Rain
Rain seems such a small thing. Little drops of water fall from the sky. Why could such an innocent thing be so disheartening? We knew we were in for rain last night. Our rented RV was settled in slot at the David Crockett State Park outside of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. Eating dinner in the woods we heard rain roll toward us. Rain in the woods has a muted but clear and unmistakable sound. “You are about to get wet,” it says as you hear rain-hitting trees, then ground, then you.
Inside an RV rain makes a plink plink sound as drops hit our tin roof. Every storm uptick is immediately communicated via sound creating a restless night. Rain crashed and banged for fifteen minutes followed by hours of plink, plink, plink. A reporter from the Savannah Chronicle asked me, “What is the hardest thing about Martin’s Ride?” “Riding when you feel like staying in bed, “ I answered.
I felt like staying in bed this morning. I wanted to simply listen to the plink, plink, plink. I was up using my cell phone as a flashlight at 4:30 AM. One look at the wet road and the constant tin sound of rain on our RV roof told me it was going to be an interesting, dangerous and wet morning.
The trick to riding in the rain is liking it. Fight rain, traffic and spray from eighteen-wheelers blowing by at eighty miles an hour and your mind exhausts your body. Your body works harder in rain. Rain is usually accompanied by wind and cold. This morning I dawned my Pearl Izumi windbreaker, gloves and thin socks. Thin socks were a mistake Jeremy quickly helped me correct this bad choice with a pair of thick wool socks. My thin socks got soaked and my feet start sliding inside the shoe
Feet can be my biggest problem in rain. I hate, hate, hate having wet cold feet when riding a bicycle. If you haven’t ridden a bicycle lately you may not realize one major change to bicycle technology – being clipped in. Clipless pedals or step in pedals are like ski bindings. Cyclists wear special shoes, called cleats, and step into corresponding and specially designed pedals. Clipless pedals and their special shoes replaced those impossible to tighten steal cages with the worn rawhide strap. Once you ride a bicycle with step in pedals you will never ride one without again.
Clipless pedals change several things about the bicycle including:
• Responsiveness
• Power
• Climbing
Being attached to a bicycle means the time between idea and execution is shortened. I would never want to travel
45 mph on a bicycle without clips. It would be impossible to tell the bicycle what to do fast enough. Rounding a 360 degree turn at thirty plus miles an hour without clips would be a bad, a very bad, idea. Add light weight composite materials into the mix and twitch ever so slightly to execute three ideas never before possible, never before clipless pedals.
Power on a bicycle comes from pulling UP on pedals instead of mashing DOWN. The best cyclists in the world make almost perfect elipse pedal strokes. Power comes when lifting the pedal up. You get more power and this stroke is easier on a 52 year old ex-football, ex-lacrosse player body. This is not to say I don’t mash down. Only pros who work in wind tunnels and study film master the perfect, or near perfect, elliptical stroke with power on the up stroke and follow through on down stroke.
Climbing in those old cages with trapped feet meant you MUST mash down. Clipless pedals make it possible to climb seated AND standing. There are positions on a climb only possible with clipless pedals. Ever see a tour rider 45 degrees over the front of his handle bars moving his bike side to side? Try doing THAT with those old straps and cages. Not possible doesn’t begin to cover it.
What, you may wonder, does this have to do with riding in the rain? Feet may be the most important things in modern bicycle riding. Cycling has become like skiing. Having wet feet makes my connection with the bicycle looser, more tenuous, just at a time when it needs to be tighter and more precise. This morning I was riding in the dark, in the rain on route 64. Large trucks brush by at high speed. Spray off of trucks blinds and angers me.
Rain makes acceptable highway risk quickly dangerous and unacceptable. This morning, after six miles on route 64, we put the bicycle in the RV and motored over to a beautiful and all but unused parkway. The Natchez Trace Parkway runs north and south. We need to ride west, but we need to head safely west and our best bet today was to go south.
My theory is you can only afford two confidence zapping problems at a time during a bicycle ride. This morning rain was a confidence zapper. Confidence zapper number one. The second confidence zapper was my feet loosing touch with the bicycle due to the too think socks I started out wearing. Traffic became the third strike so we acted to eliminate at least one strike.
If you aren’t confident on a bicycle you shouldn’t ride. Today I rode six miles on route 64 before wanting relief. We found it on Natchez Trace. I rode a little over forty miles with wool socks and a constant rain. Confidence built back because we were only dealing with one zapper – the rain.
After forty miles we turned on route 20 /69 and our number of confidence zappers immediately increased. By this time I was tired mentally and physically. Then there was the nature of the road itself. Route 69 has no shoulder, or very damn little. Traffic was moving on this major east / west route. Eighteen-wheelers loaded with timber barreled by at over seventy blowing rain and wind at me. Their attitude about having a cyclist out on such a lousy day was to push their gas pedal to the floor. The white reflective paint used to indicate a road’s shoulder is VERY slippery. Staying on the right of the line wasn’t working. About every four hundred yards there were large piles of gravel. Gravel on a road bike, a bicycle you are clipped into remember, is beyond dangerous. Loose a tire and there goes your balance. Loose your balance on route 69 southern Tennessee and you loose your life.
So there were more than three strikes including: I was tired, the road was bad, trucks were flying, my confidence was lessening with each truck and my connection to the bicycle was loose and getting looser with every stroke. After five miles I knew I was done. I pulled over to Jeremy and Brian in the RV and told them it was too dangerous to continue. They saw the log trucks and suspected as much. We loaded the Lemond, my Specialized Roubaix is wounded, on the RV and headed to the Green Acres RV park outside of Savannah, Tennessee. We would live to fight another day. Confidence is a magical thing. Confidence can be restored by blue sky, crisp morning after a rain air and Tennessee hills ridden on an off day, an off day whose miles could put Martin’s Ride more than 500 miles from home.