph!  The sun finally cooked off the clouds as we continued westward onto some country roads weaving I-69.  I later found out that this area was where Jack grew up and he just wanted to ride that area and quit when the body decided to stop.  We approached a church on a hillside and with the angle of sun upon it created a picture postcard of southern Indiana.

Turning southward now toward the Amish country of Oden we crossed over the last of the rollers and woods for some time.  About a dozen BBC'rs greeted us at the Essen Haus in Oden.  They were encouraged to do a drive and ride century from Oden that promised to be flat!  This would also keep us company with a chance for some much needed rest while drafting in a pack. They were chomping at the bit when Sid finally arrived, and the pack of fifteen now were off to the races at no less than a 20 mph clip.

I was pulling up the rear keeping Sylvia on track and bogeying a few riders every few miles.  At Washington a caboose formed comprised of Brett, Rachel, Sara, Jack, Sid, and myself, as we ventured into the low country of the West White River with all the "houses" elevated on stilts. Earlier in May Glenn Berger and I had to make 4 water crossings to stay on route on our exploratory midweek century. At mile 87 Jack and Sara opted for the comforts of the Subaru, while the rest of us forged on to Vincennes.  We soon lost Brett who went on ahead but he met back with us at the Subway.

The front pack was averaging about 20 mph while keeping Paul,Dave,and Tammy happy and they stopped for lunch at Subway.  They departed about the same time that the caboose arrived for lunch.  Rachel opted to skip lunch and jumped on the high speed train into old Vincennes and the George Rogers Clark Memorial on the Wabash River.  Brett appeared while we were eating, and we all opted to skip the old town tour, but since the service was so slow at Subway, we were still quite behind the front pack.  Brett was a sight for my sore eyes as he paced me all the way to Sanborn, where I had to convince him to turn east back to Oden for his 100 while I continued northward on the 200 mile route. Tammy also went east on the middle century route as planned as she totalled 140 miles for the day.

Paul and Dave surged ahead at a blistering pace for a double century.  Paul finally pleaded to Dave to slow down a bit.  Dave responded, "Oh, I was going this fast not to disappoint you!"  At Clay City, they were averaging 17.7 mph!  This northerly stretch was all new territory to me with Goose Pond wetlands south of Linton.  I had a long break in Linton with some coke and a cave towel to cool me down.  The stretch from Linton to Clay City had a lot of traffic especially as we merged onto the IN-39 pickup truck traffic from Jasonville.  Clay City had a town festival that evening, as Sid ignored the yells from Jack and Sylvia, probably looking for an elephant ear.

I was apprehensive of the Patricksburg hills.  They slowed me down a little, but the struggle was less than expected, as I entered Spencer at 8:15pm.  By the time the Subaru got to the CVS at 8:30 pm I decided to start riding as daylight was being depleted.  I found out later that Sid, stopped his double century quest at Spencer. I finally finished at 10:15pm with a tail light but no head light.  It only was a problem when under a canopy of trees as the moonlight and city light was blocked.  The last five miles though were in the city and the B-line trail.

Remember a few years ago, we bikers were always yelled at, "Hey, Lance, way to go."

I'm sure, due to my slim build, as I passed the Seminary Square Krogers, I heard a yell, "Hey, Tanner."