A Century On the Ground

Fallon, NV. (Oct. 6, 2012) Today, I finished the No Hill Hundred, a pretzel-shaped ride through the paved byways of the high Nevada desert. It was sponsored by the Churchill County Cyclists and the Churchill County Parks & Recreation. Fallon is the home of a Naval Air Station (famous for its Top Gun school), and deems itself the "Oasis of Nevada". It's located at the junction of US routes 95 and 50. As you can tell from the satellite image, they have a good nickname. This is anything but barren desert.

The terrain delivered as promised: there were truly no hills. Of course we did ride mile after mile in the same gear, but that was a small price to pay. The route was well-marked, and the rest stops well-stocked. This is their tenth year running a century in flat Fallon.

Fallon is at 4000 feet of altitude. I think that took a little edge of my riding pace. I found myself out of breath if I took too long a drink while riding. It's hard to get acclimatized when you fly in two days before!

October is a comfortable time of year to ride in northern Nevada. The temperature peaked in the 70s, but the ride began at about 40 degrees. The air was so dry, however, that you could ride with just a light covering. There is even some color-shifting foliage here. The brush turns yellow and the trees get some color. There is one plant that gives off a delicious smell, but I could never identify it. That's one of the benefits of riding a bike instead of driving a car.

Of course, being able to smell the environment can also be a disadvantage. Livestock stink. And, cattle seem to stink the worst. I remember pedaling a little faster to get out of the plume!

Horse farms abound. There were stables, horses, and trucks with horse trailers. What I never saw, however, was a single person riding a horse! As we rode past the corrals, the horses would watch us enviously.

This is Top Gun country. You are greeted by an A-7 (carrier-based attack aircraft, no longer in use) on a high pedestal. The course in fighter tactics, made famous by the Tom Cruise movie, was originally located in Miramar, California. It moved to Fallon Naval Air Station  in 1996 to become part of the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center. East of Fallon, the Navy operates an instrumented "range", where the airspace is digitally monitored. I think we passed several of the monitoring stations along the way. There are only four courses a year, so the chances of seeing any combat aircraft on an October Saturday are slim. In fact, even though we circumnavigated the Naval Air Station, we saw no activity at all.

On the day of the ride, Fallon becomes home to a completely different kind of  'gunslinger'. The Cowboy Fast Draw Association runs the World Championship - Fastest Gun Alive contest in Fallon on the same weekend as the century. So, the hotel lobby was an interesting mix of people dressed in old western gear (gunslingers need realistic townspeople in the background!) and colorful spandex-clad cyclists.

For those of you who have lost count (and who hasn't??), this is state number 47. Three more left to go!

I only put the best pictures on this blog. I will add to the Webshots archive of bike photos, including a picture of the rest stop under the A-7, the sluice gates for irrigation, the only hill in town, and the start and finish arch, later this week.

Blogging is Light When the Weather is Great

Springfield, VA. I just got back from a mid-day, mid-week bike ride through a nearby park. I enjoyed 32 miles of quiet park paths or neighborhood streets abandoned for the dungeons of work and school. It was a sunny 65 degrees with light winds. There is a hint of color in the foliage this first full week of fall. September is a great month to be retired!

Although I've acquired no states since my trip to Wisconsin, I've been able to ride a century for both of the past two weekends. On the 16th I drove up to Carlisle, PA to enjoy the Three Creek Century, an annual offering of the Harrisburg Bicycle Club. I must say, I took my time because the weather was so nice and the scenery was so pretty.

Last weekend was our own bicycle club's century. The Potomac Pedalers offers the Back Roads Century in Berryville, VA. I helped out with preparation on Saturday so that I could do the ride on Sunday. The day was a perfect copy of the previous week. Again, I lingered at the White Post rest stop, munching on the club's famous 'tomato sandwiches'. (I had loaded the pallets of said tomatoes onto the truck the previous day, so this was the fruit of my volunteer labor!)

Carlisle, PA

With all this nice weather it's becoming obvious why, years ago, the League of American Wheelmen, designated September "National Century Month". This was, of course, back when the LAW sanctioned, supported, and helped to organize centuries. Now there is no national century organization.

This is all prologue, however, to my upcoming frenzy of states. This coming weekend I'll hit state #47, Louisiana, with the Crescent City Century. The following weekend, I'm booked for state #48, Nevada -- the "No Hill Hundred". Somebody asked me if that was sarcasm, and if the ride had a lot of hills. I had not thought of that! I'm going to be checking the website and the map profiles.

And, on Saturday, October 27, I plan to collect state #49, Mississippi. The 'Longleaf Trace', a large rail-trail near Hattiesburg, offers their second annual century ride. That will color in the continental US red from sea to sea and border to border.

Hawaii will be left. I'm in the process of booking a Backroads bicycle tour of the big island in January. After that there's nothing to do but write the book!

100 Miles of Wisconsin Shoreline

Sturgeon Bay, WI. Door County is the peninsula to the northeast of Green Bay. It's a beautiful part of Wisconsin, rolling farmland, small coastal villages, and quiet roads. It sometimes bills itself as the "Cape Cod of the Midwest", but this is like Cape Cod of the 1950s -- before the tourism and development. The Door Country Century is an annual event with a long history. It moves north from Sturgeon Bay along the coast, visits several beautiful parks, beaches, and coastal overlooks. The century finishes with a 30-mile flat ride along the east coast.

It was a perfect day: temperatures in the mid-60s and winds from the north. Thus, for the latter half of the ride, we had the wind at our backs! The rest stops were superbly organized, and even near the end of the day everything was available. Each stop had its special feature: strawberry shortcake, cheery pie, or cheese curds. (It is Wisconsin, after all.)

So, the Burma Shave signs said:
   We love bikers!
   We cheer for riders!
   And the Packers!

South Dakota - Saving the Wind to the End

Watertown, SD. Today I completed 100 miles among the lakes and byways of northeastern South Dakota. It was a pleasant day for most of the ride: light winds, no hills, and good roads. But the fun was not to last. The final 20 miles were northbound into an uncharacteristic headwind. (Winds in these parts blow normally from the southwest.) I was on track to have made this one of my fastest centuries, but a quirky breeze held me back. I watched my average speed bleed slowly down to just normal.

The lakes that give Watertown its name were really quite pretty. As I traveled, numerous birds would launch themselves from the shoreline.The mirrored surface reflected the billowing clouds from the sky, which seemed to move along the lake surface as I ride.

The local club, the Watertown Bike Club, did a great job setting up the ride. The road markings were pretty easy to follow, and the SAG stops seemed to appear just as I needed them. Plus, the volunteers were friendly and cheerful, and all of us enjoyed the 70-degree sunshine. They had designed a route that would normally get a tailwind at the end, but Mother Nature decided not to cooperate.

I'll add more pictures and narrative in the days ahead, but right now I need my post-century beauty sleep!

Alaska - This Is Why We Bike

Valdez, AK. Today I completed 100 miles of bicycling in the Alaskan wilderness. I started in Copper Center, along the Copper River in central southern Alaska, and finished in the port of Valdez. It was a wet, windy ride, and we were swarmed by mosquitoes when we stopped. But, the scenery was amazing (along Alaska route 4, following the route of the Alaska pipeline). I'm in Alaska as a guest of a Backroads tour company bicycling trip. This is the "century day" on the trip.

Alaska was every inch as stunning as its reputation. Today's route began on a bluff overlooking the Copper River, with four massive volcanoes in the distance: Mts. Sanford, Drum, Wrangell and Blackburn. We crossed the green, glacier-fed Tiekel River twice, and moved up the valley of the Tsaina river. We had lunch at Mt. Billy Mitchell, which is an imposing, Matterhorn-like peak over route 4 that you can see for miles. The Worthington Glacier sat off to our right as we climbed Thompson Pass.

The day finished with a rainy 2300-foot descent to the coastal plain along the 'braided' Lowe River, which gushes into Prince William Sound. But, on the way down we see the magnificent Bridal Veil Falls and Horsetail Falls. I pulled into Valdez drenched but triumphant.

I posted many of my pictures to Webshots. The link will show you the whole album. We've had five days of bicycling in the Alaskan wilderness. This is not normally a part of Alaska that tourists see: the loop between Palmer and Valdez, connecting via ferry back to Whittier and Girdwood, and finally back to Anchorage.

Along the way there were points where cars could not pull over -- there was only a half-shoulder behind rumble strips. It was perfect, however, for a cyclist to stand and take a picture. Thus, many of the pictures in the Webshots album could only have been taken by bicycle.

As you may imagine, my century time was much delayed by the climbing, the headwind, the rain, and the large number of photo stops. I don't really treat a century as a race, however. This has been one of the most memorable -- both challenging and rewarding. This is why we bike!

Wyoming's Tour de Prairie

Cheyenne, WY. Today was the annual Tour de Prairie, which is part of the Cheyenne Parks & Recreation's "Superday" celebration. About 200 of us rode out Happy Jack Road, past the wind farm, and into the hilly approach to the Continental Divide. It was along this general route that Grenville Dodge first surveyed the Transcontinental Railroad.

The century climbed to the highest point on Interstate 80, where there is a monument to Abraham Lincoln. This celebrates the Lincoln Highway, the nation's first macadam road to cross the continent.

The steady west wind turned this into two separate rides. There was a grueling "out", in which every turn of the crank was an endurance test. The winds were 18 mph gusting to 25. There were no clouds, and there was about 3000 feet of climbing. This was followed with an amazing "back", which was all tailwind and mostly downhill.

Shade trees are rare in these parts, and the daytime high was over 90 degrees. So, hydration was a vital part of survival for the ride. The organizers had great, well-stocked rest stops at appropriate places. And, the Gatorade was widely available.

We passed the 14-turbine Happy Jack Wind Farm. The blades were whirling all day, easily generating their 29 MW of power. They are impressive structures as you pass by them on your leetle bicycle!

North Dakota: Wind-swept Flatland

Fargo, ND. I just completed the Tour de Cure, one of the many organized charity rides to defeat diabetes. The route was simple: a square of four 20-mile legs followed by a 10-mile 'tail' into Minnesota. And, it was flat: the only time I had to climb was the overpasses over interstate highways.

As with all the rides in the Great Plains, wind presented a challenge. In this case, the wind was forecast to blow from the East, and instead came in from the West. Our first leg was a westbound leg early in the morning. Winds are light in the morning, so we missed a headwind at the start. This was followed by a southbound 20 miles in which we struggled with a crosswind. As I've said before, crosswinds can be nearly as challenging as headwinds.

But, from mile 41 to mile 61, we were propelled by a powerful tailwind, and most of us flew down the road on 'afterburners'. It was like getting on board a moving walkway at the airport -- even when I coasted I was doing 15 miles per hour. The northbound leg was another crosswind grind, and brought us close to the start with less than 80 miles completed. Thus, we added an East- West out-and-back across the Red River into Minnesota. Going East, we could bomb down the road again. But, once we turned around, pushing the final 15 miles into a stiff breeze drained everybody's battery.

I left early to be sure to finish by the organizers' stop time (3PM). Little did I realize that they made and announcement to recognize me at the group start. Thus, when I mentioned my 50-century project at one of the rest stops, several riders said, "So you're the guy! They were looking for you."

I hate being rude, and I appreciate their good intentions. But, I've found, if I don't leave early, I end up doing the ride pretty much alone. Nobody else, it seems, does my leisurely 60-year old pace. But, I appreciated the enthusiastic cheering squads at the rest stops and at the end of the ride. Lots of pom-poms and, of course, cowbells!

As most flat rides, there is not much to say in the scenery department. Farm followed farm, all of them huge. Occasionally, there would be horses. Roads in this part of the country go to the cardinal directions of the compass. Only the railroads get to go on a diagonal. The country is so open, that you can see all 120 cars of a freight train in the distance. (Okay, to help pass the time and the miles, maybe I did count the cars on the freight train while I was riding.)

This is Burlington Northern Santa Fe country. Union Pacific doesn't go anywhere near North Dakota. Add to that, the occasional short line such as the Red River Valley & Western. I saw lots of BNSF traffic. At one point near the end, I was racing to a crossing as a BNSF train was approaching (from the distance). I realized that I was increasingly likely to make it across before the gates closed. This made no sense -- with a headwind at mile 91 I am NOT faster than a a speeding locomotive! It turns out, the engineer must have had a stop signal, as his train coasted to a stop about 200 yards from the road.