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Simple pleasures

Dave had a bike race way out in Williams this morning so we went up a day early. We rode a small but significant section of the course yesterday afternoon, about 30 miles total. About nine miles in we turned off the highway onto a narrow country road that led to a town called Leesville. Fifty feet down this road I stopped to ask Dave if he was serious. This road was part of the race course? It was the worst pavement I had ever ridden.

I can't even describe how awesomely bad this busted-up, potholed, patched, pitted and rutted pavement felt under two skinny tires. Dave commented that it might be nice to have a cyclocross bike but I found myself wishing for a front-suspension mountain bike at times. It was so bad that when the broken-up pavement, which I could feel and hear buckling under my wheels, gave way to nothing but dirt and gravel, I was relieved instead of anxious like I usually am riding my road bike over loose stuff. It was so badly rutted in some parts that I was pretty sure our car would have lacked the clearance to make it. Nothing we ride in the Bay Area compares to this road. That one section of Sir Francis Drake we go miles out of our way to avoid? The west side of Marshall-Petaluma after a heavy rainy season? Orders of magnitude better than Leesville Road.

And I was tooling over it at 11mph; going any faster was downright painful. Dave rode it considerably faster in his race. On the bright side, the scenery was gorgeous. I only noticed this after I stopped trying to keep up with Dave and started enjoying myself at my own pace.

I turned around after six miles of the bad road. Dave went a few more miles to ride the big climb. When I was about a mile from getting back to the main (and blissfully smooth) road, I realized I had a slow flat in my rear tire. I stopped to fix it and was immediately attacked by bees. One particularly persistent one kept tormenting me as I tried to get my tire off the rim. I'm sure I looked like a lunatic as I danced around swinging my wheel at the bee trying desperately to get it away from me. I might have been a little delirious. It was about 90 degrees, the air quality was bad, and I had run out of water. In the process of changing my tire I also managed to get filthy tire marks all over my arms, legs, and jersey. When I stripped before showering later on I discovered I had a full-on dirt tan; I was solid brown from ankles to thighs.

Luckily my extended stop meant that Dave caught back up with me. I got to ride his wheel all the way back into town. Score!

With all of our bottles empty, we stopped at the grocery as soon as we got back to town and bought cold Gatorade and water. There is nothing like a hot, dirty ride to make you appreciate a cold drink. I guzzled that red sugar water so fast I gave myself an ice cream headache, but it tasted heavenly. If I could have dunked my head into that Gatorade bottle, I would have. But then I probably would have been even more attractive to the bees.

July 5, 2008 10:43 PM