Columbus Century

It was another perfect day for another great midweek century. This time our leader Jim S had a route starting from Bryan Park and visiting downtown Columbus, which he christened "Columbus Day". The first and last legs--Bloomington to Nashville and Gatesville to Bloomington--were quite familiar. The middle part looping out to Columbus was much less familiar and totally new to me on a bike.

The weather was a bit cool, in the 50s for our 8 am start. But I was the only one wearing a vest and sleeves. I was happy to have them. But I removed the vest in Nashville and the sleeves in Columbus and had to carry them the rest of the way.

We had a great group of riders, at eight this was probably the biggest group of the season so far. Of these Brad was new to the club. For Clair and Laurence it was their first century of the season. The group was rounded out with Klaus, Allan, Tammy, and Dana.

We all stopped at roughly 25 mile intervals: snacks at the service station in Nashville, a sit-down lunch at Papa's Deli on Washington Street in downtown Columbus, and snacks and drinks again at the store in Gatesville.

Here are Dana, Brad, Laurence, and Tammy raring to get going again in Nashville (while Klaus chats on the phone):

The covered patio at Papa's Downtown Deli, with Tammy, Clair, Klaus, and Dana:

We took the westside "People's Trail", a dedicated bike and walking trail, from the outskirts of Columbus to near downtown, passing north of the motels, gas stations, and fast food along 46, through a tunnel under I-65 and a ramp, across the bridge (completely separated from car traffic), to near downtown.

At Papa's Deli we were able to order sandwiches and eat outside on their covered patio facing Washington Street. I had been dreaming of a ham and cheese sandwich on rye. But when I saw that their menu including vegetarian options I settled for the vegetarian delight cheese sandwich on a croissant.

Our lead group was going quite a bit faster than some of the rest of us. They did wait for us at the first two stops. After lunch we started together but gradually fell into two groups. Those of us in the slower group opted to take Klaus's short cut that supposedly saved about 4 miles including the 2 miles where the route dropped down to go along Highway 46. The trade-off was that the short cut involved a mile of gravel down a steep hill. We had dreams of getting to the store in Gatesville before the lead group. We were sorely disappointed to find them already there and, indeed, ready to take off. With that Tammy, Laurence, and Dana took off and were never seen again. Tammy reported back later by email that they didn't stop again, and arrived back at Bryan Park about 3:20 having averaged 16.9 for the day! I'm assuming they did the entire route as mapped. I tried unsuccessfully to come up with a good name for them, the "Iron Ladies"?

The rest of us took a break on the front porch. Here are Jim and Klaus on the porch:

Before leaving the thriving metropolis of Gatesville I paused briefly to take a picture of their iconic sign. I've been meaning to do that for years.

Brad headed off from Gatesville on his own. Pretty soon Jim left Klaus, Clair and me to take care of ourselves. It didn't take much convincing for us to follow Klaus's suggestion of a stop at the Port Hole, where we had a round of cokes before heading home.

I suppose we deserve a name, too. Again I'm not too good with names, but "Lazy Dogs" wouldn't be too far off. We tried to enjoy ourselves at least. Klaus opted for Shuffle Creek, while Clair and I took Tunnel and went back on 45. That was good enough for me since the mile each way from home to Bryan Park put me just over 100, with an average of 14.1 for the day.