Drama, Ditch Digging, Bike Riding, and E-bike Philosophy - November 12th, A Thursday, in Suches, Georgia.

 I woke up and jinxed myself almost immediately. As the coffee I just sipped coated my stomach I looked at my wife and said I was going to take a good long ride.

What a fool I am! It is one thing to think a thought of joy, a wholly different thing to say it out loud.  When you think about doing something fun the universe can't see your thoughts and then start throwing obstacles in the way of getting to that fun.  When you say it out loud its like a universe mojo dog whistle.  The weight of unfun is hurled in your direction and you are buffeted by wave after wave of Task and Purpose!

Immediately, I realized my mistake.  My wife, Johanna, looked at me with wide eyed horror. 

She asked, "What have you done? What... Have you done?"

"I don't know," I stammered, "it just slipped out there."

Johanna lept at me like a rabid Hyena "Do you realize what you've done! You've tempted the wrath of the universe's desire to always have us at work you fool! Why? WHY?!" She screamed as she slapped me across the face. 

"I don't know, I was just making benign conversation over breakfast," I stammered through the tears and snot streaming down my face, "Why Lord, why?! Why must you always have us toil and have no fun."

"Don't you ever make benign conversation with me!" Jo shouted. "Never! You talk about subjects of consequence or don't you dare speak at all," she growled as she jabbbed a tiny finger into my chest like a drill bit. 

Just then, at Johanna's most intense tiny furry, my phone chime went off. We both stared in horror at it. Could it have happened so fast? Could unfun have already arrived?

With shaking hands I picked up my phone to see who was texting so early in the morning, knowing already it was The Boss with an assignment in digital hand.

"Good Morning Anthony..." the text began.  

I didn't even make it past the first sentence before I collapsed on the floor in despair, cell phone tumbling from my hands to rest at Johanna's feet.  Slowly she bent over and picked up where I had left off. 

"You're to retrench the drainage around the horse arenas before the afternoon so that they can be harrowed and I can work the geldings," Johanna whispered in quiet resignation. 

"I'll see you out there," Johanna said as she dropped the cell phone beside my sobbing figure sprawled in agony on the floor. Shaking her head, she turned and walked out of the house. 

AAAAAANNNNDDDDD SCENE!

Thanks everyone, man, what a production! 

But for reals.  I was planning on going out on a bike ride. But damned if the boss lady didn't text almost immediately after I thought about riding asking me to retrench the drainage.  We're not talking about hopping aboard the ditch witch either. No sir, this is Georgia. Tech like that is still another 30 years away.  Ditches are dug by hand 'round these parts, or they're not dug at all. And because the ditches would drain the arena where my wife works the horses, it was integral to her ability to work. So the bike ride was postponed and I hoisted the pick axe and shovels. 

I shouldn't be so sour on it either.  I dropped a certain amount of money on a set of TRX bands and a dietary supplement to start working on my core and upper body strength.  Yeah, well, I should have just gotten a ditch digging job.  My first day of shoveling sand out here and I quickly realized the body needs to work in perfect harmony.  Using a particular muscle group without the support of the core or legs causes exhaustion and soreness in the arms and upper back.  Now with a bit more experience my ditch digging form is akin to that of a defensive tight end getting ready to rush the quarter back. A few hours of shoveling and new deeper drainage trenches were ready to go:

A previously flooded arena

Water offloaded to a flat area that will allow for quicker evaporation 

Ditches dug I hurried back to the farmhouse to get dressed for a bike ride.  I must admit that I was throwing a leg over the bike slightly tuckered from the days adventures.  I wasn't exactly sure where I wanted to go either.  

So out of sorts was I that I took a left out of the horse farm rode for about a quarter mile and then thought better of it and went back the other direction.  I had only driven up this way and never properly explored the area beyond.

It was a short exploration.  The road terminates into a series of gravel driveways, each of which I explored in the hopes that one of the gravels stretches was a proper road. Oh what posts were made to Next Door! "Lonely Lost Cyclist wandered up my driveway today." Such thrilling reading to be had on that web forum. 

I doubled back on my double back and ended up heading southwest, as is my usual inclination. I decided to take a stab at a KOM I've been eyeing. Which was cool except my Garmin 830 and I are still getting to know each other.  On my 520 I get a little dude to race against and my time ahead of the KOM time was reflected in a negative number and when I was behind the KOM it had a positive symbol in front of it. This is in keeping with UCI traditional time keeping, where a stage winner's time is listed as the stage time and the finishers behind the stage winner are then +10 or +48 seconds etc.  The 830 was telling me I was -10 seconds, -20 seconds and I was like "oh hell yeah, I'm cooking this guy!" 

No, no I wasn't. Imagine my surprise when the Segment board had me +39 seconds or something. Wowzers! Close but no cigar.  And also, holy smokes! That KOM was flying, I have no idea how he hit this climb with such pace. And he did it in 2010 or something, which means his gearing was garbage too! Fool was probably running a 53/39 and an 11/25 because a 28 tooth cog on the rear was for old ladies. But for reals, look at this hill:

The hard right is interesting on the entrance to the hill because I felt like I needed to scrub speed to not feel unglued from the road. These photos were taken on my second run through and even knowing what was coming up I couldn't seem to figure out a way to hit the corner at the right angle to avoid losing speed. Any tips or pointers for a good angle of attack hit me up  in the comments below!

The hill itself isn't murderous. It's close to 200ft of gain in a little under a 1/3 of a mile. Not murder, but not easy either.  I think finding the right gear and then making sure to shift up as it starts to burn will be key.

As it is, I still got the 2nd place run. Which is pretty decent for an impromptu maiden run on a KOM that no one has been able to touch for over a decade now.  I think with a couple more runs on it I can shave some seconds off and get to where I need to be.  

Like I said I snagged a second run through and took some time to snap a photo of this tapped spring:

I wasn't brave enough to grab a sip from it, but its pretty cool that it is here. When/If my Checkpoint ever gets here there are a ton of fire roads and gravel bits to explore.  I'll have to keep an ear peeled for running water so that I when the water bottles get low I can snag some fresh mountain water.  Don't worry I carry a Sawyer filter for things like that.  I'm not trying to get a tape worm or something. 

As I exited on to Georgia 60 I saw a dude pushing a bike with a trailer up hill and decided I would roll up to him and see if he needed help.  When I got up to him I couldn't see any flat tires, or missing chains. Everything seemed okay until I saw his downtube battery. Ahh, the hills were a bit more taxing than he had anticipated for his little motorcycle. I asked if he needed a tube or anything and when he said no, I told him to have a good ride and pedaled to the top of the mountain.

Now, I wasn't a dick or anything. I will admit though, more than likely my tone betrayed a touch of consternation at this fellow who was pushing his bicycle.  As The Industry licks its chops at the idea of bovine Americans waddling into Local Bike Shops across the country to inquire about $5000 electric assist or throttle bicycles I can't help but feel like we are being untrue to ourselves.  Bicycles are meant to be pushed by the legs of a human being.  When we take the tough out of bikes and allow our fellow humans to put on the airs of being a cyclist we deprive them of the pure euphoria of conquering a mountain with the strength of their own muscle and psyche. If they are riding an assist bike then they can still feel a little accomplishment, but they must wonder deep down if they are capable of doing the task by themselves.  The answer, most certainly, is yes.  You can do it, you just need the will.  We see it time and time again. There is a French man who keeps setting new hour records for his age group, no pedal assist needed. Or the fellow that pedaled his way out of diabetes and heart disease, no throttle needed. Any human being can do it, they just have to develop the hardness to do the deed.  The problem, as I see it, is that most people are as soft as the Stay Puft Marshmallow man.  Are we doing them justice by denying them a chance at hardness by giving them pedal assist and throttle bikes? I suspect not. 

To be fair to the fellow pushing his E-bike up a mountain, that did look hard as fuck.  Perhaps he could try riding it next time, but what the heck do I know? I'm already at the top of the mountain, taking these photos:

I did use the white balance assistant on my cell phone camera to get these shots, by the way.  I have to say, I think if I had adjusted white balance manually, I would feel a better sense of accomplishment, and they might not be so dark. 

Photos taken and triumphs had, I waved to the E-bike pusher as I sailed back down the mountain to home.  A day with fun postponed is still a fun day. Besides my upper body is really starting to pop now that I'm doing all this ditch digging.  Pretty soon I'll look like a guy with a cross-fit gym membership!

Till next time Dear Readers...

~A