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.
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.
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