TOSRV: a learning experience

This past weekend I followed the 48th Tour of the Scioto River Valley, or TOSRV as it's known around here. It's a 2-day, 210-mile tour from Columbus, Ohio to Portsmouth, Ohio, which is right on the Kentucky border.

My friend Kyle is training for a long tour this summer as well: he's participating in a Livestrong event in Philadelphia in August, and is riding his bike to it from Columbus. He and I have been motivating each other to train, and we decided (at the last minute) to do the TOSRV. It turns out that if you register the day before the race they tack on $20 extra to the $47 fee, which includes a chunk of floor to sleep on at the Portsmouth YMCA and lunch during each day's ride. We didn't see $67 for this as what you'd call "worth it", so we rode out to Sports Authority where we bought the necessary supplies to camp for the night, and I packed food for both of us.

This was my longest ride yet and it was quite a challenge, but I'm really glad I did it. We only ended up going about 72 of the 105 miles, due in part to the riding conditions on Saturday and also due to the fact that 105 miles is really a little more intense than was realistic for us at that point. Despite the wind coming from opposite direction on the second day (thank you, Mother Nature), the way back was much more enjoyable, and I learned some really valuable lessons.

Things I learned on the TOSRV:

1. 30mph headwinds are no joke.
2. 30mph headwinds are no joke.
3. One can't really appreciate how riding with weight is more difficult until they've experienced it. Against 30mph headwinds.
4. I really need to reconsider every ounce I'm planning on carrying across the country.
5. I don't know what we were thinking, but stopping for greasy food and ice cream in the middle of a ride is a terrible idea.
6. Energy gels taste a little unpleasant, but they sure do work miracles when you're in the depths of low-energy despair. This weekend, I was there.
7. Oatmeal raisin Clif bars are too good to be true.
8. I actually don't care if I wear the same clothes every day, even if they look ridiculous to non-cyclists in small towns.
9. ...But if I wear them every day, they will not smell like roses.
10. Judging from the ones I acquired over 2 days, I'm pretty sure my tan lines from this summer will be visible for the rest of my life.
11. I like camping and am pretty excited to do it for 2 months.
12. Pitbulls can be quite frightening. Especially when they're chasing you, up a hill, with camping gear and 2 days of food on your bike.
13. Geese really DO have the ability to cross roads with urgency. Or maybe I encountered the only one in the world who actually got out of my way.
14. I can totally do this: I just have to take it one day at a time.

The What and the Why

This fall one of my dearest friends, Lou Eney, asked me if I wanted to to a coast-to-coast bicycle tour with him this summer. Having not ridden a bike regularly in several years, and having not a clue about what this would entail, my answer was, of course, an enthusiastic "yes!"

When I tell people I'm going to ride my bike all the way across the country this summer, they react in one of two predictable ways. The first is, "Wow, I'm really jealous. I could never do that." These people are mistaken; the truth is that, short of a medical obstacle, anyone could; they just have to want it enough. The other reaction is "Wow, you're crazy! Why would you want to ride a bike all that way when you could just drive a car?!" I think John Forester provides the best answer to this question: 

Cycling does it all --- you have the complete satisfaction of arriving because your mind has chosen the path and steered you over it; your eyes have seen it; your muscles have felt it; your breathing, circulatory and digestive systems have all done their natural functions better than ever, and every part of your being knows you have traveled and arrived.

I came across this quote in my (very extensive) research for what is admittedly a huge undertaking. The Atlantic and the Pacific are pretty far away from each other, and bicycles can only travel so fast, so this leaves a lot of possibilities in between. Some certainties, however, are that I'd be foolish not to start this in good physical shape and with adequate equipment and finances, so in January I bought a bike and started training, researching, and saving in earnest. 

The fact that I have no way of knowing exactly what I'll experience this summer in no way discourages me. In fact, it's exactly the reason I want to do it.