6/29- Newcomerstown, OH to Columbus, OH

Today it rained INSANELY HARD...3 separate times. Skies looked friendly in the morning, and I enjoyed playing catchup, eventually passing the first group as group leader Skip held steady to my back wheel. He quickly tired though, and we spent the rest of the morning riding at a conversationalist pace and chatting up a storm.

Skip decided to refill his water bottles at a gas station on the other side of the highway to leave more water in the coolers for those riders behind us, and after taking the off exit to get there, the skies began rapidly becoming dark and ominous. Lightning and more torrential rain ensued, which left me very fortunte to be hiding in a gas station and not out on the road. While we ride in the rain, we get the heck outa the way when its lighting outside, as it makes riding quite unsafe. After calling as many riders as possible to direct them to safety, we enjoyed some gas station food for lunch before hearing from riders who had ridden ahead that the skies were in deed clearing up. After waiting 10 more minutes, we decided to ride on.

Apparently this quick dry spell was only the eye of the storm, as just before we hit the lunch truck, it began pouring. Words can not describe how hard it rained at this point, as I can not even begin to describe how hard it was raining. It looked like, and felt like the rain you get during a hurricane, except perhaps with more rain. The rain droplets actually hurt as they pelted your skin, and visibility was limited to only a few feet in front of you.

I've ridden and raced in plenty of heavy rain storms, but I don't think I've ever come close to anything like this before. The Philly crit this year, the Men's A crit race in Philly in 2006, the hill hell ride I did with Adrian freshmen year where I puked on a bike can come close, practically every JV football game I played in 10th grade (with Elmont and Uniondale especially coming ot mind) could come close to estimating this level of rain, but nothing could match the intensity of this moment.

This was a moment that I had to embrace as being totally epic and one to remember. It was at this moment that I realized that even the worst day biking still easily beats the best day at work. I whooped and hollared my way through the rain as I passed riders, losing my voice again after having just finally starting to get it back after the chant of the day out of Johnstown.

About 20 minutes later, the rain slowed down, and eventually completely cleared up. The sun came out, the clouds disappeared, and unless you saw our group drenched and our shoes squishing on every downstroke of our pedals, you would have never known it rained.

Perhaps now is a good time to apologize for not taking more pictures on this trip, but at the same time following it up with the excuse of rain. It has rained more on this trip than I think I have ever encountered in three weeks, even for early spring, and this is rain that would destroy my camera instantly had it been taken out its protective map case bag that I keep in my jersey. During the rainstorm, we passed this giant building that looked like a picnic basket, but alas, no photos.

After riding in mostly pancake flat conditions for the majority of the day, we suddenly encountered an extremely short steep hill that was similar to "The Wall" in Manyunk, and left my back tire spinning and losing traction as I stood up to climb it. This was followed by mostly rolling hills that involved effort climbing.

At the end of this hilly road, a rider in the group discovered he had flatted. I volunteered to stay back with him as the front group rolled forward, and after unsucessfully patching his first tube, and then finally installing a new one, we headed on. After meeting up with a second group of riders, I decided to take a short break at a local Wendy's to refill my bottles and rest my knee which was aching by this point. I've noticed that the tendonitis tends to flare up after standing in one place for too long, so I'm going to try to spend time idling around on it, especially standing.

Another thing I've noticed is the wind picks up greatly around 1pm, and that riding into a strong headwind on a pancake flat road can be just as slow as climbing an 8% grade for 10 miles.I now understand why most tours leave from the west coast, as the midwest wind can severely aide/hamper ones efforts.

After my break I found myself on the road alone, when I noticed storm clouds assembling right in front of Columbus. With less than 10 miles to go, I figured I would do my best to beat this second storm. With my bum knee relegated to a dull aching pain as I churned it out in my big ring, I raced for our destination with the intention of beating the rain, but luck would have otherwise. The rain beganst anew, as I pedaled through, having pedaled passed a large suburban strip center and right after the on ramp for Clevland when suddenly I heard a large SHHHHHH from my tires.

Damn.

This would be flat #3 on this trip, and the third related to running over debris I could not see during blinding rain. It's also been the third large gash I've left in my rear tire, so at least I've made my flats count. It was sitting on the side of the road in this pouring storm situated about 2 miles away from any form of shelter that I first realized I had lent my tube out earlier in the day to someone who needed it. It was at this point that left me somewhat distressed, majorly edgy (I'm almost glad I had to deal with this alone), and in need of some quick ingenuity.

I might mention that at no point did I consider calling the van for backup, and it would have done no use anyways, as it was at least 2 hours away picking other riders up. On the trip we have something that some riders refer to as the "Effy" Club, which can be summed up as "Every F***ing Inch." Regardless of what gets thrown our way (knee pains, mechanicals, etc) its a source of personal pride to ride every inch of this journey. I don't really have an opinion on people who take off days, or who ride in the van, as this is their business and not mine, but the Effy Club is a personal goal to strive for that keeps you up when things aren't going your way.

I used my emergency shot blocks snack food on me that I carry for emergencies and used chewed up bits of shot block to help fill the hole in my tube that was then followed by glue and a patch (I used shotblocks as the glue was not setting on its own in the rain, and needed some assistance. I also used some more chewed up shot blocks to fill the gash in the tire, and backed it up with some of the wrapper to create a tire patch. Swearing like a sailor and still in a foul mood, I was able to install the tube, and proceed riding all the way until the church. I was so close at this point that had my craftiness not worked, I probably would have walked with the bike instead.

Meeting us at the church was Jane Wolcott's parents, who are awesome people (and apparently readers of my blog as well...who actually knew anyone read this thing!). Having calmed down and in an exceptionally good mood feeling lucky for just being able to ride in, I felt even luckier when one rider, Amol, was able to secure showers for us at the Ohio State Gym, which was lucky as our host only had one shower with bad water pressure.

After dinner prepared by the church (Mexican Food!! Hooray!! As much as I love Italian, diversity is the spice of life, and all of the food was quickly devoured with no leftovers. It was pretty late at this point, and after a group leader meeting, decided that our scheduled laundry day would be postponed a day.

This was totally unacceptable to me, who is a big fan of cleanliness. Handwashing our jerseys every day is alright, but shorts need a good washing or else health issues could prevail. It was at this point that as a late sleeper, I volunteered to do laundry with anyone else who would volunteer so that we could have clean clothes in the morning.

Finding several other volunteers, we went to the laundromat to find that it had closed. We had to go to 2 more laundromats before we found one that was open, and it wasn't until 11:45 after this exhausting day that I got to go to bed.

Not looking to the 5:30 wakeup tomorrow, but sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and just run with it....