Tour de Iron Butt

A very jovial crowd of about 20 cyclists converged at High Point Coffee for the 2011 World's Largest Cedar Bucket ride and 1st Annual Naughty Sock ride.  The group stayed together until the turn off to CR-325 on CR-313.

 

Rich and Eric sent some info earlier about their rides as you can read below.  Our slightly less speedy posse of Kate, Claude, and I had an equally good ride as the Rocket Riders who were no telling how far ahead of us.  I'm sure we did a whole lot more talking and I know we did a whole lot more resting.  We stopped at the Sand Springs Presb Church for water, and since there were some painters there, we got to use the potties.  We also got to take a peek inside the church so that Kate and Claude could see the quaint, original pews with the divider running down the middle of the church.  When this church was built in 1854, it was for both blacks and whites, thus the divider and separate entrance doors.

 

We bypassed the BP at US-51 and Eureka Road, opting instead to ride up US-51 to MS-6 to the BP there.  Then we cut over to the Batesville town square and got back on the route.  When we got to Sardis, it was getting hot, so we decided to mosey up to the MS-315 and interstate interchange and treated ourselves to slushies at Sonic.  Mine gave me an immediate ice cream headache ... I can't remember the last time I had one, but I certainly had forgotten how painful they are!  I actually thought that taking my helmet off would help it feel better ... NOT!  Got back on the route again and experienced the "Butt Burner" that is Spring Port Road ... up and down, up and down, up and down!!!  Having done all that up and down, I decided that it was time for another slushie when we got to the Crossroads store.  Having never had a slushie on a hot day of cycling, I decided that slushies would forevermore be my drink of choice.  It really cooled my core.

 

Stopped to take pictures at the World's Largest Cedar Bucket.  By this time, we could tell that rain was on its way, so since we had gotten 4 extra miles on our Sardis slushie run, we thought it was best to cut across from CR-105 to the Wellesgate construction entrance and head back to town via Anderson Road.  I kid you not, there were WHITE CAPS on the lake that were crashing and splashing over the bulkhead as we rode around it!  As we rounded the south end of the lake and got a view of the storm that was heading across the lake towards us and all the scary lightening that was with it, I told Kate and Claude that we needed to stop and hole up on the porch of someone's house and wait it out.  The wind was blowing so hard that I doubt we could have remained upright.  And I was worried that there might be hail.  There was a house that looked like it was still under construction, so we quickly helped ourselves to its back porch ... and the house itself acted like a buffer between the coming storm and us.  Claude called his wife to come get us because his bike rack can carry four bikes.  Karen Mogridge texted me to find out our whereabouts and discovered our dilemma.  She offered to come get us ... THANK YOU KAREN!  The ride was over for us at that point.  We ended up with 80 miles for the day.

 

You can see the pictures here! 

 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100380846702225.2620857.27434752&l=fd64181e98&type=1

- Carol

Double Decker

Whew!

 

Successful day, y'all!  We had nearly 150 riders join our fun on what ended up being a stunningly beautiful day to be on a bike. 

 

I send many, MANY thanks to everyone who showed up to work packet pick-up and late registration last night and this morning so that Ryan and I, after our heavy, before-the-fact toil, could stand around and breathe a sigh of relief that all of our organization had gone off with only 2-3 small flaws ... 

 

Of our nearly 150 riders, 1/3 were women and 2/3 were men ... and that is a lot more gender-neutral than you usually see at organized rides!

 

Some of the nice compliments I received today:

 

"Y'all always have such nice stuff!" (Talking about the swag bags.)

 

"Do you have any teeshirts left to sell?"  (Unfortunately, no)

 

"This is a great course!"  (Talking about the route.  We are so fortunate to have Sardis Lake acting as a buffer to traffic for us.)

 

"I want to do this next year."  (From runners or the partners of runners who noticed us in the Midtown Shopping Center parking lot ... be prepared ... if we start at Midtown again we're likely to have twice as many riders.)

 

We had no injuries, unless you count a scraped knee, and no major snafoos.  When I went out and drove the route, I saw only three people stopped on the side of the road.  One person attending to a flat tire ... and the other two helping themselves to honey suckle!

 

Are you ready for next year?!? 

 

Carol Livingston

Blue Mountain

For everyone who didn't ride the Blue Mountain Century today, it can be best described as scenic, hills, rural, hills, quiet ... and hills.  I had my iPod with me and was thumping along to all my favorite floozie dance music.  Outstanding hill training route.  May ride it again the next two Saturdays before Cheaha.  It won't get any less tough, but I sure need some more tough in me before I challenge Mt. Cheaha again!

- Carol

Tour de Iron Butt: Java Jaunt

We had a great group show up to ride the 2nd Tour de Iron Butt ride this morning.  We even had some visitors join us.  John Formsman from Blue Mountain (who I met when I was out scouting roads last year) and Darlene Oliver, Judy Wyckoff and Laura Galloway from Tupelo made the trek to Oxford. 

 

The entire group made an "unofficial" store stop in Water Valley on the way out. After that, the start group began to split up as folks settled into what/how they planned to ride for the day.  We ladies stopped at Slyva Rena Bait and Tackle (the "official" store stop) where Leighton and I said goodbye to Darlene, Judy and Laura, but not before making plans to meet up for the Cheaha Challenge in April.

 

My gigantic bruises from the dog wreck last week kinda got to me after about 30 miles.  Leighton was good to hang back with me, since I planned to finish no matter what.  Like Rich said about the Century Lafayette, it wasn't pretty but I got it done.

 

Ryan McCready caught up with us just as we got back to Water Valley at mile 57..  He got a late start on the ride because he was helping to train some beginner triathletes this morning.  I was standing on the side of the road taking pictures of a field of daffodils when he found me.

 

It was a great day ... I even got a bit of a sunburn!

- Carol

Enid Lake dam 2/12/2011

I took off at 9:00 so as to stay ahead of the Rocket Riders. 

Beautiful sunny day.  There were large patches of ice out on Pope-Water Valley Road in all the places where the road stayed shady.  Met up with Chris Mogridge, Rich Raspet, and Christian Leask on my way back to the little store out there.  Since the potties were non-existent, I made another stop at mile 55 at Lakeway Bait and Tackle on MS-315.  I sat out in the sunshine waiting for the boys to catch up. 

They took me on a "safe cut" on a couple of roads that were new to me, then they took off to sprint from Taylor back into town.  About a mile from the city limit, a couple of small black and white dogs dashed out in the road toward me ... and in the way of dogs who either forgot what they were doing or lost track of their prey, one of them came to a dead stop directly in front of me an iota before I struck it broadside.  I took a hard fall which cracked my helmet in FOUR places. 

Several motorists stopped to assist me.  Rode the rest of the way home without incident.  Showering revealed huge bruises on my left hip and elbow, but the layers of winter riding gear probably saved me from massive road rash.  Bike is fine except that the zipties that hold my sensor on my fork broke and will need to be replaced.  I went back out and spoke nicely to the owner.  He agreed that since the helmet was "killed" in the line of duty he was willing to buy a replacement for me.

- Carol Livingston

70 degree Saturday

Lots of riding today, beautiful weather :  65 mile European Tour, B-Team Toccopola Loop (GPS), fast MTB ride at Clear Creek (GPS) and a women's beginner MTB ride at Clear Creek.

Friday MTB Social Ride

Another good turnout - 12 people this week.  Most of the new sections are starting to look good, if next week stays dry we should have some nice trails. Garmin GPS

Thurs MTB

Finally reasonable weather (high 40s), new trail sections were still a bit muddy after the rain, but looking good. Garmin GPS

Wed Road Ride

Jason showed up 10 mins late and had to chase down Matt & Rich (easy since they turned around at the lake). Nice smooth ride. Garmin GPS

Century Lafayette (Tour de Iron Butt #1)

Nine hardy souls showed up for the ride.  The sun was out when we left Plein Air, but it soon disappeared, don't think we saw it again until about 50 miles into the ride.  It ended up being a V-E-R-Y C-O-L-D day!!!

Rich managed the full century : "I managed to complete the Century. It was not pretty. Riding long in cold weather is mainly about not getting overheated and sweaty. That mean climbing slowly. Brown’s store was closed for the first time ever so my first store break was in Paris at 90 miles. A cup of coffee there and then back to Taylor a little after three."

The rest of us mortals were happy to complete something closer to a metric century. Christian Stovall impressed us by separating his cleat from his shoe mid ride, Christian Leask impressed us by being Christian Leask. Garmin GPS