Cold + Rain = ?

Day 14 - June 17, 1 day late

89 miles. Cumberland, MD to Parsons, WV

So this day's journal is the only one I haven't written on the day of due to my sheer exhaustion yesterday. So much stuff happens each day that not writing daily makes it impossible to capture it all.

The theme of this post is discomfort. In many forms. The day started off rainy which was eh. Should I ever need to imagine what Armageddon will look like, this day will be my closest point of reference. Unfortunately I couldnt figure out my layering situation quickly enough and on top of that my rain jacket soon turned into a wetsuit. Note: Water-resistant and Water-proof are not equivalent. The result was that within the first 5 miles of our wettest, windiest, longest, hilliest day yet i was already soaked through every layer. The windchill was really the worst part and on every single downhill the wind felt like daggers flying through my body. I was too cold to even curse and had to resort to pure primal screaming just to try and keep warm. As my older posts indicate, i really purely hate biking in the rain, let alone freezing, and it was easy the most miserable I can ever remember being in my life. The whole point of biking is the joy of enjoying the world around you and its hidden gems. In otherwords its the journey, not just getting to point B. When it rains all I can think of is how uncomfortable I am and how I just want it to be over as soon as possible. It's fitting then that at mile 20 just as I was hitting the early stages of hypothermia, my back tire decided to get a flat.

Fortunately there was this one bar right there(the only building for miles) that i was able to go into. I didn't have any cell phone coverage to call the van so i don't even know what wouldve happened if i didn't warm up in there. The owner Judy was kind enough to give me a hot chocolate and let me change my tire inside. While there another rider Carlos found me. He called the van and after the tire was fixed we rode three more miles to meet the van. Two other people had already been picked up due to the cold and others were getting into dry layers. At the van I immediately inhaled 3 donuts and put on every dry piece of clothing I had. Fortunately the other riders were doing well with the rain and were able to keep going.

I rode in there until lunch about 10 miles later so that i could warm up. I was much warmer and drier by then and the rain had stopped. Thus i was in a better mood!

We rode on and guess what, the sun came out! It happened just as we were crossing this great bridge low on the water and I screamed with delight at the top of my lungs.

For the rest of the trip the sun would disappear and reappear about 3 more times. It was literally the craziest weather. At one point we were being poured on as we could see the sun and blue sky.

At mile 63 we crossed into West Virginia, the "Wild and Wonderful" state. Enough Said.

Big highlight: As i left our second lunch i realized i had forgotten my gloves. I started going back just as i heard some rustling in the woods and barking. Not more than 30 feet in front of me a huge buck emerged from the forest and ran across the road. I was the only person there and immediately felt such a great connection to nature in that one moment. Seeing its muscles ripple was just so beautiful and stunning. If you've ever seen wildlife you may know what I'm talking about.

As i continued the route i soon realized that my chain was acting and sounding funky. I found out later that the rain had completely removed all of its lubrication. The result was that I might as well have been hauling 4 pumpkins. And not even in a carriage, I mean like dangling from a rope. At the top of the last hill was the extremely rewarding site of gigantic wind turbines. These guys were HUGE and actually cool as hell. It was super sweet because we had seen those same turbines 10 miles ago from the valley. I got pretty close and couldn't help but just stare for 5 minutes straight. I also pondered the whole concept of pure renewable energy which when you think about it is pretty mindblowing. The only word i could think of how to describe them was gracious.

By now it was already 8pm and I had been on the road for 12 hours. There were still 15 miles more and I was done. The van came and picked me up along with the last few riders and drove us past countless more hills that made me cringe just looking at them and thinking of my chain.

The chuch in Parsons was very gracious and put out a great spread along with letting us sleep in the sanctuary which was a cool experience. It was also Dan's 20th birthday and we presented him with a dinosaur birthday cake to match the stickers on his bike.
By that point i was just purely beaten, like unimaginably so. I barely ate any dinner and dragged myself straight to bed at 9. While routine is important to me, such as journaling and cleaning my bike, I knew I needed to sleep right there and then at 9pm. It was a fabulous 9 hours.

Overall it's just really hard to reconcile the overall awesomeness of Bike and Build with the small pockets of misery such as this day. Lets just hope for less rain.

Also, just as I'm writing this the second rider today told me that her mom is a follower of the blog. Pure Awesomesauce. Makes me so happy to know that the Bike and Build P2SF family audience audience is growing. The slight pressure to deliver makes sure i do it and this is great.

One of the most overwhelming things about this trip is the sheer lack of personal quiet time, especially given our time constraints. Though I lose about an hour of sleep, my journaling is a legitimate contributor to the maintenance of my sanity and prevents general passive aggressiveness. It helps even more to know that someone is actually reading all of this. So thank you for encouraging my sanity! Will try to stay funny for you all. And maybe even insightful...