Travels With Edwina

Would you believe, dear reader, tailwinds?!?!??!  Seriously!  Tailwinds, downhill, and only 43 miles.  Can you find an easier ride?!?!?!?

Today we toodled through wine country.   Open prairie dotted with vineyards.  The humans claim that they make good wine, but while they may be able to power themselves on alcohol, I, as a fine riding machine require none of those libations.

But, toodle we did….I mean, you have all day to do 43 miles and 20 of it is a tailwind assisted downhill.  Heck, even I got to use my big chain ring.  But, the best part?  We turned into the wind just a little and the wind shifted just right so that Edwin and I got to sing a duet.

Tonight we sleep well, for tomorrow we head to Bisbee.  The humans think it is the neatest town in Arizona, but not for us bikes…we’ll have to sleep in a shed.  Seriously…a corrugated steel shed.  Blah…hot in the day, cold at night.  We tried to convince the humans that here in Tombstone was better, but they would hear none of our protestations.  Really?  So what if Tombstone is a tourist trap with people fighting over the rights to be the “official” Wyatt Earp?  So what if Bisbee, instead has real coffee shops and art galleries and great food and a local brewery?  Don’t the humans realize that where the bikes sleep matters most!?!?!?!?  Alas….until tomorrow, dear friends.

One of these, one of these, one of these mornings, darlin’
You’re gonna rise, you’re gonna rise up singin’
Then you’ll spread your little wings, your little wings
And-a take to the sky

Slow down, you move too fast
You got to make the morning last
Just kicking down the cobblestones
Looking for fun and feeling groovy

Yep…<chuckle>we moved too fast</chuckle>…but that, my friends is the difference between doing the PAC Tour Southern vs doing Historic Towns “Training” Week.  Wwaaayyyy different.  Even with a flat shortly before the end <heehee>48.5 miles<heehee> and going really, really easy up the pass, we still weren’t last.  Wheeee….

But, unlike many a first day for Desert Camp, the weather today was awesome…heck, the worst we could say was that maybe, just maybe, it was a little too warm.  We started late, took our time and soaked up the sun.  We even got in with so much time to spare that the humans visited the winery and picked out a lovely wine to pair with tonight’s dinner.

But, the ride…twas so much fun…rode with Pat and her trusty Moots again.  It was fun to catch up.  Found some new bikes along the way to ride and play with, as well.  I know I keep mentioning it, but this is so different from the Southern…..we actually caught up to people on the road and were able to ride with others.  Not everyone here is super fast — we have other bikes to play with.

But, tonight I’m in the silo at the Sonoita Inn because I’m not allowed in the room.  That’s OK, I’m in here chilling with Pat’s Moots and Edwin.  It is a nice, cool spot.  The Sonoita Inn has a legend that it was built as Secretariat’s retirement home.  Having ridden in Kentucky horse country where the horses stalls look nicer that our house, one might actually believe  the legend.  However, the honest truth was that it was…sigh…built as a shopping mall and then converted into a hotel….sigh…not nearly so glamorous…not nearly as much fun for a trusty steed to think she could be sleeping where a famous race horse slept….sigh…but it is a nice place to sleep for the night….

…just can’t wait to get on the road again….wheeee…..my tires saw pavement again!  First time since Tybee Island and did it feel great!

Well, dear reader, where have I been?  Sigh…in good hands, but…sigh….So, I left Tybee Island in the tender loving care of Lon and Dave.  Instead of having to squeeze into my box, I got to travel in-style, fully assembled in the trailer.  Truly luxury.  Lon dropped me and Edwin off at Bob’s in Crystal Lake where Bob did a full makeover.  After that little episode on the Southern where I lost my right hand (brifter to you human readers), the human decided that I should trade in my lovely, albeit aging Campy parts for some sturdy, easily replaced by any bike shop Shimano equipment.

But, that wasn’t all of the makeover.  When the humans came to pick us up, Bob changed up my saddle and handle bar configuration so that the human would be more comfortable and…here’s the best joke…faster…yeah…like that’ll ever happen with my human.

So, then…home I went, but it was now winter so I hung out in the basement while the human pedaled on the trainer and to and from work.  A week or so ago I jumped into my box and was transported to Burlington to meet with Susan for the road trip to Tucson.  Yep…no airplane baggage handlers for this pretty bike — into the PAC Tour van I went, handled with TLC.  The human says it is so nice that Susan brings me down so that they don’t have to carry me, but, you know the best part?  I come done in perfect shape…no wobbly wheels.  Happy.

So today we toodled down the bike trail in Tucson…tomorrow we head to Sonoita and get to sleep where Secretariat slept…

Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

We made it!  Who’d’ve thunk?  That human made it to Tybee Island.  OK, so we missed out on 114 miles wwwwwaaaayyy back in Arizona/New Mexico when the human learned that 8 hours of sleep just ain’t sufficient when you’re riding 100+ miles of mountains per day.

Since then, the human has been eating and sleeping such that in the last 18 days we’ve missed a time cut off just once… once, I tell you.  And today!  Oooo……today we made the time cutoff by 5 minutes…. and to make that 5 minutes we had to work *hard*….we caught Cov’s wheel coming out of town, struggled as she hammered up the hills and pulled into the first rest stop in record time (and, as Pat pointed out, without a tree-side…uh….errr…facility stop).

From the first to the second stop, we grabbed the draft of the East Coast peleton who happily pulled us into the second stop.  We then hit lunch on Marcy and Cov’s wheel.  A quick lunch and off we were….shortly there after, due to Cov’s victory flat, we found ourselves alone, but, darn, the human managed to keep up the pace and we pulled into the regroup with…..whew….5 minutes to spare (uh, Susan? that was significantly faster than a 12 mph elapsed moving average, ma’am!).

But, we did it!  96% of the miles and 90% of the climbing.  Not EFI, but we learned things, we’ve gotten stronger and, heck, we broke our goal of 90% of the miles.  Woohoo!

[Oh, and the Atlantic looks like the Pacific and…uh..errr…not much different than Lake Michigan]

In multi-stage bicycle racing, when the day is mountainous, the sprinters hide at the back of the peleton (sometimes wwwwaaaayyy at the back of the peleton) and save their legs for another day.  The back is called l’autobus (the bus) . The idea is that if they all stick together and they miss the time cut, they won’t be cut because they all can’t be cut.

Well, it doesn’t work that way in PAC Tour…if you don’t make the time cut, you don’t make the time cut.  But, that doesn’t stop l’autobus from forming….voila, l’autobus:Now, the picture was taken by a human, so it focuses on the humans, not the bikes (….sigh….), but that’s my human, Edwin’s and Pat (you can almost see *her* bike, Moots).  We make up the primary autobus….sometimes Mark and his gorgeous Waterford join us (until they get bored with us on the hills), sometimes Greg comes along when he wants to take it easy.

Tomorrow we have a time cutoff so l’autobus will need to kick it up a notch.  Yes, tomorrow is the last day, but before the ride ends, everyone will regroup and do the final stretch onto Tybee Island together.  Cool, eh?

And then, you’d think the humans would reward us bikes, wouldn’t you?  But, no….instead the humans will take us bikes apart, stuff us into boxes and get us ready to jump into the back of a FedEx truck or the baggage section of the plane.  Some reward for carrying their sorry butts across the country…..<grumble />  And then!  Then!  The humans have a party!  Without *us*, the bikes!  WTF….

But, we’ve made it 26 days and have just tomorrow to go.  No celebrations, just yet.

Whew!  After all this time, dear reader, we have arrived in our last state.  This morning, very early in the morning, we crossed the Chattahoochee River and entered the state of Georgia.

It was a spooky, cool crossing as the river is dammed so that we had a mile-ish to get across.  The Alabama side was clear, but the Georgia side,,,,ooo….the fog and clouds…. even the sun couldn’t break through those clouds and it almost looked like the moon.

As we rolled up and down the hills on the Georgia side we would go down into the fog and then up into the clear and look down on the fog lining the valley… very, very nice.

We rolled near Plains and waved in the direction of Brother Jimmy (Cousin Jimmy to Pat) as we went by.  And all would have made for a great day in Georgia except for one little problem that Pat was wont to refer to as “The Twilight Zone.”

We’d be rolling down a country highway and see a mile marker… we bicycles like mile markers as it lets us know how far we’ve gone without having to talk to the GPS.  When we crossed into Georgia, we got mile maker 1…yep, we just entered the state….. we’d turn onto a new highway and get another mile marker 1.  OK…fine…. we changed highways.  Then we’d toodle a little further down that highway, get incrementing mile markers and think all was good… until… wham…. back to mile marker 1….we pedaled and pedaled and no matter how hard we pedaled…. back to mile 1.

Needless to say a very long and exhausting day…. somehow the GPS claims 119.9 miles, but if we go by the mile makers…. we just did the same 5 miles over and over and over….

There is a saying with PAC Tour that after a while, things just feel like Groundhog Day…. the alarm goes off, you do the same routine…. you go to bed… wake up and do the same all over again.

Well, it has been more than 3 weeks and, yes, we are in a routine, the humans and us bikes.  The board tells us when breakfast is and we get up an hour before.  We need a little more time than other rooms because Edwin’s human has to make Pat’s oatmeal (sans raisins because for some reason Pat thinks the only good raisin went into making ice wine… not a bad thought, actually, but I digress…).

So up we are an hour before food.  The human slathers on sunscreen (gee, I wish that it would *stay* on the human and not rub off on my pretty frame), fills my water bottles and checks my tires (slow flats show up in the morning).  By then it is time for first breakfast where my human consumes 1/2 of Pat’s oatmeal and Edwin’s human now has to make more.  Then it is off to the real breakfast where the human eats yet another humongous serving of oatmeal, some juice and sweet treats.

Finally, it is time to ride and my human is first in line to put the suitcase in the truck…. always first in line… pushy about it…. jumps the queue rudely, but, heck, we’re slow and the fast riders all have pity on me, the pretty bike with the weak engine so we get out onto the road first.

Then, we toodle along with Pat catching up and we spend the day riding.  I would like to think we spend the day riding, but sometimes I think the human just sees it as moving between rest stops where sweets are consumed in ridiculous quantities…. juice (several cups), cookies (a half dozen Oreos plus some sugar wafers), fig bars, nuts, fruit, whatever is available.  The humans joke that they are a plague of locusts descending upon the rest stop….. trust me, as a bike, yes, it is embarrassing watching them feast.

But…. it is those feasts that fuel them and get us down the road.  By the second rest stop we are running last wheel and we pull into the hotel around 5:00-ish.  The human oils my chain, washes me down and gets me ready for the next day.  Finally, I get to write up the blog and then get some well-deserved rest.

So…. what is my point?  We have this routine down pat, the human and I.  We’ve settled in to the rhythm….. I’m a little worried about Saturday…. can we stop?  Or will we need to turn around and head back west?!?!?!?

…not fast enough…never fast enough….the human is slow, so the question that you should be asking, dear reader is, how slow do you ride?

We are, without doubt the slowest pair on the trip, human and I….not because I can’t go any faster, but, given the engine in my human…well…it is what it is…can’t change the genetics.   Besides someone has to take the title of Lantern Rouge.   Even days like today where the road was pleasant with just enough hills and a slight tailwind, we toodled along at 15mph and … uh … errr… were last.

But we get company.  Pat and her trusty Moots toodles with us; Edwin on his riding days will also join us; and occasionally, riders having a “slow” day will also follow along.

But, in the end, we travel the same road as the fast bikes and because we move slower we have more time to savor the sights, take in the smells, check out the animals, wave at the people along the way, check out the scenery, enjoy the sky, listen to the birds, hear the crickets. . . .

Mississippi is now in the past and we’re in Alabama.  Not by much…something around 13 miles, but Mississippi joins Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California as places we’ve been through.  Hard to imagine, but we’ve been on the road now for a little over 3 weeks with less than a week to go.

So, what would you like to know about the South?  Once we got out of the Delta, the land became hilly.  Not big hills and not steep hills, but the road is constantly going up or down.  For a Wisconsinite it is a lot like riding in the northern Kettle Morraine.  So, for us, familiar; for the folks from the mountain states, painful — they just don’t like the constant gear changes.

The area has been in a drought (some places have gone more than 60 days without rain) so the trees are distressed and the swamps are low to dry. Still it is things like the swamps and kudzu as far as the eye can see, that remind us, that, like Oklahoma, similar geography is not similar ecosystem.

But, dear readers, today was a very long day and tomorrow even longer.  I’m in need of a new shoe (took a bad hit to the rear tire) and a good night’s sleep to get ready for tomorrow.   Until then….

Although this is clearly our longest trip, 0ver the years, the human and I have traveled many roads together.  Twice on this very route we have crossed the path of previous trips.

The first was wwwwwaaaaayyyyyy back in Wickenburg, Arizona.  There we crossed the path of the northern desert route for PAC Tour Desert camp, a route we’ve ridden twice in the last few years.

Today as we reached Kosciusko, Mississippi, we had our second crossing.  We’ve been riding now for about 3 weeks… most of that just to reach the Mississippi.  Now that we’re in Mississippi, it was almost inevitable that we would cross the Natchez Trace.  The Trace runs from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi.  It was originally a hunting trail for the Native Americans and became a major road for the early Americans.

A few years ago we road the entire Natchez Trace.  While the Trace itself is relatively flat, there was one day on the trip where the human and I rode 100 miles.  Today, we also rode 100 miles…. just as we have now for nearly all of the previous 20 days.  Odd, how the first 100 miles into Kosciusko was a big deal — a century in the middle of a multi-day trip!   Yet, today was just another century…. we’ve come a long way…. but we have many miles to go before we reach Georgia.