Well folks, don’t freak, but I’ve decided to bow out of this endeavor.  I rode the first 200k today, and stopped having fun around mile 30.  Actually, it depends on your definition of fun:  a ziptie popped off my bike at mile .2, so I stopped to make an adjustment, lost the group, and spent 18 miles trying to catch up.  That was actually fine; it was reasonably pretty terrain, not terribly hilly, still cool, and not much wind.  Aside from the mile or so I spent listening to a cornhusk that was stuck in my rear fender, it was peaceful.

I caught up with a group at the first control (36 miles), which was good, but then the sun really started glaring down on us, and we turned into the wind.  And what a wind it was.  I saw one man get blown off the road, and I know of at least one other person who was literally pushed into a field by a gust.  It was around 30mph, I believe, with higher gusts.  And 90 degrees.  We tried hard to keep our paceline cranking, but it was hard to stay together.  There were spots where we were crawling along at 5mph on the flats.  And there weren’t many flats; today’s route was the hilliest of the 3 that the group uses this week.

The upshot of all this is that I spent a lot of time pedaling alone today, and I had a lot of time to really think about what I’ve gotten myself into.  I concluded that I wasn’t having fun, I wasn’t looking forward to future rides–even PBP, and hobbies are supposed to be fun.  So I decided to bail.

I’m actually very happy with my decision; my only regret is that I feel like I’m letting all of you down.  Your support and encouragement have been wonderful, and I thank you.  Thanks for riding with me, for emailing and calling to tell me I could do it, and for sending me positive energy.  I know I am capable of doing it, but I don’t think that’s quite enough for something like PBP–you have to really want it.  And I don’t think I do.

Those of you who are still training and riding and working on your qualifiers–keep at it.  It’s worth the effort, at least once. 

So I’m headed home in the morning.

Keep the rubber side down, folks.

Okay, so I was at breakfast just now, and was chatting with the guy at the next table.  He had done the whole 300k yesterday, and was absolutely toast.  Kind of out of it, really.  He said that he had figured it would take him about 13 hours (bear in mind that my 300k 2 weeks ago took me 15.5 hours), but that he got in with a fast group, and finished in 11 hours.  At one point they were going 32 MILES AN HOUR.  For those of you who aren’t cyclists, okay, that’s fast.

Umm, this is why I am feeling a bit discombobulated.  On a brevet, I tend to average something more in the 13-14 mph range.  On a good day.  With no headwind.

In this group, there just aren’t that many pokey-slow types like me.  I’m really having to wrap my head around the prospect of riding all of tomorrow night totally alone.

Time to put the lights on the bike and go to inspection now.  Deep breaths.

I should’ve enlarged those pictures; I’m going to try again.  If this succeeds, just look at them, but mentally plug them into the last post.

okay, that one is kind of squished.  sorry.  i’ll get the hang of it . . .

much better.

hey–way cool.  now i’m definitely going to stretch.  later.

Okay, I’m going to try to add some pictures.  I took two yesterday, and I think two today, and I don’t imagine there will be many more.  I’m moving awfully slowly, with many miles to go before I sleep (I’m sure Robert Frost meant to be on a bicycle).

This was an emu farm that I passed yesterday.  I’ve seen emu farms before (there used to be one on Hwy. 49 on the way to Charlotte), but never one where the birds were so close to the road.  The one in the top picture was watching me warily; I had to move slowly getting the camera out, and I was afraid that the click would scare him off.  But he stood strong–cool birds.

So this afternoon, Marcella and I headed out for our little recovery spin.  It was such a beautiful day, and we were tooling along down these incredibly quiet little farm roads, so we stopped to take a couple of pictures:

This is Marcella, looking urban in front of the silos.  For the record, this photo is deceptive–it looks flat.  Let me assure you, that particular road is anything but flat.  Anyway, I posed next for the midwestern agriculture landscape shot:

And we got back on the bikes, and I promptly flatted.  Again.  Same tire.  I’m not sure what’s going on, but we since we had nowhere to be in a hurry, Marcella gave me an excellent tutorial, and I’m now feeling much more confident (except that I’m running out of tubes!).  She’s a Team-In-Training coach, mentor, and fundraiser; they’re a really great organization, and having met many Team members in races over the years, I can say that they are amazingly nice and always enthusiastic people.  Marcella is no exception to that rule.  She’s also excellent at changing tires. 

Anyway, we eventually solved that problem and headed on.  We turned onto the bike path, and I have to say–I LOVE the bike path.  I have no idea what it’s called, but it’s shady, traffic-free, flat, and PROTECTED FROM THE WIND.  This is a very good thing.  We didn’t follow it all the way to the end; we stopped at about 19 miles and had slushies in a little village ice cream shop, then we headed back.  Fabulous ride.

So here are my three observations for the day:

–First of all, I’m struggling not to feel WAY out of my element here.  This is an incredibly fast group; I guess I should’ve realized that only the very strongest randonneurs would be insane enough to do all the brevets in one week, but I didn’t fully process that that fact would mean THEY ALL GO REALLY FAST.  It’s freaking me out quite a bit.  I really don’t like being on my own in the dark, and I’m guessing it gets pretty darn dark out there in the heartland.  I suppose I’ll find out on Wednesday night.  I think I’ll be all right if I know I’m not dead last, but that may be iffy.  It just depends on who is riding that day.

–Second:  the roads we’re riding on, while they are (mostly) very, very quiet, they are also incredibly rough.  I’m feeling pretty banged up; this pavement makes those seams around White Lake look tame.  Even the bike path, while it was shady and calm, was bumpy enough to make my bike rattle hard every few seconds.  It’s kind of exhausting, which is not good.

–Finally, I have to keep reminding myself that the mental challenge of being away from home and alone with my anxiety was the whole point of coming here.  That’s what threw me in France in 2003, and that’s the obstacle I’m working to overcome.  It’s not easy, though; I’m having a lot more low points than usual, and am having more trouble finding my happy place.

Anyway, I’ll just keep working on the mental piece, and spend tomorrow hydrating and stretching.  We have some seminars in the afternoon, so hopefully I can get to know a few more people.  It might help me to feel a bit more connected to the group as a whole.  I don’t want Marcella to feel like I’m clinging to her, or slowing her down, but I also don’t want to spend the next 36 hours anticipating riding 1000k all by myself.

Time to stretch.  Send me happy thoughts, and calm winds!

Well, I realize I’m supposed to be out on the 300k right now, but I’m not.  I’m resting.  I decided that since I’ve already done a 300k, but I haven’t done a 400 or 600, and really, really need to finish those, that doing more than absolutely necessary might be a bad idea.  So I slept in (till 7:30–woohoo!), ate breakfast, went to Wal-mart (schlepping the bags back across the 6 lane highway on foot; it’s truly an idyllic paradise here at the Best-Value Inn), and had a very nice lunch at the Taco Bell.

My friend Marcella and I are still going to ride, just not as far as everyone else.  We looked at today’s cue sheet and noted two things:  a) the first 15 miles are on roads like yesterday, but the 2nd 15 miles are on a bike path–cool.  b) there are ice cream shops on said bike path.  So we’ll head out in a few minutes and probably ride to the end of the bike path, have some ice cream, and head back.  For most normal human beings, a 60 mile ride is a reasonable endeavor for one day.  I’m trying not to feel like an underachiever . . .

The weather, mercifully, is glorious today–sunny, no humidity, low 80s.  So I’m thinking of today as the one day of this trip that feels like vacation.  No worries about getting to the next control to get warmer gloves out of my SAG bag (that was a BIG problem yesterday; lesson learned–don’t depend on the van), no need (yet) to make sure I’m carrying all my back-up lights and batteries and reflective gear, no need to stay on the course no matter what.  Just a bike ride.  I like that.

All right.  It’s now 8pm, CST, and I’m here in my deluxe accommodations at the BestValue Inn of Beloit, Wisconsin.  I have also spent time today in the bustling metropolitan centers of Chemung (which I believe is in Illinois), Delavan (definitely Wisconsin), and East Troy (no idea–based on the weather, perhaps somewhere near Seattle?).

Major sighs of relief:

1–Only one dog chased the whole day (well, two, but the first one was a pug, so it didn’t really count).  That was a MAJOR relief.

2–The sun finally came out at about 95 miles.  This is good.

3–Can’t think of a third.  But the first two were really good.

So the morning started out cold:  it was predicted to be 51, but it felt colder to me.  I was afraid to check my thermometer, because I knew that seeing 40something would just make me feel colder.  8 minutes out from the start, it started to rain–a very cold, very hard, very wet rain.  It poured for exactly 6 minutes, then stopped.  The rain went off and on like that all morning, and some of the afternoon, too.  It finally cleared up and warmed up a bit in the late afternoon.  Luckily, I started out wearing my rain jacket because of the cold, and my fabulous new fenders are GREAT!  Butt stayed dry and clean all day.

I learned two interesting things about Wisconsin today.  First, what one sees from an airplane doesn’t necessarily correlate with what one experiences on a bicycle.  Looks mighty flat flying in from the east.  Feels much less flat down here.  It was rolling hills (incredibly reminiscent of the hills on PBP, amazingly, which are actually very different from our hills) all day, except for one section about 8 or 10 miles long which was brutally steep rollers one right after another.  I finally switched over to my inclinometer screen and realized it was 13%.  Oddly, the first time I rode the section, on the outbound leg, it seemed to sort of wake my legs up, and it was the first time that I felt pretty good.  Too bad I didn’t hit it till 55 miles.

The reason I hadn’t felt at all strong up to that point was the other thing I learned about Wisconsin today:  it’s really, really windy here.  I’ve never really ridden in wind like that.  Not the gusty, knock-you-off-your-bike stuff that we have at home, but just a strong, steady headwind.  It’s pretty draining.  Somehow, it’s not quite the same as the constant climbing that we get on the Morrisville brevets, because that stuff makes my legs feel like hamburger meat.  This evening, I don’t hurt terribly much anywhere, but I’m EXHAUSTED.  I’ve been wanting to go to sleep ever since I got off the bike.  I would’ve, too, but apparently one is supposed to eat after an effort like that.

So here I sit, feet up, eating the spaghetti with grilled chicken from the local Italian-place-that-delivers.  My official brevet time was 10 hours, 5 minutes.  Oh, I forgot to mention the flat tire 10 miles from the finish (told you it was a huge relief that the rain finally stopped and the sun came out).  My new friend Marcella did most of the work changing it–thank you, Marcella!–apparently she’s really proud of her tire changing skills.  I would say that pride is justified.  The only glitch was that neither of us had any cartridges, having dutifully removed them from our saddle bags prior to flying on Saturday.  When we got to the finish, we went straight to the PAC Tour trailer and bought 4 cartridges each.  A must-have item–that frame pump stinks.  Handy in an emergency, but insanely difficult to use.

The best thing I saw all day (which Marcella pointed out):  the dairy farm of Fred L. Schmuck.  Seriously.

Okay.  I have to go to bed now.

Lets hope this worked this time.  I really want to be able to post pictures from Wisconsin so here goes another try.

Okay–here’s the deal.  Several people have asked about the brevet week schedule, so here it is:

Sunday (that would be day after tomorrow–gulp!):  200k (125 miles)
Monday:  300k (186 miles)
Tuesday:  rest day
Wednesday:  400k (250 miles)
Thursday:  Finish 400k in the wee hours, then sleep
Friday:  rest day
Saturday-Sunday:  600k  (this route is structured so that we return to the hotel at 400k, so it’ll really be a 400k on Saturday into the wee hours of Sunday, hopefully catch a short sleep, then 200k on Sunday.  Hopefully.)
Monday–fly home.

In the meantime, I have lots of packing to do, so I’m going to do carpool duty, then disassemble my bike . . .

I’ll blog again from Wisconsin.

ps–sorry those really boring pictures from the last post didn’t make it onto the blog.  I’m sure you’re all just dying to see them . . .  Hopefully I can find a few minutes of spare time this afternoon to figure out how to make that work!

So for Mother’s Day I got the cutest little camera.  It’s pink.  I haven’t actually owned a camera of my own since that Kodak Disc I got for my 18th birthday, so this whole digital thing is stretching my sense of what a camera should be.  Plus I’m a terrible photographer.  But it’s pink, and itty-bitty, with its own little case, so I can carry it on my bike.  I made the mistake of not really taking pictures on PBP in 2003, and I regret it, so I’m going to practice in Wisconsin.  And did I mention that this particular camera is pink?  It will match all my carefully color-coordinated cycling clothes . . .

I went out this afternoon and did an hour or so of intervals, and while I was cooling down, I stopped and took a few random pictures of Lochmere Lake, simply because that’s where I was.  Mr. Helpful showed me how to get the pictures from the camera to my computer, but the information chain sort of fell apart at that point, and I’m still not sure how to actually get them onto the blog.  He did this one, and it seemed that his method was a bit haphazard.  I’ll have to keep working on that . . .

Anyway, I got my bike back on Friday, and fortuitously, my new light arrived about an hour later.  So I bolted it onto the bike and when it got dark I went for a spin.  Wow–I had forgotten what a difference really good lights make (and familiar roads, and fabulous weather, and no clock to watch . . .)  So I just spun around for a while, enjoying the dark and the warmth and the smell of the honeysuckle.

Oooh–and I got fenders, too!  I’m so excited–maybe my butt won’t be so soggy now!  They’re really cool; they aren’t the big, long full fenders with mudflap that would be ultra-protective, because my bike simply won’t accommodate those (and don’t email me telling me I should fashion my own out of PVC pipe or something–my crafty-ness tends more toward the textile side of things!), but they’re definitely fenders.  Shiny, black, sort of . . . quaint-looking.  Not that I’m lobbying for rain or anything–dry is still good!

Okay.  There’s a nearly-finished dishcloth upstairs calling my name.

More boring pix of Lochmere Lake coming soon, as soon as I figure out how.

Check out these fun videos made by someone in the U.K. I had to watch them twice through to understand all of the speaking, but you get a good sense of the disintegration of coherence over the four days.