Well, it seemed like one of those rides, anyway.   It could’ve been worse, of course.  Do you ever have one of those rides, where you get a ways down the road and realize things just aren’t going as planned?  Usually, those “things” come in clusters–I’ll ride, day after day, without a hitch, and then one day I’ll go out and there will be 15 glitches, one after the other.  Often on those days, I get myself convinced that it’s all a sign, and I really ought to bag the whole thing and go home.  That just makes matters worse, because then I get anxious, and it just goes downhill (although, invariably, the road itself goes UPHILL) from there.

Today was one of those days.  Now, I should preface this by saying that I fully recognize that none of these things are real problems, and I’m very grateful not to have had a real problem.  Nonetheless, I’m happy to be off the bike for the day.

I took my car to be worked on, having planned out a nice 45 mile loop starting and ending at the shop.  I thought it was 45 miles, anyway.  It turned out to be 41–close enough.  So I hopped on the bike and headed out around 9:30; I don’t like to go out much earlier than that on a weekday, because traffic is so dreadful first thing.  Anyway, I got going and headed from Hwy. 64 into Apex. 

Now, I had an agenda for this ride.  I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet, but I’m riding Cycle North Carolina next week.  My dear Mr. Helpful was indeed very helpful the other day, when I asked him to put my mountain bike pedals on my bike.  For touring, or any other long-distance riding where I’ll need to get off the bike for more than just a potty break, I prefer mountain bike shoes, because they’re easier to walk around in.  So he put them on for me, and today was the test day.  If I’m going to ride 500 miles in them next week, I probably ought to put in a few miles in them before I leave home.  So I started out, and they instantly drove me crazy.  I’ve had these shoes for three years, but I don’t use them all that much, and they have less float in the direction that I like float, and as a result, I felt a bit trapped.  The shoes themselves are also much heavier than my road shoes (for that reason, I use them for winter riding, because they’re warmer).  I felt like I had lead weights on my feet.  So I was crawling from the get-go.

I was also trialling a different spot for my cell phone.  I velcroed a little holder to my seat tube, and put the phone in there, thinking that the less weight I have on my body, the better (it’s usually in my jersey pocket).  So I apparently didn’t tighten the velcro enough, because it kept slipping from side to side, bumped by my inner thighs.  Or maybe I just need to do more Jane Fonda or something.  I don’t know–but the constant rubbing was a huge problem.  That clearly won’t work next week.

So the first hold-up was construction.  I usually find it sort of amusing when I come upon a road crew, you know, where they have one lane shut down, and two guys with stop signs letting traffic from each direction take turns on the open lane?  So I got to one of these spots, and I was first in line at the stop sign.  I chatted for a couple of minutes with the guy holding us up, and then he said we could go.  I waved the cars on around me, to let them get ahead, and then I went last.  But I was very self-conscious.  I realized that there was a line of traffic ahead of me, waiting to use the lane, and I was the only hold-up.  I hadn’t planned to do intervals today, but that really got me moving!

The next hold-up was when I realized it was ten o’clock.  Whenever I’m at home in the morning, painting, I listen to the Diane Rehm Show on public radio.  Today, she was going to be talking about the e. coli-in-the-spinach problem, about which I have heard very little, and I really wanted to listen.  So I had brought along the teeny-tiny little MP3 player that I use on long runs; it has a radio.  So first I had to get it switched to radio, then find the station.  Then I realized that the battery was nearly dead.  Oh well; maybe radio doesn’t use very much.  Then I was trying to get the earbud situated, while still pedaling.  Mistake.  I dropped it, the cord wrapped around my front fork, and I heard the ping as one of the earbuds popped off and bounced away into the grass behind me.  At least it was the left bud; I don’t use that one on the bike.  And at least it didn’t cause me to crash and die.  I kept going.

The next hold-up was when I turned onto Tody Goodwin Road (after asking a very nice gentleman in a church parking lot for directions, because any cue sheet I write for myself NEVER, EVER works the way I thought it would–I need better maps).  Now, this requires another little preface.  I have a long and traumatic history with Tody Goodwin Rd.  First off, for the record, the name of the road is phonetically incorrect.  It is officially, according to the people who live there (I know, I’ve asked), pronounced with a short o.  But phonetically, this would require two d’s.  My son is Toby, with a long o.  Not Tobby.  The road should sound like “toady.”  But I’m sure no one would want to live on “toady” road.  This just bugs me.

Anyway, I have ridden down this road many times, and many times on this road I have been chased by mean, vicious dogs.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m terrified of dogs.  I mean, hard-core, serious phobia.  I’m horribly afraid of them under any circumstances; pedaling in the road with the potential for cars while being chased by a growling, snarling, teeth-baring angry animal is enough to paralyze me with fear.  There are two houses on this particular road that have caused me problems in the past; a place on the right with a white fence, and a bit further down, two houses next to each other on the left, one of which has a German Shepherd.  That dog has come after me while the owner just stood there and watched.  We’re talking major trauma here.  So I was anxious all morning, just knowing this road was on my cue sheet (I couldn’t figure out any other way to get where I needed to go–believe me, I tried.  More on that later).

I made the right hand turn, passed the first house (the one with the British telephone box in the yard), and then I came to a large field being turned up by a man on a tractor.  Another man was walking in the field–with the German Shepherd.  This was it–paralysis.  I just stopped in the road.  I had no idea what to do.  Knowing the dog was there made it absolutely impossible for me to go forward–in my mind, the dog was equal to a cement barrier.  There was no way I could get past it.  But I couldn’t turn around, because this was the only way I knew of to get to Beaver Creek Road, which is where I needed to go.  And I didn’t have a map.  So I just stood there, hoping the men would see me before the dog did.  I waved and waved, till finally one of them saw me and waved back.  Not very helpful.  I was reduced to bizarre gesticulating, trying to somehow communicate “I’m afraid of your dog; please don’t let it chase me.”  Amazingly, I think he understood.  He motioned to me to go on, anyway, so I did.  Equally amazingly, the dog ignored me.

I was a wreck, though, and then two minutes later, I got to the house with the white fence.  I went as hard as I could, and by the time I got (safely) past, I was quite certain I was going to throw up.  I’m not sure if it was the effort, or the fear.  Whichever–I was definitely not having fun.  Then a couple of minutes later, there was a woman out for a walk on the road.  Now, this is out in the country, and you don’t often see someone out for a power walk out in Chatham County.  So I slowed down to chat with this woman.  She was ever so nice, especially when I told her I was about to throw up from my fear of dogs.  She said that the ones by the white fence had been tied up by their owner ever since she called animal control, because they used to chase her, too.  And the German Shepherd is apparently too old to chase anymore.  She says she walks on that road every day, and hasn’t been chased in a couple of years.  Yay!  I can put Tody Goodwin back in the mix!

So the reason  I absolutely had to ride that road was that I was trying to scout out a small portion of the CNC route, to find a spot where my daughter’s class can go have a picnic and cheer us on as we go by.  I’ll stop and have lunch with them.  I’m planning to talk to the class before I leave, and then they can read my blog entries from the road.  This will be the kick-off for their NC studies for the year.  I’m looking forward to it; they’re a lot of fun.  Plus I’m excited about the idea of riding all the way across the state, and I want to share that with someone–they’re a captive audience!  So I found a spot, and hopefully the weather will cooperate for us to rendezvous next week.

The battery on the MP3 player eventually died (but not until after the spinach segment, so that was good).  I made it back to the mechanic, finally.  The ultimate indignity was when I got in the car, forgetting that there was an open pack of fig newtons in my jersey pocket.  Yuck.

And they never did figure out what was wrong with my car.