50 miles, 4 TVs, 8 Tires, and a Loveseat

I rode 50 miles yesterday and this morning I am still recovering. At one level, it really wasn’t that bad. For most of the ride I really enjoyed it. I didn’t try to go as fast as I could (good thing) and in the end finished while keeping up a reasonable pace. I tried a route that Clembob told me about that gets me off that crazy, zombie-ridden Bluff road. It was a nice, quiet ride. Too bad I got the directions wrong several times and did lots of backtracking. Still, it was nice to be away from “urban” Columbia.

I saw some really great stuff on this ride. It went through some rural areas where there were very few houses. The first thing that struck me was the number of smashed TVs I saw in the ditch. None of this stuff, by the way, was in front of someone’s house—this is all rural dumping behavior. I saw no less than 4 giant old-school TVs with the big picture tube in the back. I guess the drop in the prices of big screen plasma TVs really hurt both the roadside environment and those old TVs. And I guess the switch to digital TV signals had the desired economy-stimulating, consumption-increasing effect—people went out and bought new TVs. And, as all good economy-stimulating, consumption-increasing policies do, it had a nasty effect on the environment…because people disposed of their obsolete TVs on the roadside.

I also saw enough parts to re-create the undercarriage of an entire car. In one spot I saw the front bumper and grill, in another a rear bumper and further along a tailpipe and muffler. I saw no less than 8 abandoned tires (most of them still looking pretty good…compared to what I’ve been running on my cars). Five of those tires were in one place, which leads me to suspect nefarious behavior.

I also say ample evidence that McDonald's and Bud Light are strong brands in rural Richland County, SC. McDonald's’ cups, bags, wrappers, and Styrofoam containers were EVERYWHERE. Oh sure, the chicken lovers had been out, too but the Chick-Fil-A and Churches garbage was by far in the minority. Bud Light was almost exclusively what I saw on the road side—tall boys, if you please. I guess by drinking light beer 16 or 20 oz at a time you maximize your alcohol intake while keeping the calories as low as you can. Plus, if you are driving you don’t want to have to keep opening cans all the time so the big one are better, plus they are harder to lose between your legs should you have to put two hands on the wheel for some reason. Who says people aren’t rational optimizers? This would all fit nicely into an Optimal Foraging model for modern, rural hunter-gatherers.

One of my favorite sights along the roadside this trip was a sleeper love seat in a nice, cool blue floral pattern. Now, had I been riding along the mean streets of Shandon or even through populated areas in the rural parts of Richland County, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a love seat. As I’ve said before, people put just about anything in garbage heaps in front of their houses both in the city and the rural areas. This little beauty was sitting just off the road in a nice, bucolic wooded area. It created the kind of stark contrast that makes nice photographs of the really horrible things people do to the places where they live.

As I said, the new route was really great. However, there was one road (Pincushion) that gave me a bit of a problem. Its surface was really pebbly and it made for a really bumpy ride. Me and my bike got vibrated like crazy. That is fun for a few minutes, but after several miles everything started to go a bit numb…as if I was enjoying a relaxing full body massage. Even that wasn’t so bad. What really scared me was that things on the Granny Cruiser started rattling. The bike really can’t take miles and miles of vibrating—like me it’s got a few loose and jiggly parts. I got really worried that things were going to start to fly off. The last thing I wanted was for my tire to separate from the rest of me and roll into the ditch. I was a good 20 miles from home. Luckily the bike and I survived Pincushion, but I may need to think hard about whether it stays in as part of my regular ride. It is just a matter of time before something rattles off the Granny Cruiser.

I felt great through a lot of the ride. I didn’t set out to go 50 miles, although it has been my goal to do that distance for a while now. Once I realized I had the time and felt OK, I started to feel even better. Looking back, I can remember thinking how great it was going to feel to finish off 50 miles. Well, that was at about mile 25. I did feel great until about mile 32. I was heading back towards home and realized I needed to add 10 miles to the route or I wouldn’t quite make the 50. My little side junket put me into a head wind for 3 or 4 miles and that really started to hurt me. The tailwind on the return trip was welcome, but the damage had been done. The last 8 or so miles got pretty hard. My quads stared hurting—a lot. The problem was if I stopped pedaling they hurt a lot MORE. The way the route is set up, I go up a couple of unpleasant hills right before I finish. Riding up one of those last hills was really, really hard. The only thing that kept me going was the convenience store at the top and the promise of a cold bottle of water and Snicker’s bar.

My goal now is to ride a metric century—100 kilometers. That comes out to about 62 miles. I am pretty sure I could not have done another 12 miles yesterday on top of the 50 I did. That means I need more practice spending at least 2.5 to 3 hours on my bike. If I can do that, then hopefully 4+ hours will be something I can do in another 6 weeks.