Up Lentz

Twenty five riders; 27 miles; 3 good hill climbs; 13.5+ mph.

The route in Google Earth. (Click to enlarge.)

Elevation showing climbs up from Griffey, up Lentz, and up Kerr Creek. (Click to enlarge.)

Riders coming off of Boltinghouse Hill. What are those guys doing going the other way? 

(Click to enlarge.)

Ride to Williams Covered Bridge and Beyond

Club member Jim Schroeder's vision of ABC rides for Saturday club rides worked almost to perfection this week for the annual club ride to the Williams Covered Bridge.

The primary route, designed years ago by Joe Anderson, one of the premier route makers in the whole country, is a 70 mile loop through Bedford to Williams, southwest of Bedford, including a 3 or 4 mile out-and-back to the longest wooden covered bridge in Indiana. (Or so Williams folks claim. It is said that Medora also claims that honor for its covered bridge.)

Joe's route, like many of the routes in the club books of maps, includes a shorter option of about 57 miles. Jim calls this the A option. The main loop is the B option.

Jim's addition was a 116 mile C option that extended the ride from the Williams bridge further south all the way to French Lick.

The ride itself was leaderless, as the person who volunteered back in the winter to lead the ride found himself doing the deCycles ride instead. Ride coordinator Mike Finger therefore got our group of 24 riders organized. He brought a few maps, but most people had already printed their own map (if needed) from the club web site.

Some nine riders committed themselves up front to the C option. The largest group were planning to do the B option. A few were planning the shorter A route (even it was 58 miles, for God's sake). And a few more were hedging their bets, hoping to put off the decision as long as possible.

To accomodate the new C route Jim decided to do the A and B routes counterclockwise, instead of their usual clockwise. By itself that made the ride interesting for those of us who had never done it backwards. Jim prepared a new cue sheet for the backwards routes, which was quite helpful.

The group took its first real rest stop at the store in Springville, familiar from the Popcorn Ride. About 6 miles later came Fayetteville, where people had to decide about the A route. At least one group of 3 took that route while the rest headed on toward Williams. That group included Laurence, Andy and Ben. None of the three were very familiar with the route.

Laurence reported for the 57 mile A group that Ben did a great job getting help and directions from residents and drivers and got them back on course after a short detour. She said they made it back to Bryan Park around 1pm.  "The short ride took us across a number of beautiful, scenic areas which we all greatly enjoyed."

We had naturally broken into comfortable riding groups that got somewhat separated along the way.  A couple of dropped chains, and a flat tire leaving the stop at Springville, contributed to the separation.

Another group of 4 missed the turn toward Williams at Fayetteville and added a couple of miles on their own before finding the rest of the group.

All of the B/C riders eventually gathered at the store in Williams for food and drink.  Pretty soon the main C Centurions, super century riders, headed out toward the bridge and beyond. Meanwhile another smaller group of B riders left for Bedford and Bloomington without visiting the bridge. That left 8 more of us who were doing the B route at a relatively moderate pace. All but one of us then did the out-and-back to the bridge, where we observed Joe Anderson's Dan Henry for the just completed 2010 TRIRI "Warning-Walk bike or bend rim". We all successfully rode our bikes through, however, and stopped for a photo-op.

Our group of 8 OWLish riders then continued on our way with stops just outside of Bedford and the BP at Judah. One rider decided to take a longer break there. The rest of us set out for home on Old 37. It was hot, in the lower 90s as expected, and the last couple of hours weren't nearly as much fun as the morning part of the ride. Our group got back about 2pm, having covered a little over 70 miles, averaging something like 14.3 mph on the bike, in a little over 6 hours, confirming my rule of thumb for these rides allowing for about 12 miles an hour, including stops.

Meanwhile Jim reports for the Century group:
The C group were 9 hardy souls as we travelled around the crevices of the boards of the longest active covered bridge in Indiana.  BBC legend, Kevin Hays, led the way through the hilly Hoosier National Forest down to our lunch stop at French Lick where the PGA golf tournament was going on during the weekend.  We headed back north in the rolling prairie of Orange County to Orleans.  The weather turned to what I call "ugly hot" as capitan Kevin led this French foreign legion cycling troop.  The White River had receded so there were no alternate routes needed.  However, somewhere around Buddha and Bedford, Kevin sprinted home as he was pressed for time, Charles vanished (I've confirmed his survival), and the lucky seven struggled home.  A parade in Judah forced a stopover of 20 minutes, and Jim took an extended oasis at the BP.  It's safe to say all of us were pushed to our limits.  Add Aaron Prange, Charles Chancellor, and Kevin Hays to the Centurions of Bloomington Indiana.

Old 37 to Strain Ridge

We had another good evening for biking. The OWLS had 19 riders, including one on his first club ride. Allan Edmonds and Tom Reynolds got the group organized, with Allan getting everyone to introduce themselves, while Tom went over the designated route, which we call Old 37 to Strain Ridge (link to PDF map). Tom recruited John Bassett to serve as sweep, which he did admirably.  Tom planned out our standard regrouping spots on Victor just after crossing 37; Ketcham where we switch onto Old 37; Strain Ridge just after climbing that dam hill; and the PO in Smithville. Allan was just about to send us off right on time, when Kathy Avers announced that she had a flat. As usual several guys moved over to help. It was good that Kathy had her car there and a floor pump. The guys got the tube swapped out and ready to go in just 9 minutes. Pretty good for a bunch of amateurs! Our latest start in two years!

Everyone did a good job of staying together even though this turned out to be one of our faster rides. Somewhat surprisingly all but a couple of riders decided at the Post Office to take Ramp Creek rather than Fairfax back to the church.

We were coming in along the Waterworks route on Handy when Kathy had her second flat of the night! Again several people stopped to help, but for safety's sake it made sense for most of us to continue on toward home.

According to a note posted on the BBC homepage, Google Earth can now import and display data directly from a GPS. So we gave it a try. Here's a screen shot of the evening's ride displayed in Google Earth. Next project is to figure out to link to a "live" version in Google Earth.

Overall this was a bit faster than our typical OWLS ride. I averaged 15.2 mph for the basic 26 mile loop, tempered a bit to 14.3 by the time I added in 4.5 miles round trip between my house and the start. We climbed a bit over 1500 feet total and had a downhill max of just over 35 mph.

OWLS Airport Route

We had another good group out for a really nice evening of bike riding. Again Tom R got the group going. We had 21 bikes and 23 riders (two tandems). This was a route that headed out of town to the northeast, so it was kind of slow going for the first 5 miles. One neat switch was that Tom led us over to the B-line trail. We took First over to Morton and from Morton got on the trail and took it up to 7th Street, with a slight kerfuddle at Kirkwood where street work disrupts trail traffic.

The group stayed pretty well together, going at an overall very moderate pace, up to Karst Farm. At that point the tandems decided to take off ahead of the larger group with the aim of cutting a few miles off the route and getting home earlier for other commitments. Another couple of people decided to make their own way home a shorter way.

At that point the rest of us headed out of Karst Farm taking a right on Airport Road. This is a tricky turn, up hill to a stop sign. There was a fair amount of traffic coming in from 45. Thus all but a handful of us had to stop rather precipitously. Some people behind closed too quickly and there was what appeared to be a minor collision. Some lessons: people toward the front need to more actively CALL OUT "stopping"; people toward the rear need to EXPECT that as the group approaches a STOP sign we will actually stop.

Anyhow, most of us went on ahead, seeing no advantage to having 15 bikes stopping there in the middle of the intersection. It was quite a bit later at a subsequent regrouping point that we realized that we were missing three riders, including the two who had collided. We waited a while and even sent one person back looking from the point where we crossed 45. But we never saw them. At least there were three riders together.

From that point on we gradually lost people who headed home their own ways. At the very end just 4 riders went all the way back to our starting point. We averaged about 13.9 overall and about 12.6 on the first half out to Karst Farm. Our average including stops and regrouping time was about 12.1 mph over about 28 miles.

A True SlowSpokes Ride

By Anndra Morgan

Running late to Bryan Park for the SlowSpokes ride, I gave Jodi a call to let her know.  She informed me that she was not going to make it. No problem, I thought, there has always been someone show up who knows the routes better than I do.

On the way to the park I planned my course of action.  If no one was there I would have my husband drop off my son and me and we will ride home. (I live in Ellettsville and I have yet to ride to Ellettsville from Bryan Park.)  If someone is there, we will ride the loop that takes us past the Speedway and on the Clear Creek Trail.

Well I get there and there is one gentleman waiting who just moved to Bloomington one week ago.  He knows where Wal-Mart and Bryan Park is.  He rides 5 days a week, 4000 miles a year.  Oh Boy, he is not going to be any help with getting through the subdivisions between Winslow and the Speedway!  I explained to him where we were going, let him know that I might get turned around a few times because I wasn’t sure of the route (he was fine with that), assured him that I would get him back to the park and off we went.

Along the way I shared information about the BBC and some of its rides.

All went well until we crossed Winslow.  In the subdivisions between Winslow and Rhorer Rd., we had to turn around several times because I just could not remember all the turns.  We went in a few circles and at one point we ended up back at Winslow a little to the west of where we started.  He assured me that was fine as long as I got him back to the park. (I was positive I could do that, it just might not be a BBC route)  Finally I made it to a familiar road and managed to make to Rhorer Rd.  We crossed Rhorer Rd. and I knew that we needed to go to the right, just didn’t remember when, and headed down a road that ended in a cul-de-sac.  Turn around again.  We finally made it to the Speedway and I was good to go after taking a few minutes to decide to turn right at the stop sign.  We continued on the rest of the route without any more wrong turns and I was able to give our guest a mini tour showing him a little of downtown via the B-Line trail.  I pointed out Bloomingfoods and the location of the Farmers Market and gave him advice on where to park.  We continued up 7th street through campus and stopped at Showalter Fountain. (I had to wake my foot up.)  Finally we headed back to Bryan Park via IU campus through the parking garage and arrived back at Bryan Park at 4pm.

According to his speedometer we had a true SlowSpokes ride of around 18 miles at about a average of 10mph.

Executive Board Meeting

The BBC Board held its regular business meeting Friday evening, June 11, at 5:30 pm, in the public meeting room at Old National Bank at Third and College Mall Road.

Board meetings are announced on the club ride calendar. Members are invited to attend to get a feel for what's involved in running the club. I heartily recommend that club members consider attending a meeting sometime. There's lots of good discussion of bicycling issues.

The main purpose of this note is to convey a sense of what goes on at board meeting, not to substitute for minutes. Ordinarily minutes should be posted to the Members Only part of the web site. Unfortunately a glance there will show that minutes of only one meeting in 2009 were posted there. We can hope that minutes from 2010 will be posted regularly.

By my count the whole board was there, including 4 elected officers and 6 appointed officers. In addition two other club members were present as non-voting guests. There were Keith Vogelsang (pres), Mark Villanova (VP), Kathy Cummins (sec), Joe Anderson (treas), Chris Tietz (Safety and Education), Tammy Berger (membership), Allan Edmonds (blog), Klaus Rothe (web design), Mike Finger (Ride Coordinator), Ron Brown (web master), Mark Napier (guest, RAIN and registrations), Linda McNabb (guest, RAIN).

Keith had sent out the agenda to the officers. Here's what it looked like:

1. Introductions (3 min)

2. Announcements (3 min) 

a) Adopt-a-road clean up scheduled Sunday, June 13 at 1:30. 

b) Race Across America Time Station begins next week, with racers arriving as early as 7PM June 15, and extending through June 19th.

3. Approval of minutes (5 min) 

a) May 7 Board meeting

b) May 8 Special Meeting

4. Reports (20 min) 

a) Treasurer

b) RAIN 

c) Membership 

d) Website 

e) Blog/Newsletter 

f) Touring 

g) Advocacy 

h) Safety

5. Old business (30 min) 

a) BBC credit card

b) Audit committee 

c) Conflict of interest policy 

d) BBC/TRIRI relationship 

e) Safety/Advocacy Article

6. New business (40 min) 

a) Reserve account

b) RAIN registration for 2011 

c) RAIN committee and ride labor 

d) 1099-misc reporting 

e) Membership benefits card/roster for bike shop discounts 

f) Summer Party 

 g) City of Bloomington Bicycle Task Force

7. Adjournment

What follows are just a few notes about some of what went on.

The next meeting will definitely not be until after RAIN.

There was some informal discussion of guerrilla bike light campaign by City and funded in part by a BBC grant. Great publicity for the club in the Friday newspaper.

Minutes will be kept short focussing on all decisions of the board but not trying to record everything said and discussed. But we do need an official record of decisions made.

Half the board in action: Klaus playing on his iPad, Mike and Ron meditating, Keith moving to the next agenda item, Linda (guest for RAIN), Joe studying the accounts, Kathy's laptop, Tammy's purse.

(A little tongue-in-cheek....ok?)

Treasurer's report shows $54,000 balance, the bulk of which is RAIN registrations in hand. $1800 dues so far this year, through March. Biggest expense so far is 50% down payment on RAIN jerseys.

RAIN: 795  rain registrations so far, compared to 576 last year, which was a record. Normally expect to double what we have at June 15, when late fee kicks in. Route changes around Plainfield are required. Finish line is changing backway into Earlham because of construction.

Membership: We now have 260 members after purging non-renewals, a healthy and encouraging number. As Keith says we have the membership to do a better job of staffing more of our volunteer needs for things like ride leaders and especially for providing good support for RAIN.

We want to make the website more useful for members, more interactive, with more news, etc. Expect that we will eventually integrate the blog with it. In the past the web site was perhaps oriented more toward new people and visitors. In the future it will take on an increased role as a resource for members.

One interesting thing was obtaining a club credit card. It has a low credit limit $2500. But the limit should increase in the next 1-2 years to a more useful level. Approved but requirement that authorized users sign an endemnity statement authorizing. Three elected officers will have cards, with different numbers. This will help in handling miscellaneous expenses associated with club activities.

Another new thing: Audit committee Sandi Owen and Jerry Arveson were asked by Keith to serve on an audit committee. They would be mapping out the business processes of the club; review of general ledger and tax returns; random sampling of transactions. They could get started later in the summer, probably August.  They'll provide a report to the board. They would also make a recommendation on how to handle new IRS reporting requirements.

We approved the draft Conflict of Interest policy put together by Chris Tietz.

Chris was given the go-ahead to start work on a safety and education article we will hope to publish in the HT and on our web site.

There was substantial discussion about recruiting and managing volunteer workers for RAIN.

It was agreed to have a summer party in the form of a cook-out or picnic in a city part, but not the pool party we've have had the last several years. Not so many people actually take advantage of the swimming opportunity.

At that point the hour was late and the weather threatening, so we quickly adjourned shortly before 8 pm, leaving a few items for discussion at the next meeting.

I hope these notes capture a little of the flavor of the meeting and encourage interested members to consider dropping in on board meetings. There's a surprising amount of work and decisions that have to be made.

Guerrilla Bike Light Campaign

By Keith Vogelsang


BBC members who attended this year's winter banquet may recall the safety presentation given by Raymond Hess, who works in the city's Planning Department. During that presentation, Raymond discussed his Guerrilla Bike Light Campaign, where police and city personnel would set up at dusk in an unannounced location and wait for scofflaws on bikes to appear from the shadows.

Once caught in the act of riding without proper lighting, these unsuspecting bicyclists would be given not a citation, but a new set of lights. Thanks to a program funded by the BBC, these scofflaws are now more visible on the road.

Raymond tells us the first year of the campaign, the supply of lights moved very quickly once word got out that the lights were being given away. For this year's campaign, I received highly classified intelligence of when and where the guerrilla give-away was going down, and made sure that I was there to witness this innovative safety campaign for myself.

I took pictures, I installed several lights, and offered maintenance, route, and safety suggestions to all who would listen. One guy even invited me to take a ride on his slingshot fixed-gear--what an engineering marvel this bike was!

Michael Malik, a reporter for the Herald-Times, wrote up a story for this year's campaign, viewable at http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2010/06/10/news.qp-6884236.sto (subscription required). BBC grants are supporting numerous innovative bicycle use and safety initiatives, and it was a lot of fun to participate in this one implemented by folks from the Planning Department.

Victor and Harmony

By Allan Edmonds

It was a warm evening and a hilly route southwest of town. We had almost 20 riders show up for this leaderless OWLS ride on Thursday evening. The route went out Victor all the way to the end, turning on  Harmony Road, eventually turning onto Leonard Springs and That Road back into town.

Even though we had no official leader our system actually worked almost perfectly. At 5:45 Tom Reynolds took responsibility and asked if everyone knew where we were going and then we all took off. People are getting the idea that they need to be on time and that they need to check the map shown on the BBC Ride Calendar in advance and make their own copies if they need them. Thanks again to CE Taylor  for developing the maps. (Shelley Bradfield and yours truly helped CE lay out a schedule, and Ron Brown developed an OWLS Ride Maps Page. Check out that cute page if you haven't already done so!)

At some point Tom drafted Patrick Kelly to sweep and Patrick undertook the job beautifully, almost as if they had planned it all out in advance. He called out "car back" numerous times, including once when a car was starting to pass at just the moment a couple of riders started to pull out to pass a slower cyclist ahead of them. He helped one or two riders get their chains back on. And he even pushed Ken Dau-Schmidt up a couple of hills! This is a guy who can ride up steep hills no-handed sitting up straight. He was a perfect sweep: Perhaps the strongest rider in the group, yet able and willing to watch out for everyone.

MCUM Thanks BBC

The following article appeared in the most recent monthly newsletter of the Monroe County United Ministries. Club members might be interested in hearing what one of our grant recipients has done.

Bloomington Hosts RAAM Time Station

Where: CVS – O’Mallia’s Parking Lot, 510 S College Mall Rd
When: Tuesday June 15 to Saturday June 19
Contact: Jim Schroeder, 260-450-2007, jimmyschweb@gmail.com
Who: BBC members to volunteer to staff the rest stop, especially Wednesday (6/16) night to Thursday night and Friday (6/18)night to Saturday night.
RAAM Blog: ts38bloomingtonin.blogspot.com

 In June, over 300 cyclists will race through Bloomington as part of the “world’s toughest bicycle race”, an extraordinary athletic challenge testing racers to the utmost limits of their physical endurance, mental resilience and commitment to a cause.

Competitors in the 2008 Race Across America (RAAM) will hop on a bicycle and pedal, either solo or in a team effort, across the length of the American continent, over 3000 miles from Pacific to Atlantic, stopping to sleep only when necessary.

Along the way, they will pass 54 “Time Stations”, spaced approximately 50 miles apart, where their crew must call Race HQ to report the rider’s or team’s arrival time and any other important news.

The Time Station in Bloomington will be staffed with enthusiastic volunteers and provide a festival-like atmosphere for spectators of all ages and the traveling group of racers and crews as they pass through the community.

The toughest endurance event in the world, RAAM offers long-distance cyclists the opportunity to challenge themselves to the height of their abilities. Over 1500 cyclists have completed RAAM since its first edition in 1982.  Winners completing the course in approximately 9 days as a Solo racer and 6 days as a team effort, sometimes sleeping as little as 2 hours per day.  These modern day heroes brave the desert, plains and mountain weather, lead a crew in a mini-organization of support, and raise thousands of dollars for charities around the world.

“RAAM unites people of all backgrounds, nationalities, and cycling histories in an adventure that challenges them to the core of everything they are,” says Fred Boethling, who bought rights to the race in 2006, after becoming the oldest man to successfully race RAAM Solo across the country.  “It’s man against the elements, the road, and ultimately, him or herself.”

Racers are expected to pass through Bloomington between approximately 7:00 pm June 15 and 2:00 pm June 19, a careful calculation made by race organizers and posted on the RAAM website at http://www.raceacrossamerica.org.

The 2009 Bloomington Rest Stop

Media interested in interviews with cyclists, their dedicated crews, Time Station volunteers and race management will find them in Bloomington as they stop in town to eat and replenish supplies.


About the Race Across America (RAAM)

The Race Across America, known as the World’s Toughest Bicycle Race, will set over 250 competitors on a 3,000-mile route stretching from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland. Athletes race continuously day and night, on their own power or sharing the challenge with a team, and a crew of 8 -15 people following in support cars with food and supplies for the race. These courageous adventurers brave heat, wind, thunderstorms, altitude, the dark of night, fatigue, and sleep deprivation, cross two major mountain ranges, and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity.  For more information and race updates, see http://www.raceacrossamerica.org.