Judgement to Rush
I left my wife. But only for a week. I did the annual weeklong Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure. My wife did it with me 10 years ago and hated it. I love it so I beg my wife to go alone each year. I burn major husband points doing so. The 300 mile ride was satisfying hilly this year and harder than the infamous 210 mile TOSRV ride.
Due to happenstance, I had the opportunity to do the last two days’ routes on the same day and return to my family a day early. There were two big drawbacks though: It would be first time in a very long time that I’d be doing 90 miles in the same day and the second leg (done a day early) would be unsupported. There would be no food or porta-potties. If I got tired or if I had a mechanical failure I’d be on my own and would have to walk my bike for miles.
Throwing sanity to the headwind, I hit the road at 6:30am Friday and finished the supported 50 mile route at 11:20am. It was a windy day with a few isolated sprinkles. The previous night a thunderstorm with hail had gone through the county and some of the roads still had puddles. At a morning stop, a volunteer mentioned that they would have to put a detour in tomorrow’s route. Good to note.
I started the next day’s route at 12:15pm. Out of 3000 riders, I only saw 6 others that afternoon, all of them had skipped the morning leg. About a third of the way into the route, I encountered the road that had yet to be detoured: for about 100 feet, the road was under 4 feet of water from the previous night’s storm. Rather than backtrack three miles, I walked a muddy embankment and carried my bike overhead while jumping a culvert.
Near the end of the ride and close to bonking, I took a break to eat a couple of cookies in my handlebar pouch I had purchased a few days earlier. Yum!
My car was at the endpoint and at 2:30pm I drove it back to the day’s starting point to pack up my tent, take a shower, grab a bite to eat and head home to my family a day early.
I got home early evening and the house was empty… So much for earning husband points.