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.
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