still on the Mississippi

[marni]

We are still riding up the Mississippi river. Yesterday we rode out of Tennessee, into Kentucky briefly so that we could take the ferry across into Missouri. Charleston Missouri last night, Cape Girardeau tonight, Ste. Genevieve tomorrow and St Louis on Sunday and a day off Monday. This will put us time wise and distance wise just a lttle over the half way mark.

I had been riding blind since leaving Memphis since both of my bike computers died. It is both mentally and physically taxing to try an do this sort of a cue/clue sheet navigated ride without a computer. It means that you have to ride with someone who has a functional computer, or ride constantly somewhere with riders ahead and some behind so that if you lose the leaders you can stand by the side of the road and wait for someone to come by and then follow them. It also is very disorienting to not know how much further it is to the next SAG spot, terrain feature or metropolis feature and it nearly impossible to pace yourself.

I ride with a garmin and a back up cats eye which records only mileage, speed and time of day. The garmin picked up a jinx in Memphis and I can neither clear the mileage or depend on it not to randomly turn itself off. The battery is only holding about 2 hours worth of charge and is built in so I have to find a radio shack and see if they can do anything but since it is five years old...... The other computer needed new batteries which I just happened to have with me, but neither I, the guides, or anyone else could get the battery cover off the wheel sensor. One woman left the ride yesterday to attend a family wedding and her husband, who had come to pick her up, had a very complete tool kit, so with much patience, a variety of tools and a lot of brute strength and some spicey comments, he got the top off, we replaced the battery and now it works.

Todays ride was absolutely perfect. Not only was I mentally more at ease riding since I knew where to look for the turns, the special features, the SAG stops, and could pace myself against the heat and how I felt. It was a moderate 87 degrees with a 5-10 mile wind that felt cool- The humidity is very low and because of the twists and turns of the road, in several sections we actually had a real actual tail wind.

The scenery if basically flat farmland with quite a few walnut, oak, cottonwoods and others trees that I don't recognize. It has been dry so the big walking sprinkler rigs are out circling the fields. There are quite a few uncultivated fields since this area was all flooded last year, and there are a lot of fields of a very short (18-24" high) fully headed out and golden ripe wheat. I don't know if the ripeness is because of the dryness or whether it is a special kind of wheat. The corn is about a foot high.

About 20 miles into the ride we passed a farm raising buffalo, followed by a French graveyard from the 1700's and then in the little town of Morley (population 637) we had been warned to look out for the cafe because they made homemade pies. Although it was only about 9:00 AM, a bunch of us stopped in for pie. We all sat at the table labeled as "the liars table" and proceeded to brag that we had just ridden 100 miles, were going to ride another couple of hundred, etc. Strange that nobody believed us.

The only pie available was coconut cream pie and the servings were huge so we split the slices two and three ways and still finished off all of the poor womans pies. Some of that later riders missed out. I think this group of 30 crazy women with a mission (get there, have fun, be safe and support each other) not to mention the van and trailer and "little BoPeep" (complete with sign showing Bo Peep looking for sheep on bicycles), the support vehicle was probably one of the biggest thing to happen in Morley this year. We left the owner/pie baker with a copy of the cue sheet with the note about her cafe and the pies.

The rest of the ride was uneventful, except that Dianne, the woman I was riding with, took a spill on some lose gravel as we pulled into a Post Office to ask directions since we had missed a turn and were hoping to find a short cut back to the real route, or a safe route to Cape Girardeau. The lady at the post office got Dianne wet paper towels to clean out the gravle scrapes on her arms and leg, and a customer had some sanitizing wipes so Dianne cleaned herself up and we finished the last 7 miles into town, found the hotel and then rode on to the bike shop because Dianne's shifter was not working and her front brake was acting funny. Luckily this is one of the towns that actually has a bike shop. It was well stocked, and very functional with everybody doing bike wrenching, sales, fitting etc. Most of Mississippi didn'thave any bike shops and the one in Memphis was sold out of everything useful and not overly worried about it.

So the poor people at Cape Cycles were suddenly slammed with about a dozen clamoring females allneeding something, either new shoes, clips adjusted, shifting corrected, and a new shifter. They decided that they were going to have to get Dianne a whole new set of shifters so she settled in to wait while we all went to find some lunch. As we were leaving a local ERT/Ambulance pulled up. We found out later that the problem with Dianne's shifter had been due to a small pebble lodged in it, which they discovered after an houror so. of getting ready to replace it. They removed the pebble, closed it back up and didn't charge her. In the meantime, the ambulance driver had cleaned, disinfected and bandaged all of Dianne's scrapes and cuts.Aren't people amazing?

There are defintely biking angels among us.

[murielalex]

Totally enjoyed reading this, though I admit I'm a bit jealous. I'm lucky if I can get a two-hour ride in on any day. Enjoy!

[bmccasland]

Wow, what an adventure! Small town America has a heart too.

Hope the pie was good.

[hebe]

Totally enjoyed reading this, though I admit I'm a bit jealous. I'm lucky if I can get a two-hour ride in on any day. Enjoy!

Absolutely +1.

Your ride sounds amazing, Marni. I'm glad that Dianne and her shifter are ok, and that you have your Cats Eye working again. I'm sure that someone should be making a movie like this.

[Fredwina]

Glad to see you made to my hometown. I've shopped at Cape Cyclery, too. The building used to be the Honda/Mazda dealer.
I'm wondrering if the "wheat" you saw was Sorghum or Milo. It's a fairly common crop around there.
"Ste. gen" is one of my favorite town. Ther ride up should be fun.
Thanks for keeping us up to date. My Mother is a survivor,too, but at her age everyday is adventure.

[Crankin]

Sounds like you are having fun, Marni.

[OakLeaf]

What a great trip. Keep the updates coming!

I'm guessing the winter wheat is maturing early because of both heat and the drought. Either will contribute, both together is a double whammy. I don't know if it's been as unseasonably warm where you are as it has been in the eastern US, so maybe it's only drought.

[lovelygamer]

What a fantastic story! Thanks for sharing

[owlice]

A lovely read with my morning coffee; thank you, and please please please keep these coming!!

[ZenBiker]

A lovely read with my morning coffee; thank you, and please please please keep these coming!!

ditto - I enjoyed this and look forward to more updates!

[shootingstar]

Sounds like fun riding with those women.

Is this part of a company-organized ride or just an informal ride amongst yourselves?

[marni]

Sounds like fun riding with those women.

Is this part of a company-organized ride or just an informal ride amongst yourselves?

The tour company is womantorus.com a marvelous group of women who organize, guide and support these woman only tours. They do one "epic" orcross country ride per year, plus some foreign tours with local guides (Bhutan, Tuscany and others) as well as numerous week long inn to inn or B&B rides throughout the US.

Basically our day is breakfast 6-6:30 am ( depending on the distance) Snack table goes out shortly after, we load our luggage into the trailer which also has a cooler full of good stuff for the end of the ride, and a kitchen where opur dinners and supplemental breaksfasts are cooked.

once the snack table is out 7:00 more or less, we build our snacks or fill a baggy with self made trail mix,dried fruits, nuts, chocolate and other stuff and ride out.

Little Bo Peep sees that everyone is out on the road, picks up shich ever of the women needing a "jump" and drives by all the riders, checking to see that everyone who should be riding is riding, on route and giving a thumbs up. If there is a hand frantically patting the helmet, she stops to asses the problem and then either picks up the rider or calls back to the van and trailer ( driven by one of the two guides. The other usually rides the first 20 miles or so and then either switches places with the van driver or rides into the next town with the van.

Bo Pee scoots up to the 20 miles more or less spot, hopefully with facilities, parks and starts getting cut up fruit, pay days and protein bars ready for the riders. Bo Peep and the dirver repeat this performance every 20 miles or so throughout the day. We all check in with the SAG at each stop as she can't leave until she knows where everyone is.

In the meantime, the two guides and the van have settled up the hotel bills, loaded the bikes of the people who can't or aren't riding, sometimes taking some of the jump riders, if there are more than the three that Bo Peep, can handle and heads on down the road to the next destination. If it is a long day, the van may be at the SAG stops to pick up riders, but the basic principle is that the van leaves last, sweeps the riders checking on each, heads into the next town dumps the trailer with the chef/ guide and heads back down the road to pick up any flagging riders. If it is a shorter day, or if the chef/guide needs to grocery shop, the van will hang around town until the ride is nearly done before setting out back down the road.

Meanwhile back on the road, we are all riding along, stopping at the SAG stops to check in with BO Peep, and riding. If we go through a town about lunch time we may stop somewhere for lunch but so far we have been leaving early to beat the heat, getting into the next town in the early afternoon and getting lunch somewhere near the motel.

Once we reach our destination, we check our names off at the van, grab a cold something (beer, wine, chocolate milk, fruit juice, vitamin water, sparkling water, v8 ) get checked in and grab a shower and relax.

We gather about 6:00 pm to sit outside on chairs (yes the vtrailer carries that as well) and tell our stories of the day. Dinner is served at 6:30 and has an amzing variety of stuff to meet everyone's needs (vegan, gluten intolerant, nut intolerant, soy intolerant, pepper intolerant vegetarian and lactose intolerant in this group ) always a salad, a protein, a carbohydrate, fresh fruit and something for "afters" from choclate chips to pie or cheesecake with more fresh fruit. Lynne or chef/ guide who whips by all of us nearly every day getting in her 20-40 miles of riding, most definitely needs to write a cook book!

After dinner is the cue sheet handout for the next day, with corrections, things to look for, cautins, distance corrections etc. and then it is off to bed.

Most of us are in bed by 8:30 or 9:00

That's basically the day, eat, ride, eat, relax, eat some more, relax, cue sheet and bed.
Tough life but someone has got to do it and Womantours does it superbly.

the photo is Carolyn in a moment of bike yoga zen at a SAG stop.