This morning was a doubting morning. I couldn't imagine why I would commit something so insane. How? Why?
This is a death spiral that can stick me circling the drain. As reeled into concentric circles I latched onto one saving inspiration. I rose from restless tossing last night to watch the 49ers lose to the Giants. I was 0 for 2 in pulling for both the Ravens and 49ers. I gave into my midnight cravings at 10PM and enjoyed a bowl of peanut butter and jelly, 2 slices of bread, and a tumbler of soy milk. Yum at the time but certainly indulgent. This morning knowledge of that indulgence pushed me onto the bike and out the door. Cold and wet be damned. When I arrived at work clarity and motivation were restored. Ahh the miracle of endorphins.
I jettisoned from the office about 30 minutes early following a subconscious decision. I say subconscious because a reasonable sane person would know better. It gets dark around 6PM now. Autopilot on my handlebars and pedals set me on the path to a ~38 mile journey in spite of the threat rain, darkness, and cold. My eyes were just along for the ride.
I stopped for my first desolate solitary meal at the southern end of the American Tobacco Trail. I found shelter under the outhouse overhang. Just me, bike lights, a pack of cliff shots, an empty parking lot, falling darkness and misting rain. Desolate dinner table for one.
The real adventure began as I started back. Darkness fell accompanied by its friends dense fog and heavier rain. The approximately eighteen mile journey home would be interesting. I had to get through the fog, darkness, and cold to contend with a one mile stretch of mall traffic to reach the safety of the trail that leads another three miles to neighborhood surface streets that would, if luck held, spit me out of the spitting rain at home.
I would normally say the fog set in. In this case it more like belly flopped an impenetrable blanket over the world. With two 2 watt lights on my handlebars and a 1 watt helmet light I could see about three feet. I found myself following vague tire prints of previous cyclists. I read several anecdotes of similar behavior in Tour Divide stories. Now I know why. The vague impression of another cyclist is like a yellow brick road. If only it were more reflective...
It can't really be that foggy can it? Judge for yourself. This is what my iPhone saw:
This is looking forward from atop my handlebar lights. That cream/khaki fuzziness is the ground.
This is another attempt to take a picture of the ground. It's more like a picture of pea soup.
The head lights are clearly visible because they are four inches from the camera lens.
Speaking of lenses they were useless. I already traded from my sport glasses to my clear glasses. The heavy moisture in the air coated the lenses obstructing vision even more. I opted for bare eyeballs and mother nature's windshield wipers. I could only see about three feet anyway. Within that three feet everything was fuzzy anyway. I couldn't see further if I wanted to. I couldn't make out details if I wanted to. I was following the vague impression of prior tire tracks.
Finding road crossings were interesting. Most were gated. Fortunately the gates had reflectors. I could see ghostly impressions of the reflectors from about ten feet away just in time to slow down even more and navigate to the narrow passage ways offset to either side.
My pace slowed by necessity. I've ridden this trail dozens of times. It all looks different when only three feet of trail are visible. The world got small, very small, quiet literally.
Eventually I found the tunnel under highway 64. In the daytime the tunnel seems dark and wet. In these conditions the tunnel was a viable bed and breakfast.
The rain picked up some. The drops seemed to drag the fog down to the ground. The foggy mist tagged out for falling drops. The drops danced around in numerous directions in the light beams just inches in front of me.
I escaped the extreme low land of the trail with a long and gradual climb. Love those railroad paths. I found the paved section of the trail. The pavement was extremely slick presenting yet another challenge. Slow and steady I made my way north. North is good but presents other challenges. The end of the trail coming northbound is unfinished. My options were foggy low visibility roads or foggy low visibility unfinished trail. I opted for the trail.
The last mile of trail was very interesting. It made me long for the new bike. The narrow cyclocross tires sunk and slipped in the mud. The rigid frame bounced me over roots. The cyclocross/road gears were just too high for slow crawling through treacherous terrain. With luck, patience, and every bit of bike handling skill I reached the end of the trail and the dirt/grass embankment. It was quite the sloppy mess. This was fun inching process of stepping up, pushing the bike up, locking the brakes, and precariously propelling myself by a combination of the one or two steady or semi steady feet while pulling intermittently on the bike striking a balance of getting me up and it not too far back. It was quite the muddy calculus. Even Mrs. Dovers would have been proud.
I crested the bank, rolled the bike through tall grass to clean the rims and avoid rim brake scrubbing, collected my wits and mounted up. Now to deal with mall traffic.
Infallibly people near the mall don't know how to drive. Cross walks mean nothing. Flashing strobe lights might as well be sale signs instead of personal safety devices. Oh, and drivers of new cars cannot find their own headlights. One lady was quite entertained by me standing in the rain on a bike reminding her to turn her lights on.
Through the mile of modern mall madness I found desolate streets of a started but incomplete development. This comes with its own perils of missing pavement and huge lips, though ledges may be more accurate, in the road and on the sidewalk. I navigated this and eventually popped out by highway 54 just across from the paved section of the American Tobacco Trail. One final uneventful traffic navigation put me on safe, comfortable, uber familiar territory.
I rode up the ATT and passed Rebecca's running group. The Runbuds are out running in this weather?
Up the trail, onto neighborhood surface streets, and another short mile home. I was looking forward to reviewing statistics on the ride but my lovely Gamin conveniently forgot this ride. It's developed this bad habit recently and persisted through soft and hard resets and upgrades. Another item for the todo list.
I stared around 4:30PM and arrived home around 8PM. On a good day I can do this ride in 2.5 hours. Definitely slower but concurrently, definite perseverance.
Inside the house my toes were a shade of stark white or pale blue. They got wet and cold in the muddy ascent. It took a shower and time in warm socks to get back to a tender pink color. I need this to be better. There may not be warm lodging on the trail at night.
It was a good gut check. Visibility made a familiar trail seem foreign. My world reduced to three short feed in front of me. I ate, drank, and pedaled in miserable weather. Navigation is the only missing variable. I look forward to integrating that, rinsing, and repeating.
Speaking of rinsing, I rinsed with the waterhose when I finally reached home. That finally managed to soak through my cycling pants. These do soak through when subjected to enough water. I'm tying to decide if I need to reinforce dry layers here or grin and bear it.
What an adventure for Monday night. What ever will Tuesday bring?
Update: I found the garmin record of my workout. Long story but here it is: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/144169871 . You can see my pace drop off when visibility falls. Then it gets very low on the unfinished trail.
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