Last night I decided to try a new route. None of the roads were new to me, but I hadn’t ridden them in this particular configuration before. I liked it, and it serves as a reminder to try some slight variations in my routes more often. This route came to just over 26 miles, a pretty good length for a post-work ride and a bit longer than my Water Works and Shilo routes. View the route on Bikely.

There were scattered storms in the forecast, but I checked the radar before I left and it looked clear. Just a few specks of activity to the south. There were some rather dark clouds outside, so I wondered if I was going to get rained on, but I figured I could always turn back sooner if things got ugly. As I rode toward Mount Gilead on 45, I was passed by a car I recognized — it was Dave, my mountain biking buddy. I waved, and he waved back. His dog was in the car with him, sticking her head out the window (as usual).

I turned on Mount Gilead Road and it started sprinkling a bit. The road was speckled with drops of water, but I didn’t get too wet — Mount Gilead is lined with trees, which make for excellent shade if it’s sunny, and a little protection from a light rain. The rainy vibe to this whole ride was great. There’s something about cloudy, threatening conditions and a light, warm rain that I really enjoy sometimes. It feels different from riding on a sunny day, and I tend not to see very many other people on the road, making me feel more of a sense of connection to this land. I see it in all seasons, in all conditions, and in this case I was just about the only person out there.

Mount Gilead Road

I made the long descent into the valley, going very slowly since the road was a bit slick. When I reached the bottom, there was steam rising from the road and some fog in the field. It was really cool to see the steam coming off the pavement, although it was so humid my glasses fogged up. It was still raining and I did get a bit wet, but it was warm and felt good.

Steam rises off the pavement and the cornfield

Riding in the rain

Corn

I made the climb back out of the valley, taking my time and trying to keep my wheel from spinning out due to the steep, wet surface. There were some amazing clouds that I could see once I reached the top. Shortly thereafter, it stopped raining.

Awesome clouds

When I reached 45, I debated whether I should turn back. The clouds I could see didn’t look too bad, and the more foreboding ones were still to the south. I decided to keep riding. There was astoundingly little traffic. This portion of 45 doesn’t normally have a lot of cars, but I think I went 15 minutes without seeing a car. I did, however, see a wild turkey alongside the road. I tried to get a photo, but it ran off into the woods. It was an uneventful and very pleasant ride along 45. This stretch is very curvy and has some climbing and a lot of descending. Again I kept my speed down as the roads were still wet.

State Road 45

I turned on South Shore Drive and rode toward Lake Lemon. I picked up some good speed on the hill from the highway. This one is straight so I was able to let loose a little more, hitting 36 mph. Not insanely fast, but it felt good, and I maintained a speed above 30 mph for a few minutes on the flat ground.

South Shore Drive

Trees and a barn

I reached the causeway and really enjoyed riding across the lake. I always do, but there was something magical about the way the sun burned orange but interacted with the clouds, bursts of pink and purple permeating the sky and being softened by the clouds.

Reaching the causeway

Land and water on my left

More water on my right

Looking across the lake

After crossing the lake, I had to a big climb to contend with. I’ve done this climb many times before, but not much this year. It was harder than I was hoping. It doesn’t help that I have had some interruptions to my riding this year and my weight is up and I feel a bit out of shape. I struggled with this climb more than I like, but I made it up anyway. And I certainly got a good workout in the process.

Tunnel Road was scenic as always and I continued admiring the sunlight. It was rather cool outside, a pleasant change from the heat we had for a while.

Field on Tunnel Road

My shadow

The sun

I turned back onto State Road 45 (I realized this route includes three stretches of riding on 45) and headed toward home.  This road was wet, although it wasn’t raining. I must’ve lucked out as while clearly some rain had come through here, I didn’t get hit by it.

Riding home on 45

45 again

I really enjoyed this ride. It makes me want to do more rides in rain, or at times when it’s threatening to rain, anyway. On the other hand, I was lucky I didn’t get hit by any storms … that could have changed my tune considerably. The weird thing was, by the time I got home, I was pretty much soaked, but more from perspiration in the extreme humidity than rain. This was a  great ride through some beautiful country, made even more beautiful by the conditions.

It was hot this weekend, but my finger has been feeling a bit better. I didn’t do as much riding as I would’ve liked, but yesterday, I rode a route that’s new to me on the west side of Bloomington. The route took me through three counties (Monroe, Greene, and Owen) and the small towns of Whitehall and Hendricksville. View the route on Bikely. I even got up earlier than usual (for a weekend, anyway) to be the heat. I was glad that I did — it was brutally hot later in the day.

I started riding around 10:00 am. I felt a little dehydrated at first, so I took my time and drank some extra water. Even at a leisurely pace, it wasn’t long before I was sweating quite a bit. It was hot, and humid. Fortunately, I faced a mild headwind. Normally I don’t like riding into the wind, but in this case the cooling effect was quite welcome, and the wind wasn’t strong enough to force me to increase my effort level much.

Once I got west of where I work, I rode through residential areas for a while and found myself climbing for what seemed like a long time. None of it was too steep, but it seemed like a long way of gradual climbing. Once I crossed State Road 37 on Vernal Pike, I was in a weird part-rural, part-industrial area. In a lot of other parts of Bloomington, once you reach the edge of town it suddenly feels very rural — this was not the case in this area. Instead, there were some fields and some industrial buildings interspersed.

Vernal Pike

Windmill

After a while the industrial buildings stopped and the road started feeling more remote. The sun was very bright and burning strong, and many areas had (ozone?) haze. It was a little unsettling, but also scenic.

Field, with some haze in the distance

Farm

The corn is getting tall now, and I stopped to get a shot I’ve been meaning to get for a while — my bicycle leaning up against some cornstalks. I’ve done this once before, but that was in the fall, and the corn was dead in that shot.

My bicycle by some corn

Silos — I gave this shot the Orton treatment to increase the hazy feeling of the shot

You can almost feel how strong the sun was from this shot. Plus, more haze.

I generally don’t do well in heat, and I don’t feel I’m acclimated to it yet, either. I have discovered though that by taking a slower pace, I can ride for hours in the heat without getting so exhausted. Sometimes I have to remind myself to slow down (my road bike naturally wants to go fast). I also enjoy the scenery more this way.

I passed a small grocery store and turned on State Road 48. I was a little nervous about this when I saw that the speed limit was 55 mph, but I only saw a few cars the whole time I was on this road, and I wasn’t on it for too long. Also, the speed limit soon decreased to 45 mph, if my memory is correct.  I turned onto State Road 43, which had a lower speed limit and still almost no traffic. It was a fantastic road to ride on, a curvy road with some rolling hills and even some shade.

State Road 43

Hills

Rickety old barn

I reached the very small town of Hendricksville and saw a diner that had a sign saying something like, “You gotta be tough to eat here!” Needless to say, I’ll be going back sometime to eat at that very macho diner. After Hendricksville I got a little confused. There was a road that I suspected was the one I was supposed to turn onto, but the sign said it was a different road from what was on my map. I rode a bit past it to see if there was another road that was labeled as I expected, but I didn’t find one. I went back and turned onto the road my gut said was right. It didn’t take long for me to figure out I was in the right place.

Another Orton-enhanced photo

I rode through some fun rolling hills and then labored up a brutal climb on County Road 780 or Gardner Road, whichever it was. Looking at the elevation profile, I think it was around 250-300 feet of climbing. It felt like more, mostly because of the heat. But I think my conditioning has slipped a bit in the past few weeks of my reduced mileage. I really need to ramp up the mileage.

Anyway, once I reached the top of the hill, it was flat briefly and then I was treated to a small, fun descent followed by some great rollers. I was able to carry my momentum through the smaller hills and a few dips in the road made the ride a little silly and a lot of fun.

Scorching pavement and weeds at the top of the hill

Rolling hills

I had a little bit of climbing to do, but then I enjoyed a very fast descent down Airport Road. A guy on a motorcycle passed me toward the bottom of the hill. I was going about 35 mph and the guy pulled up beside me, looked at me and gave me a big thumbs up.

More climbing

That Road … or Leonard Springs. I’m not sure which.

I had a few other moments of navigational confusion, but at this point I mainly had to get back to town and ride across to the east side. This included riding on the awesomely-named That Road. I enjoyed That, but actually riding through town is never much fun to me. Also, I went by several churches and I was worried I’d get caught in traffic of people leaving church. That’s one of my least favorite situations to get caught in on a bicycle. For some reason people leaving church are always impatient and rude to me. I did see a few people leaving early yesterday who were very courteous. Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but is there something about sitting in church for an hour that makes people aggressive?

I love riding on remote country roads, and don’t particularly enjoy riding through town on recreational rides. This explains why I spend a lot more time riding on the east side than the west side (I live on the east side, toward the edge of town). It’s surprising how different the land on opposite sides of town can feel, though, and I should spend more time riding on the west side. I always enjoy it when I do ride there.

Yesterday’s ride, while it was only about 36 miles, took me about 2 1/2 hours. That’s a slow pace for me, at least for solo rides, but I am learning that I tend to enjoy my rides more when I don’t rush things — and I’ll have more energy for the rest of the day, too.

Yesterday I did my first commute on my old mountain bike since the accident. (I had already commuted a couple of times on the road bike.) I didn’t have any problems — the bike really seems fine. And it felt great to ride to work again.
After work, I rode a bit over 20 miles on my road bike. No problems with the finger on this ride. It’s still pretty sensitive to bumps, but not too bad. It’ll be interesting to try riding with these “buddy taping” things the doctor gave me now. I’m on the mend, but it’s going to be a long haul. I feel very lucky I can ride.

I had a follow-up visit with the orthopedic surgeon. The good news is, I only have to wear my splint at night now. The bad news is, the doctor says my finger will take 6-9 months to heal. I pretty much broke it in the worst possible place. They gave me some exercises to do to work on mobility, which is pretty poor right now. I can’t straighten my finger, nor bend it very far.

At one point, the doctor also grabbed my hand and pushed my finger back to straighten it out as much as possible. It hurt like hell, but he was able to get it fairly straight that way. When he let go, it went back to being bent. It’s encouraging that while I can’t move it that way myself, at least the joint will allow it. It’s weird how exciting it is to see your finger almost completely straight after having it bent for a few weeks. As I winced in pain, I looked at my finger and thought “COOL!” I doubt I’ll ever be able to get it that straight on my own, though.

The doctor also reiterated that my knuckle is going to be swollen for the rest of my life. This isn’t that big a deal, I guess, but right now it looks like I’ve stashed a walnut in there or something. He said the swelling should go down a little; I’m hoping it goes down a lot.

I’ve been tagged by MrMacrum to do the “Old Dude Strikes Again Meme.” Why it’s called that I have no idea, but here goes.

1. What is your favorite quotable line from a movie?
   “The innocent must die.” - Johnny Wong, in John Woo’s incredibly hardcore action film Hard Boiled. These words are uttered by the villain, leading into a 40-minute action sequence in a hospital including gunfights, fistfights, a fire, rappelling, and an ungodly amount of explosives. Yeah, it’s awesome.
2. Who is the most famous person you have spoken to?
   There have been a few, but I’m going to have to go with Charlton Heston, because not only did I speak with the man, I had dinner with him. This was back in my days working for the Northwestern Chronicle, the alternative (read: conservative) student-run weekly newspaper at Northwestern University. Heston went to Northwestern, and we asked him to come and speak on campus. He agreed, and the Chronicle’s editors and board of directors took him out for dinner afterwards. Over dinner we discussed various topics, mostly political. We saw eye to eye on some things and felt quite differently about others; it was a very animated discussion. Heston also told a great story about a foolish thief who tried to break into his daughter’s house, only to be greeted by Heston looming over him with a shotgun. Heston had a sharp mind, an imposing presence, and a firm handshake.
3. How many bags/boxes of potato chips are consumed at your place in a month?
   I’m not sure, probably 3 or 4. I eat some with my lunch most days, and so does Sarah. Although like MrMacrum, I am a Cheez-It addict.
4. Who is your all time favorite cartoon character?
   This is a tough one for me, as I’m not really a big fan of cartoons. I’ll go with Peter Griffin from Family Guy, but I’m not sure if he counts.
5. What foreign food dish do you prepare from scratch and serve?
   I don’t. Cooking isn’t my forte. The only thing I am good at cooking is steak, which I sear, then broil, in an iron skillet. I do help with the cooking sometimes, but generally I joke that if it’s my turn to cook, we’ll have mexican pizzas, or a Whopper.
6. What is your favorite section of the supermarket?
   By “supermarket,” I assume you mean “grocery store.” And since Crum stole my answer, I’m going to say my favorite section is the food section.
7. What was your high school team’s mascot and what were the school’s colors?
   The Cougars; maroon and gold.