In late May (May 28 for those keeping records) I did a 62 (actually 63) mile bike ride for my 62nd birthday and I figured I would use that occasion to re-start my blogging about my riding.
Unfortunately I haven’t been riding nearly as much as I’d like, both recently (thanks Corona 😏) and over the last several years (thanks full time employment 😒 ) but I have managed to squeeze in a few rides that have all been fun, so I’ll try to do a quick 3 year catch up and then get to the 62 for 62 story.
Since my last posting in 2017 I’ve ridden roughly 5,000 miles and most have been on our weekly club rides of about 25 miles at a time with many ~60 mile ‘event’ rides sprinkled in. Most of the event rides have been just one day events but I did ride in several 2 and 3 day rides, most notably the Cycle NC Coastal, Mountain and Mountains to Coast rides. Cycle NC continues to do a great job with all their events and I highly suggest that you try one out, once they start up again – hopefully this August for their annual Mountain Ride. All the rides I went on, whether ‘weekly’ or as part of a larger event, were fun; as I’ve finally gotten to the point where riding is not ‘training’ but either to stay in shape or just for fun. I did manage, with help from Wendy and others from our local club, to ride a 100 mile route from Clayton, NC to Greenville, NC last year on the hottest October day on record in North Carolina. There were times during that ride that I didn’t think I was having fun, yet when looking back, it seems to be one of the best rides I’ve been on in a while. So, nearly six years into my riding experience I am having more and more fun on every ride all while still learning to be a better rider. Some goals have been accomplished while some have been postponed… pretty much a lesson consistent with life in general I suppose.
It has been a "long time" tradition (of about 6 years) that on some day near my birthday I go out for a solo ride and cover the same number of miles as my new age, so this year it was 62 miles for 62 years. In the past many of you have asked me "What do you think about when you’re riding by yourself?" and mostly it is "where am I and where is my next turn and then ‘holy cow, did you see that?’ " but sometimes I actually try to pick a theme to focus on and this ride was one of those – I decided to try and come up with a memory of what I was doing and/or what was happening to me at each year of my life as it matched up with the mile I was at. So at the 5 mile mark I recounted a classic family story of how I snuck out of my kindergarten class and threw everyone into a full on panic until my sister brought me home from school. According to the story (legend) I had snuck into her classroom, laid down beside her desk and took a nice nap. So that’s how my day progressed from mile to mile, year to year. As the miles/years ticked off I recounted stories of where I was at that point in my life and significant things that were going on around me. It didn’t take long of doing this before I started to notice that my surroundings were beginning to mimic the events I was thinking of and that’s when the weirdness took over. The first occurrence of this symbiotic occurrence was at about mile 18. At that time I was enjoying myself during my freshman year of college but yet dark clouds started to roll in and I instantly related them to the fact that at the end of my freshman year I was dismissed from school for (extremely) low grades. It seemed to be worst event in my life and I really didn’t see a path forward. The clouds built and threatened rain with a small sprinkle but relented into just a cloudy, overcast day as I cycled through working at the Duracell plant in my hometown, gaining my feet, and charting a path forward and back to school. Over the next several miles the clouds built and regressed and built again, just as I continued my struggles through school, but all along I could always see an edge to them where they gave way to a clear blue sky and calm breeze at about mile 23 – when I graduated college and took my first job as an engineer. At that point the clouds virtually disappeared and gave way to blue skies that continued on and off with a cloud here and there as I (metaphorically) pedaled through my twenties and well into my thirties. The sky was blue, the wind at a minimum and road was smooth… cycling was very good, as was my life at that time. This is where it got really, really weird…. All during the trip so far I was following a local route that our club uses for their annual "Cotton Country Century" ride. I was following the 62 mile route and it overlaps with the 100 mile route. For this ride the 62 mile route uses yellow markings to guide you and the 100 uses white, but at nearly the same point where those two routes diverge someone swapped the colors and threw me a curve ball… the 62 was painted white and the 100 was yellow… which color should I follow? So I sucked it up and with some help from a friend decided that this little impasse was just that, a minor bump and I decided that I should follow the yellow and continue on. Oddly enough at just about that age I moved from Arizona to Delaware. The riding got a little rough for a few miles as I tried to ensure myself I made the right choice today which was the same self-doubt I was going through back then also. But lo and behold I came across another route marker and it was the correct color and the location agreed with the route list I was carrying. I was clearly on the right path for me and things were good… both today and a few years after moving to Delaware. Then at mile 36, like a lightning bolt, the sky turned dark and it began to rain again. Late in that year, during a night school class on Finance, my appendix ruptured and I woke up in the hospital with tubes in every orifice I had, plus a few new ones. But while I suffered through that ‘bump in the road’ I came to realize just how strong I was and pedaled my way through recovery and into a brighter and clearer future. After that year, my work years and personal years had many more ups than downs and I was pretty happy with my lot in life and the road & weather during this ride. But the real bad weather was up ahead and I could barely see it at the horizon. As I pedaled up to mile 49 everything seemed fine. The road was straight with no turns in sight but all of a sudden everything turned to shit. The road surface got much rougher, the winds picked up and were right in my face causing my speed to drop to nearly single digits. And with those winds came clouds, no, not clouds… just one large cloud that covered from horizon to horizon for the first time today. The rain began and competed the triad of a cyclist’s worst ride – rough road, headwinds and rain. Over the next many years as Sara battled cancer and I stood helplessly by I was buffeted by what can only be described as the worst time of my life and this ride was presenting itself as such. It took hard pedaling to work my way through these gloomy, overcast and rough road miles but I often would feel the wind shift and become a tailwind helping me along as my friends grew tight around me and continued their support in unprecedented ways. I felt their hands on my back pushing me along, not pulling me to somewhere I didn’t necessarily need to be, but pushing me along in the direction I felt I needed to go. I recounted visits and calls and cards all full of empathy and hope and knew that I would be ok because today, unlike then, I knew the outcome (at least up until now). A few miles later the overcast broke up and the rain became a drizzle. Things started looking up and then boom…just like that at about mile 55 my phone blew up with texts and notifications. It was Wendy and our cycling buddies trying to plan our next ride, at just about the very same mile when we met. The skies cleared, the sprinkles subsided and the road got smoother. That left me only seven more miles to finish my day and I can’t say that those were the best seven miles of the day as the sprinkles came and went and the clouds rolled through, but I can say I felt empowered and strong enough to ride through those minor ‘bumps’ as I knew that I had family and friends – both old and new, all metaphorically waiting for me to arrive at mile 62. No, that’s not quite right. They weren’t waiting for me, they were there with me all along, mile for mile, pulling for me and helping me get here today.
SO, thank you all for your support, encouragement, willingness to listen and guidance. Although I rode 62 miles yesterday by myself, I could not have ridden these 62 years without you. Cycle On my Friends. Until next time, stay healthy and keep your chain lubed
Unfortunately I haven’t been riding nearly as much as I’d like, both recently (thanks Corona 😏) and over the last several years (thanks full time employment 😒 ) but I have managed to squeeze in a few rides that have all been fun, so I’ll try to do a quick 3 year catch up and then get to the 62 for 62 story.
 |
| #4 comes in handy fetching beer from the local brewery. |
Since my last posting in 2017 I’ve ridden roughly 5,000 miles and most have been on our weekly club rides of about 25 miles at a time with many ~60 mile ‘event’ rides sprinkled in. Most of the event rides have been just one day events but I did ride in several 2 and 3 day rides, most notably the Cycle NC Coastal, Mountain and Mountains to Coast rides. Cycle NC continues to do a great job with all their events and I highly suggest that you try one out, once they start up again – hopefully this August for their annual Mountain Ride. All the rides I went on, whether ‘weekly’ or as part of a larger event, were fun; as I’ve finally gotten to the point where riding is not ‘training’ but either to stay in shape or just for fun. I did manage, with help from Wendy and others from our local club, to ride a 100 mile route from Clayton, NC to Greenville, NC last year on the hottest October day on record in North Carolina. There were times during that ride that I didn’t think I was having fun, yet when looking back, it seems to be one of the best rides I’ve been on in a while. So, nearly six years into my riding experience I am having more and more fun on every ride all while still learning to be a better rider. Some goals have been accomplished while some have been postponed… pretty much a lesson consistent with life in general I suppose.
 |
| Ride 100 Miles, Get the Sticker :) |
It has been a "long time" tradition (of about 6 years) that on some day near my birthday I go out for a solo ride and cover the same number of miles as my new age, so this year it was 62 miles for 62 years. In the past many of you have asked me "What do you think about when you’re riding by yourself?" and mostly it is "where am I and where is my next turn and then ‘holy cow, did you see that?’ " but sometimes I actually try to pick a theme to focus on and this ride was one of those – I decided to try and come up with a memory of what I was doing and/or what was happening to me at each year of my life as it matched up with the mile I was at. So at the 5 mile mark I recounted a classic family story of how I snuck out of my kindergarten class and threw everyone into a full on panic until my sister brought me home from school. According to the story (legend) I had snuck into her classroom, laid down beside her desk and took a nice nap. So that’s how my day progressed from mile to mile, year to year. As the miles/years ticked off I recounted stories of where I was at that point in my life and significant things that were going on around me. It didn’t take long of doing this before I started to notice that my surroundings were beginning to mimic the events I was thinking of and that’s when the weirdness took over. The first occurrence of this symbiotic occurrence was at about mile 18. At that time I was enjoying myself during my freshman year of college but yet dark clouds started to roll in and I instantly related them to the fact that at the end of my freshman year I was dismissed from school for (extremely) low grades. It seemed to be worst event in my life and I really didn’t see a path forward. The clouds built and threatened rain with a small sprinkle but relented into just a cloudy, overcast day as I cycled through working at the Duracell plant in my hometown, gaining my feet, and charting a path forward and back to school. Over the next several miles the clouds built and regressed and built again, just as I continued my struggles through school, but all along I could always see an edge to them where they gave way to a clear blue sky and calm breeze at about mile 23 – when I graduated college and took my first job as an engineer. At that point the clouds virtually disappeared and gave way to blue skies that continued on and off with a cloud here and there as I (metaphorically) pedaled through my twenties and well into my thirties. The sky was blue, the wind at a minimum and road was smooth… cycling was very good, as was my life at that time. This is where it got really, really weird…. All during the trip so far I was following a local route that our club uses for their annual "Cotton Country Century" ride. I was following the 62 mile route and it overlaps with the 100 mile route. For this ride the 62 mile route uses yellow markings to guide you and the 100 uses white, but at nearly the same point where those two routes diverge someone swapped the colors and threw me a curve ball… the 62 was painted white and the 100 was yellow… which color should I follow? So I sucked it up and with some help from a friend decided that this little impasse was just that, a minor bump and I decided that I should follow the yellow and continue on. Oddly enough at just about that age I moved from Arizona to Delaware. The riding got a little rough for a few miles as I tried to ensure myself I made the right choice today which was the same self-doubt I was going through back then also. But lo and behold I came across another route marker and it was the correct color and the location agreed with the route list I was carrying. I was clearly on the right path for me and things were good… both today and a few years after moving to Delaware. Then at mile 36, like a lightning bolt, the sky turned dark and it began to rain again. Late in that year, during a night school class on Finance, my appendix ruptured and I woke up in the hospital with tubes in every orifice I had, plus a few new ones. But while I suffered through that ‘bump in the road’ I came to realize just how strong I was and pedaled my way through recovery and into a brighter and clearer future. After that year, my work years and personal years had many more ups than downs and I was pretty happy with my lot in life and the road & weather during this ride. But the real bad weather was up ahead and I could barely see it at the horizon. As I pedaled up to mile 49 everything seemed fine. The road was straight with no turns in sight but all of a sudden everything turned to shit. The road surface got much rougher, the winds picked up and were right in my face causing my speed to drop to nearly single digits. And with those winds came clouds, no, not clouds… just one large cloud that covered from horizon to horizon for the first time today. The rain began and competed the triad of a cyclist’s worst ride – rough road, headwinds and rain. Over the next many years as Sara battled cancer and I stood helplessly by I was buffeted by what can only be described as the worst time of my life and this ride was presenting itself as such. It took hard pedaling to work my way through these gloomy, overcast and rough road miles but I often would feel the wind shift and become a tailwind helping me along as my friends grew tight around me and continued their support in unprecedented ways. I felt their hands on my back pushing me along, not pulling me to somewhere I didn’t necessarily need to be, but pushing me along in the direction I felt I needed to go. I recounted visits and calls and cards all full of empathy and hope and knew that I would be ok because today, unlike then, I knew the outcome (at least up until now). A few miles later the overcast broke up and the rain became a drizzle. Things started looking up and then boom…just like that at about mile 55 my phone blew up with texts and notifications. It was Wendy and our cycling buddies trying to plan our next ride, at just about the very same mile when we met. The skies cleared, the sprinkles subsided and the road got smoother. That left me only seven more miles to finish my day and I can’t say that those were the best seven miles of the day as the sprinkles came and went and the clouds rolled through, but I can say I felt empowered and strong enough to ride through those minor ‘bumps’ as I knew that I had family and friends – both old and new, all metaphorically waiting for me to arrive at mile 62. No, that’s not quite right. They weren’t waiting for me, they were there with me all along, mile for mile, pulling for me and helping me get here today.
 |
| Ride 63 Miles, Eat What You Want :) |
