Wet and Windy

Tour of the Scioto River Valley, 2003

Old Man and the Scene

On Friday, May 9, 2003 a group of bicyclists left Monroe, OH, a small town north of Cincinnati, bound for the outskirts of Columbus and TOSRV. Our aim was to complete another in what has become known as the Mighty 400: four days of 100+ miles each day. Once in Columbus we would become part of the Tour of the Scioto River Valley, which is a bike trip from Columbus to Portsmouth on the Ohio River, and then back to Columbus the following day. This ride is enjoyed by approximately 4,000 bicyclists each year. The next day, Monday, would see our small group heading back toward the Cincinnati area.

All of us had been watching the skies and reading the weather reports. The predictions varied from bad to worse, to not-so-bad, to perhaps decent on Monday. The realists among us had little doubt that Friday would not be pleasant. It didn't take long to prove our misgivings were correct. Thunder rumbled as we left at 7:00 AM. Within a couple of miles, the rain started. The rain would be with us for most of the trip to the northeast. It was at times quite heavy, but it did ease up and even quit a couple of times. My clothes had actually started to dry by the time I was within 30 miles of our goal. But, 10 miles later, the rain fell again, only to stop 10 miles after that.

Saturday was more of the same, but with the difference that we were now riding TOSRV and part of thousands rather than just a handful. That does have its benefits: you are probably safer in a crowd of cyclists rather than just one little blur in a rain-soaked windshield.  But, there are dangers as well. I saw and heard of several accidents caused by cyclists falling in front of other cyclists, on both rain-soaked railroad crossings and on seemingly flat, unobstructed sections of road as well. I can keep an eye on my mirrors (two on my recumbent tricycle, and one on my helmet) and watch out for approaching cars, but there sometimes seems to be more to fear from other bicyclists.

TOSRV is treated as something of a "race" by some riders. You'll hear them talking about setting a personal record, or of beating the time of a friend. You'll see the pacelines, sometimes double pacelines, streaking by other bicyclists at double or triple their speed, often with less than an arm's length of clearance. I sometimes wonder, if people feel the need to do this, why they pick the weekend that the roads will be crowded with non-racing riders.
Regardless, I have learned to deal with these situations. The safest thing is to maintain your position. Do not let the racers force you off the road - if they need to pass, they will move over.

And as long as I'm handing out advice:  do not follow other bicyclists too closely, especially in rainy conditions.  You will have little time to react, and abrupt movements when it's wet are especially hazardous. Do not ride on the berm of the road if possible, because of the pacelines or otherwise. Stay in the traffic lane, where most flat-producing debris has been swept away by cars. The berm is for stopping, either for emergencies, to grab a bite to eat, for any reason. About the only time I go to the edge of the road is when automobile traffic is heavy enough that my staying in the lane impedes traffic and is a danger to either myself or others. On Saturday  there were times when I felt that I did needed to ride on the berm of the road, as the rain was heavy enough that I thought it might be difficult for car drivers to pass or see me.  Along one section of road, just north of Chillicothe, I was riding about 50 feet behind an upright rider. Suddenly, he was practically cartwheeling in the air, his rear wheel above his head and his arms flailing. It turns out that he was riding immediately behind another rider who had chosen that moment to stop. Both went down fairly hard, but there were no injuries other than to their pride.

Enough lecturing: on with the ride. Saturday was, as I said earlier, pretty much like Friday: it rained a good portion of the day. Luckily, it wasn't very cold. Once you got used to being wet, it really wasn't so bad. I felt sorry for those who put on the customary "celebration" in the park in Portsmouth, because the rain was heavy enough that I believe most people did not stop but headed for the shelter of motels and schools instead. The rain did let up just after my friend Don Gieringer and I finished eating a church-sponsored lasagna dinner, so we rode back downtown to the famous murals on the floodwalls of Portsmouth.  Click here, here and here to see some of them.

Sunday was windy. In some ways, it was too windy, with gusts over 50 miles per hour. But they were tailwinds, and most of the bicyclists made good use of them, speeding back towards Columbus.  There were times when the wind became a crosswind, and I honestly was concerned that my Greenspeed GTO recumbent tricycle would be blown off the road.  The wind was varying in directions, sometimes from the south, sometimes from the west, but most of the time from the southwest. For those of us riding the Mighty 400, we could only think of one thing: tomorrow we were going to be riding another century, another one hundred miles, heading southwest. Surely the winds would change direction or die completely by the morning!

But they didn't. The winds decreased in intensity, yes, down to only 20 or 30 mph. But they blew almost constantly. Even with a fairing, I was lucky to maintain a pace in the double-digits. My average speed for that final day was just a fraction over 10 mph. It was the toughest and longest century I have ridden in years.

Will I do it again? I don't know. The first time I attempted 400 miles in 4 days, it was because I would be the first recumbent rider to do so on this particular ride, I rode my Tour Easy that year. The second year, I attempted it on my Bike Friday SatRDay, just to show that small (16"/349) wheels will not stop a rider from completing such a test. But, the rain coupled with the cold of that Monday of last year, did. I hitched a ride with a fellow rider and his wife in their car.

This time my impetus was to ride the 400+ miles on my new Greenspeed GTO recumbent tricycle. I knew it was a comfortable, fun ride on shorter trips, and it had performed admirably on two multi-day tours (Bike Florida and Florida Bicycle Safari) earlier this year. But I hadn't ridden a century on it. And now I have ridden four.

So will I be back to do it all again next year? I don't know. But I'm not going to bet against it. I'm awfully good at coming up with reasons to do it, just one more time.  There is the fact that I took very few pictures this year - I didn't want to chance ruining my digital camera in the rain. Is that reason enough to ride the Mighty 400 once more?