After yesterday's rainy ride, today's 93 mile ride started out in a moderately heavy fog. We spent the first 10 miles or so riding directly along the river bank on narrow, but mostly straight two lane country roads with hardly any traffic. It is interesting to note that as we move north and east, there are more historical contexts such as this sign, out in the middle of the fields along the river. It becomes easier to understand how the land itself has changed in the ebb and flow of small towns, previous settlements as time and the big river moved forward.
Sign marking Lincolns' first successful court case
Once we started climbing hills again, the fog lightened into an overcast, thick enough to keep the sun off and the temperatures moderate but we could feel the heat and humidity beginning to build.
After some moderately challenging long but relatively gentle warm up climbs of 600 feet or so, we dropped down into the town of Cloverport. Although it's not big, Cloverport is a charming town with a lot of history. It was one of the crossing points for the Ohio river on the Underground Railroad and the starting point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. Their Native American guide Sacajawea came from a tribe in the area. As we rode through, people smiled, waved and shouted greetings.
As we passed by the fire station that was being restored, one of the riders asked who Sacajawea was. A block later we turned down to the river to take pictures and one of the men who had been working on the fire station came after us to talk. He introduced himself (Kenneth," the redneck techie") and mentioned that he had heard us talking about Sacajawea so he wanted to give us the information. In the course of our conversation, he filled us in on Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, the slave history of the town, local gossip and the fact that the town was doing everything it could to encourage bikers, now that it was "on the map."
Kentucky Quilt block on a downtown Cloverport Building
Before the Civil War the town was split on the question of slavery, with the folks north of the creek being pro slavery and the folks south of the creek being anti-slavery. The result is that there is still one big house up on the hill coming into Cloverport that had a tunnel down to the river and a concealed landing for small boats, while north of the town is an old mansion with the slave quarters complete with shackles. This particular house is owned by the local "old man Owens, a grouch who is as likely to shoot you as look at you although if he thought there was a dollar in it...."During the Civil War, the two halves of the town came together and were considered pro -slavery.
Blue bridge, Cloverport, Kentucky
We rode out of town, across a freshly painted blue bridge across the creek that had once divided the town and immediatly started climbing up out of the river valley. The fog burned off and it started to warm up. At the top of one series of particularly aggrevating froggy hills, the type that go up a lot, down a little, up a lot more, down a little etc., there was a sign on the road saying "fresh strawberries for sale." We declared an instant SAG stop and pulled in.
Strawberry stop
It was a Mennonite farm and the mother and all of the children came out to visit with us while we bought a quart of strawberries and wolfed them down. Each fruit was at least thumb sized, still cool from the basement, and delicious. The mother said that her daughters, 15, 12 and 5 had picked 60 boxes the day before. When I asked the youngest girl if she had helped pick, her mother replied "well she mostly just entertains the other two" and when I asked her if she had eaten as many as she had picked , her mother chuckled, rolled her eyes and said "her dress tells the whole story." As indeed it did, with tell tale signs of finger wipes of strawberry juice all down the front and skirt. The 4 boys just mostly stood around silent or climbed up in the tree to observe. As we were finishing the last of the fruit, the SAG van pulled up with Patty the cook driving. She purchased a couple of gallons of fruit for dinner and for the SAG wagon to carry along tomorrow. Because of the heat, the climb, the humidity and the hills, those strawberries were a highlight to the day.
Patty the guide/chef buying strawberries
In addition to the distance, today's ride had some killer hills, steep and long. The worst was a 1 1/2 mile climb just after the Yellowbank Wildlife Reserve sign that went from 200 feet to almost 900 feet followed by a little downhill and then another almost identical climb about two miles later.
We recommenced climbing the relentless hills. I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing when the hills lurk around a curve in the road and then suddenly appear, projecting silent cries of "surprise!" or "got ya." or whether it is more discouraging to top one hill and see and endless progression of slight downhills and ever higher uphills along a straight road. Either way, the perspectives can be deceiving, and what looks like an OMG climb from one point can turn out to be one you can almost coast to the top of while another which looks like "just a little hill" can turn out to be a long continuous climb. Either way it's all a mind game, and since they had taken the trouble to mark the two meanest , longest climbs on the cue sheet, we were prepared for and dreading those, which made the equally steep but shorter climbs which came after all the more difficult.
We slogged on through the heat and humidity, for 40 miles of ride ten miles, stop and rest, switch water bottles, find a roadside bush, eat something, and ride on another 10 miles. After one stop in the tall grass we all had to take a couple of extra minutes to pick ticks off each other as you could see them dropping off of the grass onto your shoes as you walked back to the bike. We continued to find the occasional tick crawling on or under our clothes for the next 20 miles.
We ended up doing the worst climb and distance during the hottest part of the day. One of the SAG drivers had the foresight to put spray bottles of water in the car as well as food and ice water and every SAG stop gave us an opportunity to thoroughly spray down our jersey's shorts and heads to help cool off. Just when all of us were beginning to feel like we weren't going to make it the last 15 miles, we came across a little country store. We weren't sure that it was open as there were no lights on, but as we pulled up, the woman came out and told us to "come on in and sit a spell under the fan." She had a few cold drinks, two of each, so we rationed out a couple of cans of coke and bottles of green tea and collapsed under the fan. Bless her heart, she also brought out pitcher after pitcher of iced water so that we could refill our water bottles. After drinking, cooling off under the fan and scarfing down GU, peanut bars, the remains of our lunch time foraging and whatever else we had in our bike bags of any nutritional value, we headed off up the hill towards the last stretch.
The last bit, although hilly, was at least lower longer hills. If any of us had had to face another steep hill, we probably would have had to get off our bikes and crawl up, dragging them behind us. As it was the only rough part was the last 2 miles coming in Brandenburg along a highway underconstruction. We rode on the newly paved shoulder, safely behind the barriars, but not safe from fresh asphalt made sticky by the days' heat, construction debris and flying bits thrown up by cars in the actual lanes. We were so wiped that we didn't even consider stopping at the DQ on the way to the Motel 8 because it would have meant stopping at the light, crossing the highway, riding back about 1/4mile and having to backtrack to get back on the highway to finish the last mile to the motel.
We pulled into the motel at what we thought was 3:30 pm only to discover that we had switched zones and that it wasreally 4:30 pm. That was sort of the final blow, to discover that we had lost a precious hour of recovery time.
Dinner, as usual, was supposed to be out by the trailer, but by the time we all had our food, it had started raining. We pulled our chairs under the entrance cover, but then the wind started so we all decamped to the motel lobby. Thirty women were sitting, standing, squatting and prone on the floor, eating, drinking, and talking when a construction worker walked in the door to check in. He stopped, looked around the lobby, said just loud enough for some of near the door to hear, "this must be my lucky day", and then checked in. It added a nice note of humor to what was a hard day.
Today's Stats
mileage 91.19
time 6:27 in the saddle, total time 9 hours
speed 12.9 mph
elevation gain 5488
At the Ohio River on the Kentucky side
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