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Saturday May 21st 4:30A.M. The alarm goes
off. It doesn't ring. It clicks on the radio and a
overly mellow radio host rambles on about
something; he's obviously been up all night keeping
long distance truck drivers, and insomniacs,
company. I do some quick mathematical
calculations in my head, and figure I must have set
the alarm incorrectly last night. I can reset it and go
back to sleep for another hour. It's not that it's
difficult to set the alarm, but I keep the actual clock
one hour fast and have to calculate backward from
the time I need to be awake to … well you get the
picture. Usually it works because I never change
the settings, and I wake up before it goes off
anyway. I sleep for another hour and I am
reawakened by the same radio voice. I do some
more mental arithmetic and realize that my last
calculation was incorrect and I should have got up
before. Now I will have to rush, which probably
means I will forget something. Luckily in
anticipation of this happening, I had packed
everything the night before. I even put my bike in
the car, just in case I forgot that. Don't laugh, it
could happen. On last week’s ride I forgot my
water bottles. There are 2 things important to
successful cycling, a bike and copious amounts of
water. So forgetting a bottle is almost as bad as
forgetting the bike. I have to actually put my bike
inside the car, because I bought the only car on the
planet that does not fit with any of the bike carriers
that fit on the back of a vehicle. I could buy a roof
rack type carrier, but I always worry that one day I
would forget the bike was on the roof and drive into
my garage and wreck the bike, car roof, and garage
door. Luckily, the bike just fits, with the front
wheel off and the rear seats down. I shower, get
dressed, grab my bag and jump in the car, in that
order because the end result is better. I head for the
coast -- Sandy Hook -- that little spit of land that
reaches up from New Jersey across the Hudson
Bay. Registration is at 7A.M. for the 2000 Coast
the Coast Tour, a bicycle ride that benefits the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The ride is
from Sandy Hook the northernmost point on the
Jersey shore, to Cape May, the southernmost point;
170 miles over 2 days.
It's pouring rain as I leave the house and about 45°F. Still, ever optimistic, I expect the rain to clear up as soon as the sun comes up. It takes 75 minutes to get to Sandy Hook; it pours with rain all the way. I arrive, check in, hand over sponsor money and I'm given a package with my rider number 279, 3 safety pins to attach it to my shirt, (I think there should have been 4, obviously someone miscounted, but I'm not getting back out of the car to get another one, it's cold and wet out there!), 2 luggage tags, for my two pieces of luggage (bag & sleeping bag). The luggage will be sent by truck to the overnight stop at Pinelands School in Tuckerton, 90 miles away. And, of course, a plastic ziploc bag with route directions. It's very difficult to read route directions while you are cycling, you have to take your eyes off the road and squint at small type through a plastic bag, that allows plenty of time for a pothole to find it's way under your wheel. I planto follow the arrows painted on the road, and use the printed directions only if I get confused. At this point, sitting in my car with the wind-driven rain lashing across the windshield, I realize that today might not be as much fun as I had anticipated. I also realized that I am not really prepared for all weather conditions. |
Most notably I am not prepared
for the current conditions. Let me repeat it is cold
and it is wet, and it is windy -- 3 things that don't
belong together, at least not today. I put on my
wind jacket, (notice it's called a wind jacket, not a
rain jacket) and load my luggage on the truck. I
reassemble my bike after removing it from the car,
and realize that hanging around in the parking lot is
probably more uncomfortable than riding, plus, ever
optimistic, I think, perhaps the weather is better a
little further south.
It's 7:45A.M., I head out, turn left out of the
parking lot, back down the strip of land they call
Sandy Hook. For good reason, it is sandy and it is
shaped like a hook. It is also wide open to the
elements. I am freezing, this is not a good idea. I
pedal harder in the belief that the exertion will
warm me up. It works, but throughout the day I
realize it is a fine balance, stopping pedaling for any
length of time gets cold very quickly. I should
mention right here, just in case you're tempted to
skip ahead to see if the weather improves, it doesn't.
This is the way it will be all day. I pass a lot of
large puddles on the road, one is so big that ducks
are swimming on it, they swim to the side as I ride
by. Sometimes the puddles stretch across the road,
so there is no way to avoid them. I really think that
when the water comes up to your wheel hubs, it
probably should be reclassified as a pond, and have
a road built around it, not through it. Later in the
morning, the weather took a change, yes, that's right
the heavy showers stopped ... to be replaced with
torrential rain. By this time of course staying dry
was no longer a consideration but staying warm
was. I found that stopping at the designated rest
stops was really just a chance to stand still in the
rain and get cold, so I pressed on ... and so the
morning went on & on & on. Lunch was in sight as
the rain eased up, a chance to eat, wring out some
water and warm up a little. Suitably refreshed, it
was back on the road, just as the rain began again!
Everyone's favorite rest stop was at Oyster Creek
Nuclear Power plant, because it was the only rest
stop with a hot air dryer in the restroom! I'm sure
they had to throw on a little extra uranium in the
reactor to cope with the continuous running of that
dryer.
I arrived at the overnight stop at 2P.M., and was told I was the 5th one to arrive!! I think I deserve to wear the yellow jersey tomorrow. The showers at the Pineland middle school are cold & harsh, not unlike the rain outside, but no one wants to venture back outside to cross the road to the high school where rumor has it that the showers are slightly better. It's extremely hard to scrub road dirt off your legs with soap and cold water, while all the time a sharp spray is cutting into your back. Tomorrow I'll not bother wearing sunscreen; it's just one more layer to scrape off. Washed and dried and in warm clothes, I head for the masseuse, for a relaxing massage, then .... |