2018 Indiana Tour de Corn

For the first time in two years, I was able to return to Indiana during the July 4 holiday, and it was great to be back.  This time, I only took a few short, 30-40 mile rides, but they were my longest rides of the year.  I took a lot of pictures.  Got my son’s bike properly fitted for him by Mike O’Neal at his Greenway 500 bike shop, got new stem there for my Orbea, and a Dirtway 500 jersey for my son.  My son and I  took two fairly short rides together, one of them on the Cardinal Greenway trail.  My rides were over chip and seal farm roads and incorporated the Cardinal Greenway, two of them were to Muncie where I stopped both times for a second breakfast at the McGalliard Chic-Fil-A.  Super courteous service even for sweaty, slightly overweight, middle-aged cyclists in lycra – I highly recommend this franchise if you’re riding through Muncie.

Indiana’s rural beauty was a daily joy to behold and be about in.  We enjoyed spending the week with my wife’s family and the kids all seemed to play well together.  We stayed out late and watched fireworks in a neighboring town.  I’ll post some photos, generally in the order in which they were taken.  Possibly some commentary about them, as well.

Orbea & Modikoso in their temporary home.

Here is an example of a chip and seal road in fairly good repair.

Fence with wildflowers bordering what looks like a hay field.

A trailside shelter erected w/in the past two years near Blountville.

Trail map near the shelter in the previous picture.

Mystery Quonset hut compound/factory at the intersection of Cardinal Greenway trail and Brady Street, Muncie.  Reminds me for some reason of that Mel Gibson film, “Forever Young.”  Makes me want to engage in urban anthropological archaeology when I encounter buildings like this.

Second breakfast – some kind of egg-scramble bowl with hashbrown bits (in box) and Powerade – at the McGalliard Chic-fil-A near the Cardinal Greenway trail.  Since my previous visit, a convenient sidewalk’s been paved from the trail to nearby businesses.

Don’t say you weren’t warned

Orbea juxtaposed w bike sculpture.

Grime.  Left leg looked just as dirty, but I thought the right sufficiently illustrative.

Did I mention it was hot during the week of 4 July?  As I sat resting after taking the snapshot of my filthy leg, I for some reason found comfort gazing at these trees.

Early on the morning of July 4, I set out by a different route.

I rode through a small town of about two hundred inhabitants.

Some windmills along the route.  Closer to Losantville, I got chased by a pit-bull terrier but came to no harm and enjoyed a pleasant conversation the dog’s owner.

After getting a little bit lost, I eventually found my way to Losantville where I ate a second breakfast of egg, sausage, cheese croissant at the Phillips 66 gas station at the intersection of 35 & 36.  Later that night,  my family and I attended a firework’s display presented by a patriotic veterans’ association.

Next day, in the afternoon, we took the kids to see The Incredibles 2 at the small cinema on the courthouse square about 30 minutes from the farm.

Rode out around Prairie Creek Reservoir and stopped here at Harris Chapel Church of the Nazarene to snack, sip Gatorade, and snap this picture.  The building’s got a water spigot around back that I’ve used in the past when I’ve run low on water.

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This is my favorite house near Prairie Creek Reservoir.

Later, I took pictures around the farm buildings while my father-in-law showed the kids the grain bins, gave them tractor rides.  The dads (me included) and my father-in-law got the sweep auger out of one of the bins using home-built jig fit to the old Ford tractor’s bucket and some chains.

That’s my father-in-law carrying the chains for the tractor bucket jig.  He is a man who knows his work.

That’s the Orbea alongside the White River at Muncie

Former train station at Muncie, now a Welcome Center or something of the sort associated with the Cardinal Greenway Trail.  That fat blob reflected in the leftmost window is me.

As of this writing, there’s still time for you to participate in this activity.  http://www.cgbikefest.com

This year, I for the most part resisted the impulse to photograph interesting homes along the trail.  I decided to respect the privacy of those who have no choice but to share frequently up-close views of their residential property with trail users.  This view’s not a close-up, though.  Remembe that movie, A Christmas Story?  It’s set in Muncie during the 1950s – these houses remind me of the neighborhoods in that film.

Here are a few pictures of graffiti from part of the Cardinal Greenway Trail as you enter (or leave) Muncie.

The flower in the image below reminds me of some of the graffiti I saw a few years ago under a freeway or other bridge while paddling downstream from Daleville to Anderson on the White River.

And this devilish, voo-doo image

On the way home to Tennessee, I saw an odd message on the back of an 18-wheeler’s trailer.  Drive like a boss as opposed to, say, a minion?  the unemployed? a musician?  I’m sure it makes sense to its target audience.

 

 

 

 

A Little More About Indiana

That Magellan Cyclo 505

The Magellan Cyclo 505, which comes pre-loaded with maps detailing the entire United States of America, has a feature that allows the user to navigate to points of interest or POI.  While at Greenway500 bike shop, we had a look at the Magellan Cyclo 505 Mike had bought to test, study, and get his mind around so he could become sufficiently knowledgeable to discuss with customers the product’s benefits and drawbacks.  The points of interest loaded on the Cyclo units includes Bike Shops as a category.  Neither my updated (software/maps) unit nor his just-out-of-the-box unit showed any other bike store in the greater Muncie area than Goldman’s Bike Shop at Selma.  That’s got to discourage a retailer from carrying a product that only lists a competitor in his category.  I checked the Magellan support website today and compared the POI update file (dates from May 2014) with the file on my 505 unit.  Mine is a more recent iteration, and it does not show the Greenway500 bike shop as a point of interest.  I made a suggestion about this on the Magellan website, but who knows whether the company is even a little bit responsive to support website suggestions?

During the fairly steady rain through which I rode on the day of Richmond trip, the Cyclo’s touch screen became entirely unresponsive after first becoming EXTREMELY SLOW to respond to touch input.  Eventually, the screen just froze (appearing to register no new data as I rode) and I had to restart the unit.  Even then, it failed to respond to touch and only thereafter did respond to touch after I’d dried the screen with a piece of toilet paper from a trailhead outhouse.  Then, instead of hitting the arrows to move from screen to screen to see what hills were coming up or location on the map or how far I had left to ride on the track I’d pre-loaded from RideWithGPS.com, I left it on the basic data screen showing average MPH, distance traveled, current speed, and so forth.  But screen fail irked me and I wasted too much time monkeying around with the device.

When I first used the Cyclo in Indiana, it took several minutes to acquire satellite signals and begin recording data.  The same thing again happened when I used the Cyclo again in Tennessee after returning home last week.

Church Attendance

This year, we were at the farm for two Sundays, and on both days we attended Church of the Nazarene worship services with family.  Although my own theology is extremely Calvinistic, I noted the Nazarene preacher did a reasonable job of exegeting the texts from Colossians.  The emphasis of his preaching, though, fell upon application.  I appreciated the fellow’s work and, with the exception of the congregation’s musical program, enjoyed worshiping with the Nazarenes on consecutive Sundays.  Certainly, my young son enjoyed the children’s Sunday School class and Children’s Church programs.  That said, he was unable to tell me anything he learned on either Sunday.

This year, we missed the Vacation Bible School grand finale worship-show.  I was okay with that.

The first Sunday at the Nazarene church, one of the pastor’s PowerPoint slides failed to load or loaded in the wrong order and he seemed peeved saying, “That’s wrong,” and waiting for the sound/tech guys to correct the problem.  I wondered why he didn’t just use spoken words to convey his point when technology failed.  The following Sunday, something similar happened and the pastor simply carried on speaking through the technical glitch, indicating he is fully capable of unlearning reliance upon the sort of electronic audio/visual marvels that have become the hallmark of the modern worship service experience.  This is to the good.

About the musical program, the thing that irked me most was the overwhelmingly LOUD canned audio presence – so that even when the audience was encouraged to join in singing, they were completely inaudible.  At one point, the music-team sang a song that struck me as a sort of incantation or spell intended to conjure the third person of the Trinity.  The four singers stood in front of their microphones each waving at least one hand in the air overhead, rhyming “Holy Spirit, you’re welcome here – come and fill the atmosphere.”  The lyrics would have been more appropriate to a séance, in my reckoning.  Anyway, to accompany the song, the canned music included repeated heavy bass-notes that reverberated against my spine threatening to convulse my colon and thereby producing a windy emanation from my bowels.  I was not pleased.  To me, this kind of attempt by a congregational music team to impose its will on my mind and body by an intrusive attempt to establish its rhythm in my person is among the most offensive forms of unwanted touching.  The obvious goal of this musical number was to render the audience susceptible to the power of suggestion for the purpose of faux-charismatic manifestation.  I don’t think that’s Christian.  I felt angry and wanted to smash the church’s audio equipment – sort of like Gideon destroying the village Baal idol.

Paternal Guilt

On a couple of the days I rode, I felt pretty guilty about not spending the time playing outside with my son.  The guilt was a little assuaged by the fact that he seemed to enjoy the time spent with his cousins.  On one afternoon, I’d planned to take him and a cousin to a local playground to run and climb, but a behavioral problem interfered with that.  On another afternoon, I’d planned to take my son and some of the other kids to a lakeside playground to run, climb, and throw rocks in the water, but an old school-mate of one of the kids’ mothers showed up with two of her own children and all the kids played at the farm together.   I’m glad my son seems to have bonded with his cousins – he was very sad the day we left for Tennessee because he didn’t want to leave them.  Still, I need to spend more time with the boy on these summer trips.  I’d hoped to take him canoeing at Daleville, but the heavy rains during the previous weeks made that seem like a less than safe idea for a father-son outing.  Maybe next year.

Riding Indiana 2015: A Tour de Corn Vacation

Not the Tour de Corn ride that’s an annual Missouri event – this Tour de Corn is my own annual vacation activity in East Central Indiana.  Every year my family drives up to Indiana for a visit at the farm and, since 2012, I’ve been taking a bike and riding around the local farmland on chipseal backcountry roads and, lately as the economy has continued to worsen, on roads unpaved that were formerly paved. 

Here are my previous posts about riding through Indiana’s corn and soybean country.  Ordinarily, once I get back to Stepford, I spend a lot of time writing up Indiana ride reports, illustrating them with pictures.  This year, I think I’ll spend only a little time writing a brief narrative framework for the illustrations.  If you click on an image posted here, you’ll be shown a (usually) bigger version of the picture in its own page.

Bike Choice

Because the weather projected for our nine days stay was a good chance of rain every day, and because I remembered how the Miyata, shod with Gatorskins, was not best suited for unpaved and formerly paved surfaces encountered last year, this year I took the Jamis Supernova rain-and-rough-bike with its recently installed Clement X’Plor USH tires. 

Speaking of the X’Plor USH tires, the people at Clement never did respond to my email about inverted tread patterning.

This year, I noticed I was not taking pictures of things that formerly interested me on previous cycling jaunts.  Some of the novelty of riding through miles and miles of farmland, as well as upon a dedicated Rails to Trails Greenway, has worn off.  This year, in several Indiana counties, gigantic windmills are turning, and I observed them across the state, during my visit.  Their construction was last year responsible for the poor state of some of the farm roads, but it appears that compensation to municipalities for the repair of roads may have been diverted to other uses.  As I said, the worsening economy in the United States has a real effect at ground-level.

Greenway 500 Bike Shop

On the day I rode to Prairie Creek Reservoir, I stopped by Greenway 500 bike shop, near the Medford trailhead of the Cardinal Greenway Trail, to see if Mike had time to diagnose and correct a problem with the Supernova’s Ultegra front derailleur.  Turns out it got a bit bent one of the times I crashed the bike.  While I was there, shop discussion centered on the bad effect large, online retailers have on local bike shops – difficulty selling new bikes, difficulty competing with accessory and garment prices.  One of the other customers in the shop that day talked about a friend who makes a living writing reviews and who receives, as additional benefits, all-expenses-paid travel to annual events showcasing new products, bikes, etc.  The consensus seemed to be that in order to continue writing reviews in exchange for money and products (which the reviewers may get to keep and sell), the reviewer’s likely to turn out little more useful than positive ad-copy.

I don’t feel badly about buying from Nashbar/Performance, Bike Tires Direct, Jenson USA, Amazon, etc., because I don’t have a local bike shop at Stepford.  On the other hand, while riding in the Greater Muncie area, out of deference for the several bike shops in the area, but especially Mike’s, I mostly refrained from wearing my BTD jersey.

Where’d I Go?

This year, I didn’t ride into Muncie for lunch at Chic-Fil-A; I thought it would be a good idea to avoid any Obama-inspired interracial strife in that depressed, formerly industrial, urban locality.  Anyway, I wanted to ride through areas that were new to me, as opposed to repeating what I’d done in prior years.  That said, as far as I know, there were no Obama Race Riots during June/July at Muncie.

I think I rode eight of the nine days we stayed at the farm logging about 239 miles, according to Magellan Cyclo 505.  That works out to just under 30 miles per day.  A lot of riding, for me, not so much for a serious cyclist.  Of course, some days my rides were much longer, and others much shorter.  I rode MKS Lambda pedals wearing 5-10 “Canvas Guide Tennies”, and wore my usual motley collection of lycra cycling attire.  One day the temperature was sufficiently cool that I rode wearing my orange merino wool Kucharik long-sleeve jersey with bib-shorts, and was quite comfortable.  My other Kucharik garment was a “sublimated” bib-short I’d got on sale last year – a satisfactory purchase that compares favorably to the Sugoi bib-shorts I bought back in 2012.

Because temps most days were in the low to mid-seventies, I drank plain water on my rides.  Except the day I forgot my water bottles and realized it about three or four miles into the ride.  Then, I stopped and got bottles of Gatorade at a gas-station, filling one with water at lunch after I’d drunk the original contents. 

Farming Disaster

While the lower temperatures, overcast skies, and occasional rain were a treat for me, the wet conditions this season have been disastrous for many of Indiana’s farmers.  At the farm, there are about a hundred acres that could not be planted with soybeans as intended, as well as many ponded places in the beanfields that had only dried enough for planting while we were visiting.  The corn was mostly small and an unhealthy yellow-green in color.  The fields had been so wet that no side-dressing had been done when we arrived, and by the time we left, only a smaller percentage had been done.  In former times (1950’s ?) the adage had been, “Knee High by the Fourth of July.”  But corn that’s only knee high by the Fourth of July these days indicates the likelihood of a meagre harvest.  By July 4, the corn’s usually more than head-high and a healthy, dark green in color.

Animals

During my rides I saw numerous chipmunks, maybe three rabbits, several red-wing blackbirds, several large sparrow-looking birds, several bright-yellow finches, several cardinals, many geese, a woodpecker, a deer, a small herd of longhorn cattle, one small groundhog, dead possums, dead raccoons, dead field mice, and got chased by five dogs.

Snapshots

Although I took photos every day I rode, many are so similar that I’m only posting snapshots from a few rides.  Here are some of the pictures I took during the week, in rough order:

Summit Lake State Park

This year, thanks to the Magellan Cyclo 505, I was able to find the lake; I wasn’t even close, last year.  Many of the Henry County roads were unpaved, but reasonably well-maintained.  The Clement X’Plor USH tires handled these conditions very well – much better than the Gatorskins did last year while riding the Miyata 610.  Summit Lake State Park has camping areas, regularly scheduled activities, much less boat traffic than Prairie Creek Reservoir, and much more user-friendly beach area, as well as several well-maintained playgrounds.  Nicer, all around, than Prairie Creek Reservoir.

Prairie Creek Reservoir

This year, I only rode out to Prairie Creek Reservoir one time.  I was disappointed not to find Cave Baby Smokers set up for the coming weekend’s triathlon, but my ride was pretty early in the week.  Muncie Sailing Club’s water was on, so I was able to refill one of my water bottles from their pavilion’s spigot.  This year, I noticed that mountain-bike and ATV trails have been opened up around the lake’s western shoreline; maybe I’ll ride them next year.  While at Greenway500 Bike Shop, I meant to buy a set of cleats for Shimano SPD pedals I haven’t tried out, yet.  Also, wanted to buy some cycling togs to replace my aging collection of same – and I like Greenway500 and Dirtway500 kits Mike’s got for sale.  Justifying the expense of new cycling clothes to Caution-Lady, however, was something I didn’t feel like tackling last week.

Richmond & Rain

This year I returned to Richmond for lunch at 5th Street Coffee & Bagels – a long ride and much of it on the Cardinal Greenway trail.  About three miles in to my ride, I realized I hadn’t brought my water bottles with me.  When I got to Losantville, I stopped at the gas station and bought a couple of 28 oz bottles of Gatorade Citrus Cooler and an egg, cheese, bacon, lettuce, onion, and tomato breakfast wrap.  That breakfast wrap was HUGE and highly recommended for a long ride.  The Gatorade bottles just fit, when I forced them, into the Supernova’s bottle cages.  They were too difficult to pull out and stow back to drink from while riding, not to mention the screw-to-tighten lids, so I drank pretty sparingly.  Had a fried egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion bagel sandwich at 5th Street Coffee & Bagels. 

For this ride, I’d mapped a route at www.ridewithgps.com and exported it as a GPX Track (or some such type of file), then followed the Ride With GPS instructions for installing the file on the Magellan Cyclo 505.  Pretty easy and it worked fine until the last couple of blocks before getting to the coffee shop.  Then it routed me up and down a block here and a block there.  I followed the directions to see what it would do, then got bored with the activity and asked a neighborhood person for directions.  Her directions were accurate and I rode to the coffee shop and ordered lunch.  On the ride back, I got rained on a lot.  Once I accepted the annoyance as unavoidable I found it was not at all uncomfortable and rode without mishap or problem.  My Magellan Cyclo 505 unit, however, had a lot of trouble.  In the rain, it’s touch screen became ENTIRELY unresponsive, and that was an annoyance I was unable to accept.  I was only able to get it to work again after drying the screen with a piece of toilet paper from a trailhead outhouse.  After that, I left the stats screen alone.

Soybeans, corn, and wheat looked better in Wayne County than in the counties further north.

Some of the pictures I liked best from the Indiana trip were from the rainy segment of this ride – I couldn’t get the camera’s lens totally cleared of water drops, but was not able to see in the LCD screen how the water distorted the image.

Winchester Ride

This year, instead of riding to Selma, Farmland, Muncie, and getting bad lost in Henry County, I rode out to Winchester, Indiana.  I’ve previously posted snapshots of the county seat’s interesting American Civil War memorial.  That time, I drove through Winchester after buying a canoe in Ohio.  Last week, however, I spent time riding around what turns out to be an attractive small city (about 5000 residents, I think).  I enjoyed riding through the older neighborhoods networked with rough paved alleys.  My approach to Winchester routed me along some of the worst formerly-paved and badly potholed-but-paved roads I’ve seen.  The Supernova with X’Plor USH tires more than compensated for the horrible condition of the roads, though. 

 

2014 Tour de Corn–Part 1

Mr. Badwrench

This year, I started my Tour de Corn sans bicycle having maladjusted the Miyata’s rear derailleur in an attempt to correct a shifting problem. Probably should have taken a picture of the results of my labor, but didn’t think of it until right now. Mr. Badwrench – that’d be me.

Razesa Unsuitable for Longer Rides

The Razesa I’ve found increasingly problematic for longer rides because the ancient Master saddle numbs my genitalia after about 20 miles, the bike’s handlebars are too narrow for my shoulders on longer rides, and the Gimli’s axe-head MKS Lambda pedals don’t work well with stiff-soled cycling shoes I like to wear on longer rides.

Mechanical Intervention

I took the Miyata to Indiana after contacting Michael at Greenway 500 to see if he could address the bike’s problems on the day after my family was scheduled to arrive at the farm. Michael wrote back saying he does not schedule mechanical interventions on Saturdays, his prime retail sales day, but I could take my chances and show up with the bike. The bike might be ready in a few minutes to several hours, depending.

By the time I arrived at Greenway 500, Michael was helping another customer whose mountain bike’s presenting problem was repeated flatting. He treated the condition, in consultation with the bike’s owner – a normal-seeming guy not quite sixty who reminded me of Roman legionnaire – not very tall, but alert and competent-seeming without the overweening arrogance one finds in some ‘elite’ cyclist types.

I didn’t mind waiting, and learned something about mountain bike tires, rims, tubes, rim-tape, spokes, and so forth by paying attention to the conversation.

Michael’d got a couple of new chairs for the shop from Ikea which inspired greater confidence than the worn-out Labrador couch that’d been in the shop for the last couple of years I’d visited. With the exertion of effort with both hands, the rear derailleur was separated from the metal pie-pan spoke protector adjacent the freewheel, followed up by other needed adjustments. Apparently, I’d done the bike’s drive-train no permanent harm. Also got new bar-wrap. The old had been shredded on the left side, where I’d crashed once and the bike had fallen maybe twice. I completely chickened-out in the colors department and went with brown, again. The Salsa tape looks great, though, so I’m happy with my choice.

I don’t think I rode anywhere Saturday, maybe four or five miles? Dunno.

Fat Sunday

Sunday morning we went to church service with the family at the large denominational First Church where my wife and I were married on a cold day about 15 years ago. The old building’s roof fell in, and the congregation has a large, new facility. That Sunday’s program was the church’s Vacation Bible School finale.

Weird Animals

The VBS had acquired it’s material from Group, Inc. – the Weird Animals theme: http://www.group.com/vbs/weird-animals . Each age group from the VBS stood up front, the an adult leader said something about the children’s participation during the previous week, and the children sang a song or two learned during the week. On large video screens all around the auditorium, while the children stood up on the platform in rows to sing their songs, slick music videos for each of the songs played. Bright, flashy colors and a lot of movement from cameras and happy-looking young people, in addition to an overwhelmingly loud audio presence repeatedly derailed my attempts to pay attention to the flesh and blood kids up front in the auditorium. I noticed that no one else seemed to be paying attention to the children up front, either. Kind of a lousy thing to do to the kids. I mentioned my criticisms to my father-in-law afterwards, and he said what I witnessed has become the norm for that congregation – loud audio/visual in addition to frequent “technical difficulties” that are actually operator error. Vis-à-vis speaking about my concerns with the congregation’s pastor, my father-in-law shared a phrase he’d learned from his father, “Might as well save your breath to cool your soup.”

Mexico versus Netherlands

We joined another family for lunch after the VBS service at a Mexican restaurant where we were able to watch Mexico v. Netherlands on televisions placed all around the dining area. All of the waiters wore green Mexican national team soccer jerseys. Service was dead slow, but we were able to finish our meal and get on the road before the Orange victory. Predictably, I overate and felt like a fat, hominid slug.

Ride to Farmland

Late Sunday afternoon, I felt I’d sufficiently digested my huge, Mexican meal to get some exercise. Also felt in real need of exercise.

I’ve visited Farmland many times, usually to eat breaded tenderloin sandwich at The Chocolate Moose or buy bulk candy at the General Store, but always I’d got there by car. I decided a long afternoon ride would be just the thing to halt the transformation from Man to Slug I’d begun at lunchtime. Got caught in a thunderstorm cloudburst and waited it out under the eaves of a church building, then rode the rest of the way there.

Have I written lately about how much I enjoy riding chip-and-seal paved country roads? I really like riding them. The American version of cobbled European roads – they are rough and to be endured. They make even poorly paved normal streets seem smooth and finished. Chip-and-seal is what I rode to Farmland, as well as a lot of the other miles I rode during my recent Indiana sojourn.

Eighth Street Opera House, look closely

Farmland was closed for the day by the time I arrived late afternoon/early evening. I rested briefly at a café table outside the Chocolate Moose, leaned my bike up for a picture against the garage door at the General Store (the sign said Open, but the store was Closed), and snapped a couple of other pictures before heading back the way I came. Got a picture Eighth Street (or is it ‘Avenue’) Opera House – look at the picture – it’s a puzzle and if you figure it out, it’ll remind you of a funny song. The woman at the deli counter at what I think was called Jason’s Meat Market – the only business in town open Sunday evening – filled up my water bottle for me.

Dog-Bit

On the ride back to the house from Farmland, I got bitten by a dog. I’d been chased by three other dogs on the way out, but none got close to catching me, and at least one of the dogs appeared simply to enjoy the contest of speed, bearing on its doggy dial a doggy smile as it ran beside me. The dog that got me was a gray Australian sheep dog with black spots accompanied by a yellow dog of the same breed. I didn’t crash and kept riding, but the damnable cur bit one of my calves, breaking the skin.

I cannot recall the last time I’ve wanted to kill something as badly as I wanted to kill that dog. As I rode, I thought about getting Dr. Walther to accompany me back to the rural trailer from beside which the dogs ran out at me, for a little impromptu vivisection. By the time I got back to the house, though, I had decided to talk it over with my father-in-law to see what he advised. In a recent vocational incarnation, I spent about a year and a half working with a population about half of whom (is ‘whom’ correct here?) qualified for my caseload because they’d failed to control their impulses on a day they should have controlled their impulses.

My father-in-law advised me to contact local law enforcement dispatch to see what they suggested. I did so. The woman who took my call said she would have a sheriff’s department investigator come out and would also send an EMS unit out to have a look at the bite. By the time it was all over, about six shockingly overweight EMS workers (as well as one male of normal weight) came out. They had actually called for an ambulance before coming over to the house which I requested they cancel. Heck, if I could ride the miles back to the house, I could drive myself to Ball Hospital in Muncie if in need of medical treatment. The sheriff’s department investigator was a very normal seeming guy who took my information and said he’d file a report with the state; he said he couldn’t just ride out to the house with me and kill the dog. Although disappointed, I understood that things must be done decently and in order.

Turns out, oddly enough, that the dog’s owner is the daughter of my mother-in-law’s hairdresser. The wound on my calf never festered, although it did bruise pretty badly. I kept it clean and used topical antibiotic. As of this writing, the spot’s still sore if I pinch it, but it seems free of infection. The dog’s owners have quarantined it at the vets, and, since I have not yet suffered material loss, no law suit is currently pending.

Indiana Tour de Corn 2013

For the second year running, I took a bicycle with me on our annual trip to visit my wife’s family in rural Indiana.  I also piled paddling gear in the car, too, but the weather forecast indicated cooler temperatures and a good deal of rain which contraindicated much likelihood my wife would herself or would allow our boy to accompany me on a river float in the 17’ aluminum canoe named Caution-Lady.  Although I’m not certain my paddling days are over, I have spent a great many more pedaling since buying my first adult bike a couple of years ago.

This year, as I mentioned in the previous post, I have a much better grasp of the rural geography of the environs around my wife’s family home.  Additionally, this year, I have an Apple Iphone – one of the cheap 8 gig devices my wireless provider was giving away last winter to spur data-plan sales, but still way cooler than the flip-phone I’d had for seven or so years.  Even though Apple Maps don’t always work, they’d suffice to keep me from getting totally lost like I did last year.  In addition to the Iphone’s Apple Maps, I’ve got a paid app, Cyclemeter, that usefully tracks distance, speed, elevation, ascent, descent, calories burned, and has a pretty good map feature, all using the phone’s GPS.  Sure, it’s a spy in my seatbag, but if it makes me mad, I can destroy it by emptying a clip into it.  Practically speaking, however, I am not at present too freaked out about it.

The Razesa had a flat the morning we left Stepford, so I took the Miyata, a bike I generally only ride in fair weather; in fact, I’ve pretty well named the bike Fairweather.  As noted elsewhere, the Miyata is a 610 touring model – a mid-range bike manufactured in 1981.  It has a complete Suntour grupo with stem-shift “Power Shifters” that have a ratcheting feel to them as they are used to index-shift.  All though Rivendell claims their downtube shift levers (which replaced the Simplex shifters on my Razesa) are better than the Suntour Power Shifters, that is mere sales puffing as the Rivendell product is inferior in terms of feel and accuracy. 

Although mostly original, the Miyata’s factory saddle was long since lost by the time I purchased the bike from Mike Carroll of Old Bikes Belong.  The day I bought the bike, Mike installed a Selle Italia saddle racing saddle I’d brought along, but it proved unsatisfactory and I quickly replaced it with a hideous red and black mountain-bike saddle.  Although strangely ugly, the newer saddle quickly became less visually disturbing because I noticed the red trim matched the Dia Compe center-pull brake’s red trim.

Regarding the name, Fairweather, it was one of a fictional monk’s five friends, as I recall from a novel I read for a Church History class in seminary back in the 1990’s.  Fairweather and Tune were a pair of snakes that, if I recall this correctly, shared the monk’s hermitage until, in an act of penitence, the man banished so he could bear his guilt alone.  None of that has anything to do with the fact that I generally try to ride the Miyata in fair weather – I’m trying to keep it in as near-new condition as possible yet still ride it regularly.   A few weeks ago on a short ride in the area around my house, I did get caught riding the Miyata in a thunderstorm, so got over worry about getting the bike wet and dirty.

My father-in-law thinks Tennessee’s rural scenery has “the Wow Factor” in spades, but I am of the opinion that Indiana’s farmland is no less beautiful.  I think Jim’s so used to his surroundings that he does not “feel” the Wow to a conscious degree any longer.  I’ve taken rides for six of the nine days spent at the farm but have taken fewer pictures while riding than I did last year.  This is in part due to my reliance upon the Iphone as my primary camera (although I took the Pentax with me on Monday 1 July with indifferent to bad results). 

Most of my Indiana rides this year have been greater than 30 miles; all but two greater than 20.  I stopped in a couple of times at Greenway 500 Bike Shop – Mike identified the snick-snick sound my bike was making as a worn-out pedal I might make right by the application of grease to its inner workings.  He has a Fuji Cambridge with eight-speed internally geared rear hub and dynamo front hub that I coveted.  Mike wouldn’t swap it for the Miyata saying he already had enough old bikes, but I would have swapped.  I did take the Fuji for a spin and liked it very well.  For $1100, it could have been mine, but the wrath of my wife would also have been mine.

On my first long ride, I stopped in at a gas-station mini market and bought a sausage/cheese/fried-egg biscuit and two quarts of Powerade (not as good as Gatorade, but available at “Two for $2”); on two other occasions, I stopped by the lakeside tent set up by Rob Cline and family – Cave-Baby Smokers, and again purchased and ate sausage/egg and egg/cheese biscuits to fortify my constitution during my travels.  The first day I met Rob and his son, and the following day, Rob and his wife, Holly.  My photos of the Cline family and their smokehouse tent can be seen HERE.  What follows are some of the photos I took while riding rural Indiana – click on a picture for a larger image.

Tour de Corn–Riding Indiana, Part Two

Corn Maze Conclusion

With only about five miles to pedal back to the house, eating the rest (all three) of my Wal-Mart generic fig newton cookies and quaffing the remainder of my Gatorade was a pretty safe bet.  I knew where I was and where I was going.  No problem.  I was about spent, however, when I rolled up to the garage.  I think I took a shower, changed clothes, ate a quick lunch, and then conked out beside my little boy for a much-needed nap.

Independence Day Ride

On Wednesday, I rode another 25 or so miles, and this time I studied the map more carefully, then set out across the county as opposed to along the main highway.  After the previous day’s tri-county corn-maze ride, this one was easy.  Or mostly easy, because when I got to the place where the road  T-ed, it took about two miles of false starts to figure out the right direction to pedal.  But I never mistook my turns again that week.

The road pictured third from left, above, was the roughest unbroken surface upon which I rode last week.  All of them, save the greenway and the main highways, were pretty rough, though, and examples of chip seal paving.

War Memorials and Independence Day Decorations

On previous trips to Indiana I’d driven through one of the local county seats and there observed an unusual war memorial on the courthouse square.  Wednesday afternoon,  my father-in-law and I drove out there and I took some pictures.  A large column with four free-standing figures below and one at the top, the monument featured four inscribed plaques, representations of cannon, crenellations and four small towers, a colonnade in relief, and a relief depicting scenes of battle.   Click on the thumbnails below to view the images larger.

Thursday’s for Resting and Test-Rides

Having done more cycling in four days than I usually do in two weeks, I thought it would be a good idea to rest on Thursday by spending an hour or so at the YMCA in town.  Because I’ve been neglecting the development of my upper body’s strength since I’ve taken up cycling, all I managed at the gym was about an hour.  On the drive back to the farm, I stopped and snapped a few pictures of a large derelict brick building I’d guess is over a hundred years old.  Most of the photos were a bit dreary-looking, so I haven’t included any here.  Well, just one.  I tried the door, but it was locked and I sought no other means of ingress.

I can’t remember whether it was this day or a previous day that my father-in-law and I drove to Selma to see what Goldman’s bike shop had in stock.  Duane (hope I spelled that right) has usually got about a dozen used bikes for sale out front, and heaven knows what used parts in the workshop portion of his building.  For awhile, I’d been trying to get my father-in-law to take the Trek Navigator 1.0 I formerly owned once I decided it was not something I wanted to keep riding, but he would not accept the bike as a gift thinking that it might wind up disused in the barn if his enthusiasm waned.  Jim tried out a used Diamondback mountain bike.  I tried out a Giant Defy, having read a good review of the model.  I learned after falling (and receiving a compliment on my ability to roll out of it) how to get in and out of toe-clips.  I loved the bike – especially the very wide handlebars.  Duane said he didn’t have a three-ring Shimano Biopace touring crankset (which I want for the Miyata), just a two-ring, like the one I’ve got on the Razesa. 

Later, on Thursday, I drove out by myself to Greenway500 to try out a Fuji Gran Fondo, the one with the Italian flag colors that I nicknamed The Pizza Box.  Michael thought, and I can’t now recall why, the blue and white version of the bike would be a better fit for me, so he got that one ready.  He explained how to shift the gears – brake levers are shifters on that bike, and there’re smaller levers behind them to shift the gears back the other way.  The gears are indexed and that, taken with the ease with which the levers shift, was a revelation.  The Fuji handled the rough chip seal road in front of the bike shop easily, and was fast on the greenway’s smooth paved surface.  I tried out a Scott straight-bar road bike, but the seat height was wrong, I disliked the gearing, and I hated it.  After returning it, Michael got the Pizza Box ready.  That was a GREAT bike.  I probably rode it three or four miles.  I liked everything about it – the only thing that would’ve improved it would’ve been Biopace or, possibly, modern off-round chain rings.

Sitting in the shop after riding that second Gran Fondo, I must’ve looked like I was having a small, bad seizure – staring blankly while deep in thought – because Michael asked whether I was okay.  Yup, I said, I was reflecting on whether I was ready to abandon the obsolete tech I’ve been riding since January to enter the world of modern bicycling – a much harder choice than you may imagine.  Finally, I told him I’d check with Caution-Lady about the price, said goodbye, and drove back to the house.

The Cautious One said, “No.”

My father-in-law and I got the old bikes out of the barn – a child’s Murray 10-speed, a Huffy women’s three-speed, and brown Raleigh Sprite.  I pumped up the tires on the Sprite and rode it around the drive; it didn’t shift well, but the Brooks saddle was surprisingly comfortable and had a 1974 Honolulu bike license plate hanging off it.  The Murray must have weighed 30 pounds; the Huffy had internal gear hub in back.  We talked about the bikes, and I put them back in the barn. 

Thursday night I had a series of strange and entertaining dreams.  In one, I starred in a long Dr. Who episode that brought us into contact with the Rabbit People – that is, human-looking people who were actually very large rabbits.  Great dream.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.  That was followed by another dream with just the Rabbit People, no Dr. Who, and another wild adventure.

Friday – Another Ride and a Rabbit

I can’t remember which day I bought them, but I got a set of Serfas USB rechargeable front and rear lights (the kind designed to make one visible to motorists, not the kind one should expect to see by) to replace the execrable-because-unreliable Blackburn Flea lights I need to see about returning.  Every time I hit a bump with the bike, the red Blackburn light shuts off.  Can’t ride more than a minute anywhere, much less rural Indiana, without riding striking an imperfection in the road’s surface sufficient to disable the light.  Super irksome.  The Serfas lights have only one LED each, whereas the Blackburn lights have four each, but I’d rather have two bright LEDs (one front, one rear) that works reliably than eight that only theoretically provide better light or visibility.

Friday morning, I suited up and set out after breakfast for what had become my habitual ride across parts of two counties to the greenway then a longish but relatively easy ride to some point I’d make up my mind about as I was riding and then back to the house.  Near an overpass close to Muncie I saw a rabbit in a park, posed my bike for a photo by some strange wooden structure adjacent the park’s drainage lake.

I rode through Blountsville, again and got some pictures of houses that looked inhabited and lawns that looked tended.  I finally snapped a photograph of a greenway flower I’d been meaning to photograph all week, but hadn’t, yet.  One of the things that I liked about Blountsville, even though it’s deteriorating streets bespoke a ghost-town, was that several of the houses that looked properly maintained were decorated with flags or bunting for the Independence Day holiday week.

Saturday

On Saturday, the rest of the extended family drove to a many-miles-distant town for a picnic with cousins, uncles, aunts.  I stayed at the house to get some work done.  After about midday, when temperatures were about as hot as they were going to get, and after I’d eaten a large-ish lunch, I squeezed my middle-aged legs and torso into my by-now-in-need-of-another-wash cycling garb, filled up the water bottles with powdered Gatorade/water mix, put some pretzels and some other quick snacks in a bag and headed out again.  This time I planned to ride only as far as the Greenway500 bike shop and back again.

I and my bicycle were about the only things moving on the country lanes I rode to the greenway.  And upon the greenway, itself, I think I passed only one or two other cyclists during my ride.  Pedaling seemed to take much more effort in the heat and I became thirstier faster consuming more of the Gatorade faster than any previous day.  I refilled my water bottle from the sink at the bike shop.  Michael was distracted with a computer software problem he said had been plaguing him all day and tying up a lot of his time with tech support calls.  I needed to eat, I was a little shaky.  I took some more pictures in Blountsville and ate my snack under a blue-window in the side of church building the purpose of which was made known only by its size, shape, and roof shingles patterned in a cross either side; no sign with words proclaimed any denominational or other affiliation. 

Eventually, I made it back to the house, showered, changed, ate something for supper, and tried to work on my project.  Thus ended my 2012 Tour de Corn visit to Indiana.  I did some riding every day, and most days covered more distance each day than I usually ride at home on a Saturday, the day I reserve for longer rides.  Not once did I even seriously consider getting the Grumman canoe out of the barn-loft.  It was way too hot to expect the family to indulge my whims with a lakeside picnic, and the White River, over near Yorktown and Daleville, I guessed, would have little enough water flowing in these days of rain-free and drought-like conditions.  I don’t know whether I’m ready to ride in Stepford wearing Lycra yet, but we’ll see.  Nobody ever really looks at cyclists, anyway, to identify them as individuals.  So on a bike, my anonymity is mostly assured.

Last photo of the day, Saturday 7/7/12

Tour de Corn – Riding Indiana, Part One

Thunderstorm

We arrived and unpacked about midday Saturday last, but I was tired and conked out for about three hours, awoke long enough to feed, and conked-out again until Sunday morning.  Sunday morning, we went to a First Church worship service that was, essentially, a wrap-up program for the previous week’s Children’s Church.  It featured singing, slide-shows, demonstrations, talks, and so on.  Surprisingly, I found it uplifting.  We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant with a family from the congregation and then returned to the farm.

By late afternoon, Sunday, I was ready to take a bike ride.  We carried the Razesa on a two-bicycle Yakima trailer-hitch rack.  In addition to the usual paddling gear (because I’ve got a canoe in the barn loft), I’d packed my cycling gear (helmet, gloves, sunglasses, rack-bag, shoes) and brought it along for the trip.  My normal cycling costume consists of whatever I happen to be wearing, plus helmet, gloves, sunglasses (to keep the bugs out of my eyes) and, sometimes, cycling shoes.  Ready to ride, I checked the weather radar on the National Weather Service website.  Thunderstorm warnings and matching red-and-yellow spots on the screen to the north and east of us, but I thought moving slowly enough that I could ride out and back before the storm got this far.

I rode down to the main highway running between here and four-way stop four miles away where there is a trailhead for the Cardinal Greenway bike path. While I’d prefer to see the nation have useful passenger rail, and sufficient industry to require regular freight trains to carry it, I think using an abandoned rail line for a long bike path is a cool idea. So, I rode the almost five miles between here and the four-way stop as the sky overhead grew increasingly cloudy and the wind became stronger.  The photo above I shot from astride the Razesa from the greenway.

On the greenway, I rode no more than a mile or so toward the storm and began hearing the booms of thunder that heralded the approaching storm, then observed lightning striking to the north 10 to 15 miles distant.    Thought maybe it’d be a good idea to turn around and ride back to the house, and did so. Riding maybe 12 miles per hour, the storm overtook me. Wind, the first drops of a much-needed rain struck me as I rode. More thunder. Lighting strikes about four miles off in the direction I needed to ride.  Thinking about Martin Luther, repentance, and the manner in which electrocution might effect various organs rendering them possibly unfit for donation, I looked for places along the highway to wait out the storm, but kept riding.  I only had to make about five miles to the house.  I rode on.

By the time I turned on to the road with less than a mile to pedal, the storm acting up right overhead.  Thunder, wind, rain, lightning strikes in a field by some woods about a mile and a half distant.  I thought about turning in to the barn lot and waiting it out in the barn, but with less than half a mile to go, I kept pedaling.   I cut a corner across the front lawn and rode straight to the open garage where I met my wife, keys in hand, who said she’d was just about to come looking for me.

Monday Greenway Ride

Monday morning, for the first time ever, I ventured out of doors wearing the cycling garb I purchased for the purpose of wearing while cycling, but which I’d never before had the nerve to wear.  But, in the wilds of corn-belt where I am completely unknown and where temperatures have been in the triple digits, I squeezed my middle-aged physique into the bib shorts and cycling jersey, put on my cycling shoes, and set off again for the greenway.  The highway has a shoulder about a foot or two wide; motorists seemed to give me an additional three or so feet when passing, so no problem.

This time, I rode much further – as far as the Medford or Prairie Creek trailhead adjacent to which is Michael O’Neil’s Greenway 500 bike shop where I bought a couple of water bottles.  I’d forgotten mine at home in Tennessee.  Michael’s an interesting guy – friendly and positive in an impersonal and distracted-seeming way.  He said he grew up in a rural Massachusetts community with population less than 4000; pedaled across the country five times; worked at a Memphis bike shop; has been working on bikes for 22 years.  I had the impression he is quick-witted, high-IQ-smart and is aware of his areas of deficient knowledge and may tend not to make assumptions about people.  Excellent qualities for a small business owner to have.  I liked him and his bike shop, returning there several times during my stay at the farm.

I rode past Blountsville and on into Losantville where I posed my bike next to a colorful but out-of-business bar.  Along the greenway I saw a number of wild-flowers – unidentified blue flowers and campsis radicans – the wildflower that gave its name to the Pouch E68 I gave to my friend, Eric, in January of this year.  I returned to Blountsville several times during the week, a very small town that put me in mind of Starnesville, even though I don’t think the small town was ever home to any industrial concern, to speak of.  Nevertheless, it apparently once had a grain elevator that was served by rail – the line abandoned to make the greenway

Tuesday – Lost in the Corn Maze

I planned a longer ride for Tuesday – I wanted to ride around a small lake near Muncie – a 13.5 mile ride, in addition to the distance of the ride out there and back.  My goal was to ride the main highway to the greenway, then to the Medford trailhead, then over to Prairie Creek Reservoir (that body of water visible to the right of the greenway’s diagonal on the map, above), around the lake, and then back to a point where I reckoned I could ride country lanes across to the farm.  I missed 500 S, the road from which the lake is best accessible from Hwy. 35, and rode between three and four miles out of my way until I realized my mistake and turned back around.  That was my first and least serious missed turn of the day.  If you click on the greenway trail map above at left, you should be able to discern 500 S and the route I pedaled around the lake.

Counting my circuit around the lake, I thought I’d make about 33 to 35 miles round-trip back to the farm, making Tuesday’s ride my longest to date.  I stopped whenever I wanted to take a picture.

I almost laughed when I saw the manner in which the pavement from one to about four o’clock around the reservoir had been patched.  “It’s a miracle!” I thought, noting the crazy lines of black tar on the roads’ cracked surfaces resembled Arabic script.  Around by the public access beach and marina, I was pretty hungry, but didn’t want to eat any of the six generic fig-newton cookies I’d brought along to supplement my Gatorade.

As I rode by the Dry Dock Marina, I saw a guy cooking something under a tent on the grass between the road and the building.  He hollered at me, “We’ve got water!”  I hollered back, “What’ve you all got to eat?” and rode up to the tent to find out.  Probably the smartest thing I did Tuesday morning, considering what happened later, was to buy a fried egg-and-cheese biscuit from the vendor, Rob Cline, of Cave Baby Smokers.  I hung out and talked with Rob a bit about how he got started and listened to his ambitious plans for future expansion.  I wish him happy and debt-free providence in his improvisational vocational endeavors.  Almost ready to get back on the road, a couple on a blue tandem bicycle pedaled by and waved.

Finishing my ride around the lake back at 500 S, I stopped at the bike shop and refilled one of my water bottles – a tie for smartest thing I did that day.  Also in the shop was the couple who’d ridden by on the tandem – Michael was making some adjustment to the bike and the couple and he were talking interestingly about tandem bike rallies or events they’d ridden.

I thought I’d have an easy ride back to the farm once on the greenway, and planned to ride cross-country, as opposed to the main highway intersecting 35, to get there.  I took the road pictured in the photograph above because, after having got turned around a little bit and having failed to really STUDY the map the previous evening, the road FELT like it was running in the right direction.  I conservatively estimate it took me 12 to 16 miles out of my way, and I know I pedaled through parts of three counties before I entered the right county and began to find my way.  Hungry again, I ate three of the fig newton cookies in the rack bag and drank about 12 ounces of water from the bottle I’d refilled.  At point where I took the photograph below, I don’t know how many miles later but reckoning I had only about four or five miles left until I arrived at the farm, I ate the rest of the cookies and drank most of the remaining Gatorade.