riding into the heat of july

[ny biker]

Catching up, part 2 -- yesterday's ride was one that I won't forget.

A friend had planned a long birthday ride on Saturday, but I decided not to go because it would have involved riding all afternoon on another hot sunny day. I'm still not fully acclimated to the heat yet, and with the recent flare-up of chronic hives finally calming down I didn't want to put myself under the physical stress of being outside during the hottest part of the day. Instead I decided to do a ride on Sunday in northern Maryland with the club that I rarely ride with. The reason I rarely do this club's rides is their survival-of-the-fittest approach -- there's never a sweep, and if you have a mechanical or health problem you're left behind. And there's also so much pace inflation that you're likely to be dropped early and left to ride alone even though you're maintaining the advertised pace. But this is an area I know well, I was able to plan some short cuts in case I needed them, and a friend was going to be there so I could ride with her. Most importantly the ride started early enough that we would be finished early in the afternoon.

So, as expected, my friend and I were dropped immediately. After a few miles I noticed one man who was riding alone not far ahead of us, and we caught up with him at an intersection. He asked if he could ride with us, and we said of course, please do. It turned out that his Garmin was not working and he didn't have a cue sheet, so he had no idea when or where to turn. And he was new to the area, having moved here just a few weeks ago after a job change and a divorce.

Somewhere around mile 12-13 he asks how far to the first rest stop, because he had inadvertantly left his water bottles at home. The first stop is 28 miles into this 65-mile ride, well over two hours of riding at our pace. There are no other stores around in this rural area and not much shade. So we stop and give him some water (my friend and I both started with two full bottles.) We ride on and reach the rest stop (a convenience store/gas station) with much interesting conversation but no further incidents.

Riding on, around mile 35 we reach a steep hill. He walks up part of it. No problem, we wait at the top under a tree. He hasn't ridden in months due to all the stuff that's been going on in his life. He starts riding more slowly and I ride ahead, keeping an eye on him with my handlebar mirror. By mile 45 he's been out of sight for a while so I stop and wait, then ride back about a mile until I see him coming. It's quite hot by now and we have a bit of a headwind. Around mile 49 we're close to the next stop (another convenience store) but I'm starting to bonk so we stop in the shade for a snack. My friend had gone ahead but we all meet up at the store where we cool off in the shade and get more food and cold drinks.

We hit the road again with 15 miles to go. With 5 miles to go my friend and I reach an intersection and stop in the shade to wait for him. After a few minutes we don't see him so we start riding back, and find him after about a mile working on a flat tire. We spent at least 45 minutes trying to fix that flat. Three different tubes fail when we try to inflate them -- apparently due to stem problems. The tire -- a Conti GP Attack, I think -- was very tight, very hard to get off and on the rim. At one point we thought maybe my friend's frame pump wasn't working so we tried mine instead. Finally we give up, tell him we will ride back to our cars and one of us will drive back to get him.

So much for starting early in order to finish by early afternoon -- by the time we finished riding the last few (unshaded) miles it was 3 pm and the heat rash was already appearing on my legs. But the club I usually ride with is not like the one we were riding with yesterday -- we never leave anyone stranded. I volunteered to drive back to get him. I quickly loaded up my car, drank some orange juice that was in my cooler, made a quick pitstop at a nearby gas station and headed back to where we left him. He had started walking so I found him about a mile and half from where we'd left him. We got his bike into my car and soon were back at the ride start.

Over the years I've been helped by many people who were patient enough to wait when I needed to rest or helped me fix a flat or gave me water when I was too hot. I'm glad I had the chance to pay it forward. In the end my friend and I agreed that it was a fun ride in spite of the drama.