This week our head midweek centurion, Jim Schroeder, expected to be busy marking the RAIN route, with assistance from John Bassett and David Yeomans. Therefore during last week’s century, the BSSM (Brownstown, Scottsburg, Salem, Medora) ride Jim worked to convince Joe Anderson to lead the next ride. The BSSM ride was a great drive-and-ride out of Brownstown, with great weather. It took no persuasion at all to convince Joe. So after a quick check with Barbara he said he would lead a drive-and-ride from Spring Mill State Park to the Overlook Restaurant at Leavenworth Indiana on the Ohio River. But as the intervening days wore on it became clear that we were trapped in a period of extremely hot weather. More than one rider and/or spouse questioned the wisdom of riding so far in such hot weather. With highs expected around 103 Joe therefore announced that we would do a long ride north from Bloomington, to Mooresville and back, leaving Bryan Park at 7 am on our bikes. As he noted it made no sense to drive during the best biking hour of the day. He also planned out a route with as much shade as possible and that had some “RAIN-like” qualities.
So two of us, Dave Tanner and I, joined Joe for this 85 mile “century.”
The route up to Martinsville is totally familiar to BBCers as part of the club favorite M & M Ride. The 20 miles from Martinsville to Mooresville is flatter than anything we have around here. So we treated that part, coming and going, as RAIN training. We also did the 40+ miles from Bloomington to Mooresville without a stop beyond putting a foot down briefly at a traffic light, again as RAIN training for getting to that first rest stop.
The ride to Mooresville was actually quite enjoyable: not too hot, plenty of shade, and that 20 some miles of flat, smooth roads, along the Blue Bluffs road aka John Wooden Interurban Parkway, then through Centerton and Brooklyn. We got there some time after 10 am and had a leisurely breakfast snack at the local McDonald’s. We all invoked our “senior drink” in order to be able to fill up our water bottles with ice and Powerade. After reading the Indy Star and eating a second helping and discussing the Higgs boson we by and by set out on our return to Bloomington, fully expecting several stops along the way.
We took the more westerly half of the north loop for our return, using the still fairly shady Goat Hollow Road.
After crossing 67 again, Dave pulled a big chunk of the way on the flat portion, averaging around 20 mph. Our little pace line was finally broken up in the outskirts of Martinsville when a semi slowed and then made a left turn in front of us. I just braked and gritted my teeth, but Joe went around me, then into the other lane to avoid slowing down so much. He then turned his head and let the driver have a piece of his mind. (I doubt the driver heard, of course.) After that we zigzagged our way through Martinsville to the McD’s near 37. There, after dreaming of cold ice cream, I opted for a big chocolate chip mocha “frappé”. We were all thirsty and beginning to get really warm. While there we visited for some while with the owner/operator, an old friend of Dave’s (who had coached the owner’s son in swimming some years back).
Eventually we had to get back on the road again. We opted for Hacker Road (the last part of the right hand loop) into Morgan Monroe, for offering more shade. Of course there was a trade-off: a humongous hill climb. I didn’t stop, but I sure thought I might have to. The sweat poured out. From that point on I wasn’t feeling so good and tended to lag behind a bit.
We stopped one last time at the Firehouse for drinks and to steel ourselves for the last few miles. Joe opined that we had done our six hills (3 out and 3 back), if you don’t count Cascades. I said I count Cascades (at the end of a ride). It was a bit of a slog into town. We did use the new side-trail from Business 37 up to the stop sign at the road to Upper Cascades. Without any cars in our direction, Dave had to push the walk button to get a light change.
Soon we split up, with Dave heading home, Joe to a bike shop downtown, and me to home.
Despite the difficult weather I did experience for the first time on a bike the roads between Martinsville and Mooresville and also for the first time rode Hacker Road into the Forest.
I ended up with 85 miles, and an average in the lower 14s. By 2:20 I was home and the temperature was 102. My stomach was cramping a bit and I also ended up questioning the wisdom of biking so far in such hot weather. I was beat.