Random Places

While the morning light boosted my mood the rain was less welcome. Through the night we had ridding through a lot of areas that had very recently seen rain and saw a lot of lightning in the distance. Early in the morning I caught up with that weather. The occasional heavy downpours certainly added to the adventure and I was fortunate enough to be in a low lying creek valley the only time I heard thunder that was a little too close for comfort.

By this point I was starting to feel the impact of the miles. I was way beyond the farthest I had ever ridden (previous to this my longest ride was 128 miles, and there was no rain or mud in that one). Mentally however, I was loving it. Something about just how absurd what I was doing kept me laughing to myself the whole way. I was pretty sure at this point (around mile 180 or so) that I wasn’t likely to be able to finish the full 350 miles but either way I was loving it.

I was guessing that at this point I was likely at the very back of the field. Out of curiosity I did pull out my phone and check the live tracker. All riders are require to carry a GPS tracker and there was a web page showing where everyone was. I was a little shocked to see I was in 119th position out of the 250 that started. While some had certainly dropped out by this point it looked like there were still several riders behind me still moving and I wasn’t anywhere near the tail of the field.

While I hadn’t seen much real mud in many miles what I was riding through was wet soft gravel. It was taking a toll on both me and the bike. The soft wet gravel takes a lot more effort to ride through sacking my energy but also it was constantly splashing up onto the bike and getting into the chain, sprockets and into the bearings. There were some concerning grinding noises coming from the bike at times so I had to use up some of my gatorade to wash some of it off. After the race I heard a lot of stories of people peeing on their bike chains to wash them off. Honestly, I really wish I had thought of that! I knew I was going to need to do some serious work on the bike after this race but the advantage of doing all that work myself is it would just cost me new parts so I kept pushing on at least to the next town.

Right at mile 200 there was a intersection where we turned right and I stopped and took a long look at the road. There was no gravel here, only dirt which due to the rain was really sloppy mud. I was getting close to the next town of Florence KS where I had pondered quitting at anyway so I zoomed out on my GPS screen to see if there was another easy route into town. I didn’t see anything obvious but then decided “I bet it gets better just over that hill” and took the muddy road.

Within just a few feet I realized that riding this road wasn’t an option. The only way through this one was to carry the bike through the mud. This was by far the stickiest mud I have encountered. You often hear people talk about “peanut butter mud”, this was certainly it. The bike can’t roll because the mud sticks to the tire and wedges between the tire and frame. Your shoes stick to it and weigh an extra 5 pounds each. Walking uphill is challenging with the lack of any grip. You move forward, but with a lot of effort and slowly.

But, “just get over that hill, it has to get better there” I told myself again. It’s just 1/4 mile or so. 30 minutes later I get to the top of the hill, the road does not improve.

“Just make it to that next intersection 1/2 mile down the road, it has to get better”. Another 30 minutes, I finally get there and, well it sort of got better.

The road was just as bad as it had been, there was certainly no possibility of riding but at least here there was enough solid grassy land in the ditch to the side of the road that walking was easier. The ditch was pretty wet so I was walking in about 6 inches of water but that kept the mud from sticking to my shoes and to the bike wheels so I was making more progress walking and while I still couldn’t ride the bike the wheels would roll now so I could push it along and not carry it.

In the middle of all this I realized that I was done and sent a message to Gene, my friend who was my emergency bailout support guy. I sent him my location and expected to meet up with him at the end of the mud section. Then, in the distance I see his white Dodge Ram 4wd truck coming down the road. While I was really concerned he was going to get stuck and we were both going to be stranded out there I was certainly happy to see him.

The mud kind of caught him off guard. It wasn’t that bad when he started down the road but by the time he realized how bad it was he was committed and could only go forward. He didn’t want to turn around but I informed him that absolutely no 4wd truck could ever make it going the way I came. We were going to have to back out until we could find a place to turn around.

Before we left that spot however I had one important task I needed to do.

A big part my reason for doing events like this is it is my way of coping with the loss of my wife Jane who lost her battle with cancer nearly 5 years ago. She had her own sense of adventure and always supported me when I wanted to do something a little crazy. Over the past couple of years I have been spreading a small amount of her ashes in special places. I told her “we gave it a good try, you were with me the whole way” and spread her to the wind.