On the Road Again

After four long weeks of doing endurance mountain bike races, I decided to go back to road racing this weekend. This past Saturday, I raced in the Appalachian Bicycle Racing Association’s New Martinsville RR. I find that by doing an occasional road race my body seems to recover quicker from the rigorous endurance mtb races that I like to do, but at the same time I still get in a race and a good workout. I think doing a combination of road racing and mountain bike racing is something every racer should consider. Both types of racing are hard, but they are hard in different ways. Mountain bike racing requires a hard consistent individual effort. Road racing, on the other hand, requires surges of super hard efforts, but often allows for periods of recovery. By doing both types of racing, I think racers gain better overall fitness and become more well rounded riders, which can be especially useful during the fall cyclocross season.

Ironically, most of the New Martinsville, WV Road Race Course was held in Ohio. Additionally, the flattest part of this course was the mile or two we did at the start in WV, which is also ironic because most people think of WV as being hilly and consider Ohio to be mostly flat. The New Martinsville Course was certainly not flat by any means and basically went up and down during the entire length of the race, which was okay by me.

After we crossed the Ohio River and headed onto the first of the two 25 mile laps of the course, things started climbing. As a matter of fact, the first climb on the course was 3 miles long and it pretty much was the main determined factor of the race. Fortunately, I was one of the few that made the early separation during this climb and the only master rider to stay connected to the lead break away group. Our break away group stayed together until the end of the first lap, when SteveO and the eventual race winner separated themselves from the rest of the lead group. The two leaders then rode the next lap together, while the group I was in, which contained about 7 other riders, attempted to chase them down. By the end of the second 25 mile lap, everyone was pretty shattered from battling the strong winds with 40 mph gusts and the constant climbing on the course. By race end, I managed to stay up front for the masters race win and actually finished 5th overall for the day.

For the next couple of weeks that lead up to the Mohican 100 NUE Race, I will probably be doing a couple more road races. I think by doing some road races during the next few weeks I will keep my fitness level high without wearing myself out too much for the Mohican. Of course, I will still be doing plenty of mtn bike riding during the week because playing in the dirt is too much fun to miss. So, if I don't see you on the dirt for the next couple of weeks, I sure do hope to see you on the road. Happy Trails, Gerry

LOST

Not only is Lost a show on TV, but it is also what happened to me at the Michaux Maximus Race this past weekend. I have never watched the Lost TV Series, so I really don’t know too much about the show; however, I do know how frustrating being lost can be and can empathize with other victims in the same situation. I was not lost because of another person’s mistake or error, but because of my own failure to accurately follow the course markings.

Up until the point where I got side tracked, the race was going pretty well. The 19-34 year old racers started first at the event and about a minute later or so, the group I was mixed in with containing the master and single speed racers went off. During the first 10 miles of racing, I was leading the single speed race and had worked my way up into the top 10 riders overall, catching many of the racers in the younger age group that started ahead of me. My good race beginning started to go wrong when I went over the bars while descending down a short steep section of single track because of a large stick getting stuck between my front wheel and fork. The crashed caused a good size abrasion on my inner thigh, tweaked my left should a bit and also broke my lockout lever off my front suspension fork. After the crash, I decided to take things a little more conservatively since I was leading my race and seemed to have a comfortable lead.

I went into check point one and then entered some more of the infamous Michuax Technical Rocky Single Track, which then lead to a fire road. During my descent to this fire road, I heard another single speed racer coming up behind me. I could tell it was a single speeder because I did not hear a chain slapping on the approaching rider. Before I exited the single track, I saw a course direction arrow pointing to the left. I then took the left onto the fire road and looked over my shoulder to see who had just caught me. Unbeknownst to me, while I was looking over my shoulder instead of the course ahead, the course almost immediately turn left off the fire road back onto a single track trail. The other racer also missed the turn because he was following me up the fire road.

I like to turn my speed up on fire road climbs, so with another racer catching me, I had no problem with hitting the turbo switch on the climb to gain some time over the other racer. To make matters worse, the fire road we were climbing actually came back onto the course, so we now had course marking to follow again. The course marking eventually lead to the finish line and, at that time, I knew something was wrong. After talking to the race organizers at the finishing area, the other single speed racer and I decided to head back down the fire road to where we though we took the wrong turn. We descend down the fire road climb and took a left onto another fire road that we assumed was from where we came. We followed it for a while and climbed up another ridge, which lead us back to checkpoint one. Knowing this was wrong we then descended back down to the original fire road and eventually found the turn we missed. Probably about 100 feet or so into this trail my lost single speed companion got a flat rear tire and told me to go ahead without him.

Since I lost about 30-40 minutes of time after trying to get back on course, I knew there was no shot of me having a good finish at this race. But, since I had paid $70 for registration and driven almost 3 hours to do this race, I figured that I would at least get a long, hard training effort out of my mistake. I rode to check point two and only saw few riders here and there, but started to catch riders pretty regularly after the checkpoint. Even though I was not in the game for the win, I was still having fun riding the sweetness of the Michaux Trail network.

By the time I had finished the race, I figured out the extra mileage of being lost added 7 miles onto the 40 mile race loop. Even with this additional mileage, I somehow still managed to finish in the top 7 single speed riders. I also learned a few things during my misguided ride, which made the race a good learning experience for me anyway. First, I learned it is more important to pay attention to the course a head of me rather than the riders coming up from behind. Secondly, I learned that my body does not like to use Perpetuem by Hammer Products during a race on hot days. It seemed like everytime I would take a swig of the stuff my stomach would knot up. I am not saying this will happen to everybody, but it is the experience that I had with using it. I also learned that Caffe Latex Tire Sealant works wonderfully. I tore my side wall on one of the many rocks at Michaux sometime during the race and Caffe Latex sealed up the hole enough to allow me to finish the race without any repair. Other tire sealants that I have used have not done this nearly as well for me as this one did.

Yeah, sure, it would have been nice if I would have stayed on course and remained competitive for a good finish, but at least I learned a few things from the race and had a good time riding on some incredible single track. As I believe there is with most things in life, there is always a positive experience to gain from every situation, even if it is a bad one. Happy Trails, Gerry

One long, wet road

The first race of the National Ultra Endurance Series, the Cohutta 100, was a wet one for sure this year. For the past five years, this race has alternated year after year from a wet course to a dry one. With 2009 being a fast dry course, it was time for 2010 to be a wet course again and it was a deluge of wetness this year.

The rain started early Saturday Morning and came down long enough to make the trails pretty slick for the start of the race, but luckily the rain let up just enough during the start to allow us to begin without standing in the rain. However, it didn’t take long for everybody to get muddy and wet even without the rain falling, since the trails were already soaked. After about 4 hours of riding in this early grit, my face and bike was completely coated in a layer of dried mud. After this period of time, Mother Nature then took it upon herself to clean everybody up by pouring buckets of rain on us for the remainder of the afternoon. Of course, this made coming down the mountain on the last section of single track pretty bad, especially since most people had worn through their brake pads by this time in the race.

I usually don’t mind racing in bad conditions, but if given the choice, I would much rather have faster dry conditions. I also like when the cleaning up I have to do after a race it not such a difficult experience. Pretty much by the time I finished the race and got back to the car to start ridding myself from all of my almost permanently attached muddy clothing, I felt like I was about to go hypothermic. I doubt that I can accurately describe just how good taking a warm shower at the camp ground felt after doing this race.

The 2009 Cohutta was my first long race on a single speed and I ended up taking the win. I set my expectations pretty high this year because of my win last year and hoped for another victory, even with 2006 overall NUE Series Champion Harlan Price also registered in the single speed class. As the race started, things seemed to sort out pretty well for me and I was able to enter the single track in the second leading group along with fellow single speed competitors Harlan and Matt Ferrari. But, by the end of the first single track section, I let a few geared guys get in between me and my single speed competition just before entering a technical section on that part of the course. Unfortunately, they were both able to get a nice gap on me during this time, so I had to chase fairly hard through the next section of single track to get back up to them. Fortunately for me, I was able to re-join the two of them again not long after starting the long fire road section of the course.

The three of us rode well together on the fire roads up to check point #2 and we all stopped to replenish are liquids of choice there. Matt had some difficulty at the check point, which caused Harlan and me to gain a slight advantage over him. We took it pretty easy, though, so Matt was able to get back into our group. But, it was not too long after Matt re-attached himself to us that Harlan kicked up his speed. Matt soon fell off our pace and a few miles later, before check point three, I also then lost contact with Harlan.

The rest of a race was basically a matter of survival for me. I was still able to keep my pace up, but dealing with the prospect of riding in the rain for a few more hours and the mental defeat of being dropped was not playing over too kindly in my mind. Thankfully, I endured the rest of the race with little to no issues and finished second in the single speed class and tenth overall with a time of 7 hours, 33 minutes.

Overall, I am pretty happy with my performance. Sure, it would have been nice to take the win, but I guess second is not so bad when considering how difficult the conditions were and who my competition was. One thing for sure, the NUE Series Single Speed Class is going to be a whole lot different with Harlan in the mix this year. It will be, for sure, a long, hard road for whoever takes the overall series victory this year, which is a good thing. Right??? Happy Trails, Gerry

The LBD

The LBD, otherwise known as the Leesburg Bakers Dozen, is a 13 hour endurance team relay event just outside of Leesburg Virginia. I have heard good things about the race from previous episodes of the event, but have never had the chance to do it until this past weekend. As of my last blog writing, I was not too sure where I was going to race this weekend. I thought maybe a XC race close to home, or if the weather was bad maybe a road race close to home. Well, my unsure race plans all change on Monday when I received an email from my friend Blair Saunders about joining him on a two person team in the sold out LBD. I mean how could I say no to this offer? Not only is Blair a fast racer, but I also got to do an off road endurance race instead of doing a race option that would have probably been used more for training purposes.

So, the next thing I knew team CanAm was listed as a last minute entry on BikeReg for the two person team category of the LBD. Blair picked the team name of CanAm because he is Candian, even though he now resides in Delaware, and I am American. With the quick changes in my race plan, I had to adjust my training plans for the week a little, so that I could arrive at the LBD feeling fresh. I also had to organize a lot of gear, food and other things to make sure I had what I needed for the race. One thing I can say for certain is that preparing for an endurance race is completely different than the preparation needed for shorter races.

Upon meeting at the hotel I booked, Blair and I made up a race plan based somewhat on his past experience from doing this race. First, and most importantly, we decided who was going to start the race. We both felt like a fast start would be important for this race, so to make this critical decision about which of us would start we decided on doing a coin toss. I loss the coin toss, so Blair got to be our starter. I actually preferred not starting because it gave me an opportunity to pre-ride the approx 8 mile loop before I went out on a race lap. Lord knows you need a good warm-up and pre-ride of the course during a 13 hour race, right??? Anyway, we also decided to do a one lap on and one lap off race format until we decided to see how things were going between us and the other teams.

As it turned out, the 8 mile loop was taking us about 30 minutes to do during the race. At first, our format seemed to be going pretty good and it was allowing us just enough time to recover from our hard effort before heading back out for another lap. We used this strategy for the first 7 or 8 hours of the race before deciding to switch to doing double laps. The switch seemed to be a good idea because after we made the switch we soon moved into the first place position, after riding the first part of the race in second place at about 4 minutes behind the lead team. Once we took the lead, it was just a matter of us being consistent, smart and smooth on our bikes to maintain the lead. We seemed to do all of these things perfectly and were able to finish the race without any problems and secure the win in the two man team category.

It has been awhile since I have raced in a mtb relay event and I must say it sure was fun to do again. Usually, I concentrate on long individual endurance events, but I may have to try and fit some more of these events into my racing schedule in the years to come. Of course, having a good teammate makes a world of difference when doing a race like this. So, I must say thanks to Blair for thinking about me when he made his teammate choice and also thanks for riding a good race. If you ever need another "CanAm" teammate, Blair, you know where to find me.

The LBD Registration sold out this winter on BikeReg in less than an hour. The promoter limits the number of total racers to 425 probably because 95% of the course is held on tight single track trails and having more riders would jam up the trails way too much. The promoter had things organized well for the race itself, plus he finished the event off with a bonfire, free pizza and a live band. What more could a guy want? I was lucky enough to sneak into this race at the last minute because Blair was one of the first to be put on the LBD waiting list and because he thought of asking me to do it with him. If you missed your opportunity to do the race this year, I feel for you and if you have never done it, be sure to get online early next year to register because this is an event not to be miss. Happy Trails, Gerry

And so it begins...

Well, the 2010 racing season officially started for me last weekend and I have a packed season of racing ahead of me. Last weekend I did the first race of the Appalachian Bicycle Racing Association Series, the Morgantown Road Race, on 04/03/2010. I followed up that race this weekend by doing the Michaux Mash Endurance MTB Race on Saturday and The Allegheny Cycling Association’s Mingo RR on Sunday. Overall, I am happy with my early season fitness and how the races turned out for me.

The Morgantown RR was around 43 miles long on some very hilly terrain in southwestern Pennsylvania. In addition to the tough terrain, the temperature on race day was above 80 degrees. Yeah, I know 80 is not super hot, but when you’re used to riding in 50-60 degree weather it does make a difference. Anyway, when I race on the road, I always prefer to ride on a course that is hilly and causes the pack to naturally break up a bit. The Morgantown Course was just such a course. After the first few climbs, a group of about 7 riders, including me, split away from the rest of the pack. I did what I could in this pack to keep the pace high on the climbs, to hopefully thin out things a little more. But, by the end, my race hard tactics and the fact that I was stuck in a break with riders from the same team left me feeling pretty zapped for the last few important miles. I did finish fourth on the day, but felt like I put all I had into the event, even without the win that I wanted. BTW, JR Pesko and the rest of the Backyard Cycling Team did an outstanding job with putting on this race and certainly should be commended for a job well done.

This weekend was a different story for me at the Michaux Mash, since it was on the dirt instead of on the road. One thing I will always like better about mountain bike racing over road racing is that things separate quickly and hard riding is almost always positively rewarded. The Mash had a pretty interesting race concept, which was similar in format to a 24 hour race, with the racer doing the most laps during a set period of time being declared the winner. The Mash was set-up to be a four hour race, with each lap taking about an hour to complete on average. The first part of the race course was on a pretty long climb that lead to some really sweet technical single track, then back onto a brief stint of fire road and then back into the woods for a long technical descent back to the start/finish area. I really could not have asked for a better race on Saturday. Almost immediately, I was able to get a pretty large gap from the other racers on the first long climb. After that, I just got into a sweet groove and kept it going. The next thing I knew I had four laps done, but still had around 20 minutes of race time left. So, with a large amount of time remaining, I had no other choice but to go back out for a fifth lap to ensure victory. My last lap went as good if not better for me than the first four and I rode to the finishing line aboard my Salsa Mamasita with the overall win in hand. I can’t describe how good it felt to have a very solid early season ride and also how nice it was to ride a bike that absolutely worked flawlessly. Thanks to Zack Adams and Fast Forward Cycling for promoting one heck of a cool race.

After such a hard effort on Saturday, I knew my legs would not feel too fast in a road race on Sunday, but I decided to do the ACA Mingo RR anyway. If nothing else, I figured it would be some good training and an opportunity to see some friends. I was definitely correct with the forecast of how my legs would feel at the race. I mostly hung in the pack, but I did get the opportunity to put down a few hard efforts during the race. By the end, I finished with the pack and was convinced once again that mountain bike racing is so much more enjoyable for me to do than road racing. Since I got a ride to the race from Brain W. in his truck, I was able to do a nice long ride home to flush the legs of their past two days of hard efforts and it certainly felt good to do.

So, now that the season has started I will try to write my blog updates a little more frequently. It just seems that with all there is to do in life sometimes my blog entries take the back seat to other things, like riding for instance. I am kind of up in the air about which race I am going to do next weekend, but at the moment I am leaning towards doing an XC race at Big Bear, WV in preparation for the first NUE Series Race, the Cohutta 100, the following weekend. Wow, I can’t believe racing is in full swing now when I was skiing on some really deep snow here only about a month and a half ago.

Well, that is about it for now…Enjoy your racing season my friends whether it be on the road or mountain bike. Happy Trails!

Welcome Spring!

Last week was the first spell of real nice weather in months in the Pittsburgh Region. It was a great prelude to the official coming of spring and hopefully the start of much more fine weather to come. The weather was so nice, that I was actually able to do my bike commute to work all week long. To me, there is nothing better than starting or finishing a day at work by being on the bike. Additionally, it is a great way to get in a lot of riding without taking up a bunch of free time.

With no close races to do on the first weekend of spring, I decided that doing a hard, long road bike ride on Saturday would be the best choice for my race preparation. Additionally, I wanted to test out my newly built Salsa Podio Road Bike. I don’t think that there is any better way to test a bike than to build it up and then take it on a super long ride the very next day. Anyway, to find some riding friends, I posted a message on Facebook looking for volunteers to join me for my planned hell ride. My recruitment of other riders only generated two other people that were crazy enough to join me: Rob Lochner and Justin Pokrivka. Brian Wieczorek and his work colleague Zack did join our small group for a little more than an hour, after they rode down from Ligonier on their bikes to my place.

My ride plan was to do a very difficult road bike route, in preparation for the start of the NUE Series in about a month. The three of us all seemed to be in agreement with this plan and the ride was executed just as I had expected it would be. After doing many long mountain climbs, riding at least 10 miles of sketchy dirt roads someplace in WV, we ended up with over 7 hours of riding, 112 miles and 10870 feet of climbing. It was indeed a good early season challenge for our legs and we all seemed to pass with flying colors. It was also an absolutely perfect ride to welcome the first day of spring.

To make the weekend even more special, sometime last week I found out about a bootleg road race going on in a town very close to me from my long time friend Brian DelVecchio. The “race” seemed very interesting to me because of the multiple stage format of racing up 8 climbs, while at the same time riding one big loop. I didn’t commit until the actual day of the “race” because I was not too sure of how my legs would feel from my hard effort the day before. I can certainly say now that I am very happy about making the choice to do the event after riding my Podio to the (undisclosed) starting point and meeting up with all the other riders.

After everyone threw a little money into the registration pot, the event started with a kind of crash-up-derby style event for bikes. The rules of the event were that all fifteen of us would start in a small circle and the last man standing in the circle without putting a foot down would be declared the winner. I ended up third in this stage because I did my best to avoid everyone until Don Powers decided to take me out. Thanks, Don! The real racing up the hills started soon after this fun and from this point the race leaders were determined by awarding points to the top 7 finishers on each designated climb. But, to make things more interesting, points could also be accumulated by finding things during the ride on the side of the road like panties, porn or a Pontiac Fiero. I tried my best to score some bonus points but with expert underwear hunters like Jason Mahokey in the group, I had no chance for any extra credit points. Fortunately, I was able to do well enough on the actual riding portion of the event to score the overall win of the “race” without collecting any bonus points or my inability to score any points at the PBR Beer Chugging Stage.

After completing this crazy event of cycling madness in about 3 hours and since the weather was super nice, I decided to continue my awesome weekend by doing some more riding. My wife was planning on meeting me at my mother’s place for Sunday Dinner at her home near Mars, PA. Initially, my plan was to have Brian give me a ride there in his car, but with the nice weather I could not resist riding my bike back instead.

The ride to my mom’s ended up being a pretty tough one because of all the climbing on the route that I took and because my legs were shot from sprinting up eight tough climbs during the race. And, I am sure that the 112 miles in my legs from the day before did not make things any easier for me. In any respect, I completed the ride, feeling like a beat down man after logging 88 hard miles for the day and a total of 200 for the weekend.

I can’t imagine that I could have welcomed in the spring in any better way than I did this weekend. Thanks to my friends that made it so much fun, including you Mr. Todd “insane race promoter man.” Oh, and BTW, if you are considering a new road bike this spring, the Salsa Podio is very, very sweet! I could not be more pleased with how it felt after just building it and taking it on such a hard test this weekend.

Happy Trails….

Vacations help me feel complete

This winter has been a brutal one in the Mid-Atlantic Region. There have been many frequent and deep snow storms during the entire month of February where I live, which has made outside bike riding almost impossible to do because the snow has been between one and two feet deep on average. I usually don’t mind riding in cold winter weather and actually enjoy riding my bike in manageable snow amounts, but the depth of snow this winter has mostly been way too high for riding. To be honest, though, my inability to ride has not been too much of a concern to me because I do enjoy skiing and other outdoor snow sports. I spend so much time on my bike during the year that taking a break from riding and doing other activities during the off season is a good mental break for me. I must admit, however, that if I am given a choice between riding in nice weather or staying in cold snowy weather, I will most likely choose the warmer option with riding my bike.

So, with this in mind, when my mother asked if I would like to join her for a trip to Southern Florida a few weeks ago, I made the required arrangements to go without hesitation. Taking a little vacation time is always a good thing for me, as it is for most people. When I take a vacation that is not associated with going to a bike race, I almost always take my bike along with me anyway to do long rides and explore the area that I am visiting. I like going on new adventures and taking my bike to places which are not easily accessible by other means. Doing bike trips like these are something special and rewarding for me.

In total, I had six days of riding in Florida during my trip. Since most of the first day was spent traveling, I was only able to do a short 30 mile ride. The rest of the week, however, I was able to spend at least 3 to as much as 7 hours spinning my legs. I have found over many years of riding that the best bike to use for this type of riding is a cyclocross bike with on/off road style tires. For this particular trip, I actually chose to go with a single speed cyclocross bike with disc brakes.

I enjoyed ever ride I did during my trip, but my longest ride in both time and mileage will forever be stored in my memory as something special. The ride, like most of the others over the week, was a combination of paved roads, dirt roads and trails. Initially, I had planned to ride to a Florida State Park by using some paved roads and then take some dirt roads and trails once I was in the park. When I arrived at the park, I found the out and back trail that I had initially planning to ride, but decided that it was too wet to continue riding after being on it for a short while. After exiting the trail, I then went back to the dirt road and took it deeper into the park.
The maps of the park I had viewed prior to my ride showed this road as being a dead end. But, when I followed this dirt road to the park boundary, it then entered into another wild area preserve. Until I came upon this second wild area, my initial plan was to turn around once I came to the end of the dirt road. But, now, with a whole new area to explore and a large posted trail map at the trailhead, I decided to push forward into the unknown. I have never been a fan of out and back rides anyway, unless I know for certain there is no other way to go forward. With about three hours of riding in at this point, I figured at most I might have another 2-3 hours of riding to go from what the posted map at the trailhead had indicated.

I had started my long day with two bottles of water, one bottle of a sports drink and two energy bars; easily enough nutrition for me to stay fresh on a ride of less than 6 hours. I also had my newly purchased GPS system mounted and figured that going deeper into the Everglades should not be a problem even though I was riding alone. The ride was going great as the wild preserve I entered switched between paved and unpaved roadways. There was absolutely nobody around and no sign of civilization, which is exactly what I wanted to find. I was even more excited when I saw signs along these deserted roadways giving caution about being in a panther habitat. I thought of how special it would be to see a rare glimpse of a Florida Panther. I also saw a few wild alligators sunning themselves just off the dirt road I was riding. It was definitely a new experience for me to suddenly come upon a couple of alligators on the roadside. Of course, this was something that I just had to stop and photograph.

Lookout for possible panthers and alligators!

Eventually, the wider dirt roads lead to rougher double track. From the posted map, there should have been only one trail system to get me back to the paved roadway that I knew. But, as things usually go for me, there were many trails pointing in all directions. To make matters worse, the majority of the trails were not marked and the trails that were marked did not have trail names I had seen at the trailhead. I decided to continue forward anyway and take my best guess at finding my way by using the compass feature on my GPS unit to head west. Besides, the trials weren’t too bad and I was still having fun.

The first trail I chose ended up being a loop and basically took me back to the trail where I had started. This was probably a warning sign of things to come that I should not have ignored. Anyway, after this mishap, I then decided to take a second trail basically heading west, even though it was marked with a name I knew for certain was not on the trailhead map. I was on the trail for quite awhile and did a lot of hard work pushing my big 42x17 single speed gearing through a lot of soft sandy areas, when I came to a four way intersection in the trail. At this time, I also noticed on my GPS that I was heading more north than west and was probably not even close to where I needed to be. By this time, I had been riding for nearly 5 hours and still did not have a clue as to where I was going. I decided to take the trail that headed south at the intersection because I figured it would eventual run into a good trail heading west. After being on this trail for awhile things turned really bad when the trail basically came to an end at a large swampy area. I considered going around the water but the vegetation was too dense and thick for passage. So, with some uncertainty, I started riding through the nearly hub deep murky water and eventually made it to dry land without any issues. I was happy that I made it through the water without much trouble, especially after seeing alligators only a short time earlier on the trail side. The trail remained dry for a pretty good portion, but I soon came upon another large wet section. Since the last section was not too bad, I again went through the deep water. This section was much longer than the last and only lead to a brief section of dry trail. By this point, it was starting to seem as if the trail had completely disappeared and had instead become some type of water way.

Here is a picture of one of the lovely “trails” I encountered on my ride.

My ride time at this point was now well over 5 hours and I knew that I definitely did not have enough nutrition to head back, so I continued riding and pushing my bike through the deep nasty water, keeping my eyes very focused on the water and “trail” sides for lurking animal dangers. I must admit that I was pretty freaked out at this point and figured it would be only a matter of time before I came across another alligator, snake or other type of wild animal which could do some major harm to me. At the same time, the noise I was making would scare large birds out of the thick trail sides, which would in return cause me to jump as each would suddenly fly out in front of me. Becoming very frustrated with the situation, I would occasionally deviate from heading south onto other trails that appeared to be drier. Of course, after changing direction, my new trail would also soon turn into deep swamp water. I started to wonder if I would make it out of this mess alive, but certainly did not want to go back from where I had been.

As I was pushing through the swamp, I came upon 3 otters playing in the muddy mess. They looked to be pretty happy in the muck, but they only made me think of what a nice catch they would be for a hungry alligator. I yelled at the otters to see if they would react to me. They stood up and looked at me before swimming off quickly, but continuing to play with one another during their escape. After they swam away, I thought to myself about how cool of a picture that would have been to take. It was like an animal show on the Discovery Channel or something watching those guys play in the mud. After my comic relief from watching the otters play was over, I now had to trudge through the same area where my new friends had been playing. I think at this point the water was up to my waist and I was wondering if quick sand might also exist here.

It took more than an hour to totally make it out of this swampy mess. I am probably lucky to have not encountered any major problems during this time and I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear the sound of automobile traffic noise. I usually prefer dirt over pavement on my rides, but I can’t tell you how glad I was to ride that one hour of paved road back to my hotel.

In total, the ride was 7 hours long and 83 miles in length. I would definitely rate this as one of my toughest rides ever because of how nasty and tough the swampy portion was. But, as tough as it was, it was absolutely amazing to do. To me, there is nothing like the feeling of adventure and conquering something difficult. It is hard for me to explain and probably even harder for other people to understand the amount of satisfaction I get from doing long hard rides like this. Without this bike ride, my vacation would not have felt complete.