Monsoon century! (Winston Salem, NC)

The DeSaixs and me at COTC

Today was definitely our most emotional day of the trip. It had its ups and downs for sure, but pushed almost all of us to our limits. In the morning, we had another great breakfast at Chapel of the Cross and were seen off by the DeSaixs, Bob Chase and Jimmy. Unfortunately, we were also met by tropical depression Barry, who decided to stay with us for the next ten hours, dumping rain all day long. At first the rain was kind of fun, spraying in our faces and making the road slick and shiny, but after awhile our shoes turned into pools of water and we started to get cold. On a funny note, the chamois in our shorts (padding for our bums) got wet, and it felt like riding around with wet diapers. The hills started getting steeper and we began missing turns when the rain washed away our chalk (usually, the lead riders in the group use chalk to mark the turns for the rest of the group). We finally arrived in Winston Salem at 7:30pm—after 106 miles and more than eleven hours in the saddle! I was lucky and only had mild bike trouble, but several folks had flats or got so lost they had to be rescued by the van. I know there’s no way I could have made it all the way if it weren’t for my riding partners, Anita and Melanie, with their silliness and good spirits.

After all these misadventures, the reception we received in Winston Salem was incredible. The last twenty miles of our “century” (a 100-mile ride) felt about as bad as the first eighty, since Winson Salem is really hilly and we made as many wrong turns as right ones (I have to admit, I hurled a lot of insults on the roads of that city, but it’s not a bad place). Coming to the top of one hill, we finally found ourselves Calvary Baptist Church, and the rest of our group across the street at Paceline bike shop, yelling and waving at us. A Bike and Builder who rode on one of last year’s routes (Marilyn) and her mom had set up a cookout for us in the parking lot, invited the local news station, and arranged for the bike shop to be open and to tune up our bikes for free! I had never been so happy to see the group, and we rode in to the news cameras with much hand-slapping. The food was great, the folks at Paceline were really helpful, and Calvary Baptist provided nice accommodations in their workout room. I was so tired that the rest of the day is just a blur in my memory, but we had arrived.

Positive thoughts for the day:

* For some reason or another, we passed a lot of cows today. For the most part, they just sat there all nonchalant, heedless of the wind and rain. Sometimes they would look up at us if I mooed at them (note: I was mildly hypothermic at this point at getting a little disoriented), but otherwise they were unbothered by their surroundings. It was kind of inspiring actually; today’s mantra was: be like a cow.

* When you’re riding on smooth, wet asphalt, you can look down and see your reflection, with colors and everything.

* Marilyn, her family, and the folks at Paceline are awesome.

Were my bike odometer working in the rain, it would read: 404.9 miles