Big
Ride Updates...
45. Indiana to Hollidaysburg, PA 8/1 Miles 70.2 Total 3019.2
The Appalachians
are deformed mountains. They have been compressed like a carpet shoved across
a floor making long northeast to southwest ripples in the rock. Some folds
have broken. Some have been squeezed until they broke and the pieces turned
upside down, side ways or standing on end. Some of the rough edges have
been worn down by time, creating the chaotic tumbled character of these
mountain "remains".
What "remains" is more than enough for a tough ride. There is a line at the end of "Angle of Repose" by Wallace Stegner about the sound of the "diesel breaking its heart out on the incline". I feel like that sound on steep hills. Moving into the first incline of the grade, the rush of wind around my ears dies; and the only sounds are the tires on the road, the clicking "down" through the gears and the constant chain sounds. The left gear lever goes down and the right one is pulled up until there is no other "click" left. My hands reach down to the "drops", the low part of the handlebars. My cadence drops throughout this process, from the 88 range down to around 70, and the "burn" in my legs increases, especially in the thigh as I work to cycle "all the way around", pulling up on each stroke as well as pushing down. My heart rate climbs: I'd report a rate but I've never counted it. I just feel it in my chest and ears. Each breath becomes shorter and often falls into a rhythm with the pedaling, two pedal strokes to each respiratory cycle. Each stroke is accompanied by a pull in the arms to counteract the leg thrust. And up the hill I go, slowly. To help me along I "name" the hills, just as explorers used to name them for men who had inspired them. I'm more inclusive. I have named hills "Ann Marie's Peak, Bill's Hill, Vashti's Ridge, Catherine's Climb, Mount Audrey, Earnie's Range, Mount Mildred, Steve's Steep Hill, Patty's Peak, and others for Josephine, John, Linda, Ann, Sheila, James, Jacqueline, Milton, Kenneth and many more. It sustains me to think of their stories until I can make it over the top.
We
also enjoyed a 12 mile stretch on an old rail route, passing an even older
"blast furnace" and old slag heaps. Some areas of the forest looked as
if they were undisturbed. Occasional fields of cabbage descended the slopes
to the path (a waste of farm land according to Nathan).
46. Hollidaysburg to Mifflintown, PA 8/2 Miles 77.7 Total 3096.9
The trouble with this trip is distance and time.
Each
day as the sun rises, I am not thinking about the vast scope of this ride.
It's not a ride across the country as I pull on my gloves and strap on
my helmet. It's not a ride from Washington state to Washington DC when
I mount my Trek and push that first peddle of the day down. It's not even
a ride of 77.7 miles as I settle into a good cadence and thread my way
between the puddles from yesterday afternoon's rains and down into the
first valley. It's just 16 miles to the first waterstop, and then another
18 or so to the next, and then maybe 10 more and its time for an early
lunch. And so it goes until the miles have passed and I pull into camp,
another
"average" day on the road. With my mind set on all these little short
rides, the task is much easier. We all know this trick. Break the big
task into small pieces: down this valley, past this wall of boulder sized
rubble stacked along this slope down to the river, up this hill and to
the next curve in the road. It has been so successful, that many of us
were "stunned" to see a map posted on one of the Big Ride vehicles in
camp with a heavy black line tracing our route from Seattle to the middle
of Pennsylvania. "Wow" was the most common exclamation! The trouble with
a distance of this magnitude is keeping it in mind without being overwhelmed
and putting the "pieces" back together to remember what we have accomplished.
Time is another measurable quantity that is malleable in the mind. I have been on the road for weeks now with little thought about how long, how much more time remained, until now as the end approaches near. If I thought about time at all, I thought about the number of weeks until I was home. But as we pedal nearer and nearer to DC, and Virginia, and home, the two or three remaining days seem so much longer than the weeks did earlier in the ride. The trouble with time is that it just won't move fast enough this week.
Tonight,
standing on the edge of our camping area and looking out over Mifflintown
and the Juniata River valley we rode through today, I cannot pull home
closer in miles or minutes, but I certainly wish I could.
47. Mifflintown to Gettysburg, PA 8/3 Miles 66.9 Total 3163.8
Some
segments of the aging Appalachian chain have been pulled apart and flattened,
smoothing out the wrinkles, creating a nearly, flat plain. Gettysburg sits
on one of these plains, but to get there we had to cross two more very significant
"wrinkles". The first was the hardest. I climbed to what I thought was the
end and pulled over to take a quick photo because the last several hundred
yards had been straight and might give a feel for the climb. I hopped back
on the bike and, with a 
exuberant
yell, pushed over the "crest" only to find that it was just the first of
the switchbacks. I was not even a third of the way up. The energy that had
pushed me up the hill to that point suddenly seemed to drain away. I settled
back into my lowest gear, heavy breathing, profuse sweating and quiet determination
and continued the climb. What feeling of satisfaction (and relief) to reach
the top. The celebration was real but muted knowing that there was another
"wrinkle" left. We zoomed down at 35 to 50 mph (depending on ones' feel
for what constitutes "too fast" on a bike). I used my brakes often enough
to know (for the first time ever) what overheated brake pads smell like.
Nathan was far ahead of me being a much better "climber" and I rode by myself
enjoying
the valley and the anticipation of the second hill. It was shorter by about
a mile, but just as steep and just as sweaty in the hazy, humid, hot sunshine.
This time the smiles at the top were joy, relief, satisfaction, pride, and
the celebration was unfettered. (PHOTO: David Wood) We had a little space
overlooking a green, valley indistinct far below us in the still, thick
summer air. We had food supplied by the ALA of Pennsylvania and the thrill
of knowing that we had just over a hundred miles left in our adventure.
One
of the biggest smiles at the top of the last "wrinkle" belonged to Darryl
Taylor. He teaches "business" at Pasadena Community College after years
in international trade, plays jazz flute and joined the ride to test his
riding skills. He also hoped that he would be able to think more clearly
about his life and career. We spent a morning earlier this week discussing
the joys of teaching, and the attractions for him in the business world.
I don't know which way he is leaning; I don't know if this ride will be
a "great divide" in his life. I do know that if he teaches like he rides
a bike and plays the flute, a faculty replacement would be difficult to
find.
--- Paul Fairman, Big Rider #2152.
< pfairman@earthlink.net>