Asymptotes and Cream Filling

Several of my recent off-road rides have been rather math-y.  That's a good thing.  In addition to cycling, one of my favorite things is math.

Asymptotes

A week or so ago, I was doing a typical after-work dirt road ride.  I was mainly out there to enjoy the evening and get a good workout; I wasn't looking to set any race records.  In the last few miles, I noticed that my average speed was 13.8 mph.  That's not bad for one of my mixed surface rides.  Dirt road rides are significantly slower than paved road rides.

It occurred to me that it would be cool if I could finish my ride with an average of 14 mph.  However, I doubted I could ride fast enough for the remaining short distance to bring my average up that high.  Nevertheless, I kept up a steady tempo.  A few moments later, I checked my speed and noted that I was riding 14 mph.  Even if I kept up that pace forever, much less the remaining distance to my house, I would only asymptotically approach an average speed of 14 mph.

At least I came up with the name of my rock band if I ever have one: The Asymptotes.

Cream Filling

When I was little, my cycling consisted largely of riding to the cul-de-sac, which was only a block away.  There was little traffic in our suburban neighborhood - plenty safe.  I'd ride back and forth to the cul-de-sac and around and around it.  That sounds boring now, but it was lots of fun back then.

A few days ago I took my mountain bike back to the trails in the Oconee National Forest in south Jasper County.  I planned to ride while Robert hiked and did a little trail maintenance.  It had rained a few days earlier, making several of the trails pretty mucky.  I stayed on the River Trail, which was mostly dry, paralleling the Ocmulgee River.  I rode back and forth, back and forth.  It was like the adult version of riding my bike back and forth to the cul-de-sac when I was a kid.

The non-mucky portion of the River Trail that I rode was about 3/4 mile long.  Back and forth, back and forth.  I rode it pretty fast for me on a mountain bike because this is the least technical part of the trail system in the Oconee National Forest in Jasper County.  Also, it was a beautiful afternoon, and I got to be right next to the river.

It reminded me of the cream filling in an Oreo cookie, which is the best part.  The chocolate cookies are just meh.  Then I thought about Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies (OCPs).  They have much more cream filling than Oreos, and the cream filling delivery vehicle is far superior.  But just how much more cream filling are we talking about?  Time to do some calculations.

Assume that Oreos and OCPs have the same thickness of cream filling, approximately 1/8 inch, and that for each treat the filling covers the same area as the delivery vehicle (meh chocolate cookies and pretty good oatmeal cookie-like things, respectively).  Therefore, the difference in cream filling volume depends on the different diameters.  According to an ABC News story on The Google, an Oreo has a diameter of 1 3/4 inches.  The diameter of an OCP is more elusive.

I found a recipe for OCP tiramisu in which whole OCPs are layered with creamy tiramisu filling in stemless wine glasses.  (Sounds good except that tiramisu has coffee in it - yuck!)  I have some stemless wine glasses and measured their diameter.  The largest OCP that could fit in there whole, perhaps with some careful bending to keep it intact, is 2 1/2 inches.

Additional research showed that a box of 12 OCPs has dimensions of 4.12 x 4.50 x 12.00 inches.  Assuming three layers of four OCPs in the box, each OCP would have to have a diameter slightly less than 12/4, or slightly less than 3.  Therefore, my assumption of an OCP having a diameter of 2 1/2 inches is probably about right.  (Ideally, I would go to a store that sells individually wrapped OCPs and take a measurement, but that's not practical during these shelter-in-place times.)  Now we're ready to calculate the volumes of cream filling:

Oreo: volume = pi x r^2 x h = 3.14159 x (1.75 / 2)^2 x 1/8 = 0.30 in^3 cream filling

OCP: volume = pi x r^2 x h = 3.14159 x (2.5 / 2)^2 x 1/8 = 0.61 in^3 cream filling

Therefore, an OCP is already more than twice as good as an Oreo, even before accounting for an OCP's vastly superior cream filling delivery vehicle.

V-200 - Kaolin Country

The name of this ride was supposed to be "V-200 - Maebob's."  Alas, Maebob's was closed last Saturday, but I didn't know that until I rode to Irwinton.  At least I had a Plan B, which turned out to be pretty fun, too.

In anticipation of fried chicken from Maebob's, I packed a bottle of Crystal brand Louisiana hot sauce in my Yogi Bear picnic basket.

Don't forget the hot sauce!

My first stop on this 200K was in Gray at the Otis Redding memorial.  I've been here several times before, but it's always a good place to revisit.

The road from Monticello to Gordon is a pretty straight shot, all on state highways.  It's not bad to ride on regardless, and traffic seemed slightly less last Saturday, probably due to COVID-19.  There was a tailwind as I headed south.  Yikes.  I knew what that meant for the return trip north... 

Gordon marked the definitive entry into kaolin country.

Kaolin plant in Gordon

One of the most prominent geological features in Georgia is the fall line, which runs east-west across the middle of the state.  Millions of years ago, it was the coastline.  Today the flat coastal plain lies to the south, and the hilly piedmont lies to the north.  Kaolin lies in a belt roughly 15-20 miles south of the fall line.  It’s usually mined hydraulically and is an important Georgia export.  Until recently, Georgia was the world’s leading producer of kaolin.  (Brazil has surpassed us.)  Kaolin is used in medicine (e.g., Kaopectate), paints, and cosmetics.  However, the main use (more than 80%) is to make the glossy coating on magazine pages.

Kaolin tailings pond near McIntyre.  The process water is an iridescent blue.

In a previous job I did quarterly inspections of some of the tailings pond dams in this area.

It was just a few miles farther to Irwinton and Maebob's!  I have to admit that I wasn't shocked that they were closed.  Time to improvise.

For the past few years, Irwinton has hosted the state Banana Pudding Festival.  Thanks to the Puddin' Pedal, a bicycle ride in conjunction withe the Banana Pudding Festival,  I came up with alternate lunch plans.  I continued on a few miles to Toomsboro, the halfway point of my route.  I remembered a city park that had been a banana pudding stop on the Puddin' Pedal.  I didn't remember this sign, though.

Not a sign you usually see at a city park

Despite the unusual sign, it was the perfect place for a popcorn picnic from a paw print paper sack.

It was homemade popcorn that I had made a few days earlier.  I make real popcorn, popped on the stovetop, and I pop it in homemade rosemary infused olive oil.  It sounds pretty fancy, but it's quite simple and much better than microwave popcorn.  Also, since I had carried the hot sauce all that way, I had to put it on something.  Popcorn!

Lunch o' champions

Kaolin country is one of the poorer parts of the state, and with shelter-in-place in effect, it seemed even more desolate.  I saw a teenage boy running and doing calisthenics at the park.  He seemed almost afraid of me even though I kept plenty of distance.

I'm always glad to see a Little Free Library (LFL), especially in a small community.  This was the oddest LFL I've ever seen.  It's like a combo newspaper dispenser/stereo cabinet and looks like some kind of 1970s relic.  There's a bird's nest in the newspaper dispenser part on top.

The whole park vibe was kind of Southern Gothic, a la Flannery O'Connor.  Southern Gothic can be disquieting, but there's a certain familiarity about it, too.  I guess because if you're part of the South, it's part of life.  Anyway, it gave me something to ponder as I battled the headwind on the way home.

Y'all Come Back - Life Is Good

V-200 - North High Shoals

Last Saturday it was time for another 200K in the Virtual Brevet Series 2020.  Originally, I planned to ride south to Irwinton and Toomsboro with a lunch stop at Maebob's for fried chicken.  However, my instincts told me they might not be open the day before Easter.  I checked their Facebook page several times late last week but didn't see anything.  Then, I checked one more time when I got up Saturday morning.  Yep, Maebob's would be closed that day.  So, I had to come up with an alternate 200K route pronto.  Plan B turned out to be excellent.

Sometimes I do a roughly 75-mile route to Madison that's really nice.  By adding some roads from a few Audax Atlanta brevets/populaires, I came up with a V-200 route that made a loop to North High Shoals.  I decided to forgo any store stops and rely only on food I carried with me.

Flowers and Folk Art

It was in the 40s when I started!  That was somewhat of a shock because overnight lows have been trending into the 50s and even 60s.  I was kind of bummed to have to get out the winter riding gear yet again, but it was worth it to be comfortable on my ride.  Happily, it got warmer quickly with a high around 70 degrees that afternoon.

The day was beautiful with the pastels of spring: bright, blue sky; fresh, spring green vegetation; and various colors of wildflowers.

Crimson clover and a lovely purple wildflower whose identity I don't know

I made a slight jig-jag as I approached Rutledge, which would have required a control if our virtual brevets had controls - heh heh.  This gave me an extra mile or so to ensure that I rode a full 200K, but more importantly, I wanted to revisit a farm that has all kinds of cool folk art on display.  I think you can tour the farm, but there are a lot of pieces visible right from the road.

First riding lawn mower

Two Unexpected History Lessons

From there I looped into Hard Labor Creek State Park from the west.  Then began the lollipop on the north part of my route.  The other end of the lollipop "stick" and beginning of the "candy" was in Bostwick.  I stopped at a bench in a nice city park and refueled with some peanuts and raisins.

I continued northward, unaware of the two history lessons I was about to learn.  I rode by Mount Perry Missionary Baptist Church.  The hundreds of crosses on unmarked graves caught my attention.

Missionary Baptist churches often are African-American, and so I wondered about all these unnamed souls.  Were they slaves, or are the graves newer?  When I got home, I did some Internet research.  I didn't find any information about the unmarked graves, but it turns out that this church and cemetery have great historical significance.  In 1946 four African-Americans were lynched near Moore's Ford Bridge between Monroe and Watkinsville: George W. and Mae Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom (two married couples; additionally, George Dorsey and Dorothy Malcom were siblings).  The KKK is suspected of the lynchings.  Both Dorseys and Dorothy Malcom were given funerals and were buried at Mount Perry Missionary Baptist Church.  George Dorsey was a WWII veteran yet was treated as less than human upon his return.  The lynchings received national attention.  A friend sent me links from Find a Grave that gives more information about this brutal history:

George W. Dorsey

Dorothy Dorsey Malcom

Amazingly, an article about this case was published in Time magazine only two weeks ago, which another friend told me about.  A federal appeals court ruled that the grand jury records from this case cannot be released.  Unbelievable.

Grand Jury Records From 1946 Georgia Lynching Case Can't Be Released, Appeals Court Rules

"The past is never dead. It's not even past.” - William Faulkner

The northernmost point of my route was the town of North High Shoals.  I rode south from there, the opposite direction from the way I usually ride this road on Audax Atlanta brevets.  North High Shoals lies on the Apalachee River.  As I crossed the river, I noticed something unusual: a county line sign on each side of the bridge - Morgan County to the east and Walton County to the west.  I was leaving Oconee County, and so that means all three counties converge at that crossing on the Apalachee River.  Because I was going downhill pretty fast, I chose not to turn around and go back for a picture.  However, I mentioned this curiosity to Robert when I got home.  As a land surveyor, he knows some fascinating history about North High Shoals and the Apalachee River.  This is the northern point of the territory that the Creek nation ceded to the U.S. in 1805.  This territory was distributed to U.S. citizens via a land lottery a few years later and was the first land lottery in the world.  According to the treaty, the boundary begins at "the high shoals of Apalacha" (the Apalachee River), continues southwesterly in a straight line to what is today the mouth of the Alcovy River (not too far north of where I live), and encompasses all the area between the Ocmulgee River and Oconee River to their convergence at the Altamaha River.  Here are a sketch from Robert showing the line from North High Shoals (blue circle) to the Alcovy River (green circle) and a map showing the Ocmulgee/Oconee/Altamaha watershed.

The watersheds of the Ocmulgee River (to the west), the Oconee River (to the east), and the Altamaha River, into which the other two flow.  The Altamaha flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

Although I'd never consider myself a true history buff, I do like learning Georgia history, particularly about places right around me.  It gives me even more connection to my home.

The Rest of the Ride

As I came back into Bostwick,  I stopped for a few photos.

Old cotton seed house

Cotton gin building.  The gin is still used when cotton is harvested in the fall.

I couldn't help but think of how cotton originally was farmed on the backs of enslaved people, the ancestors of people like George W. and Mae Dorsey and Roger and Dorothy Malcom.  I love the South, but I'm a Bitter Southerner.

I stopped at the park in downtown Rutledge to eat my hard boiled eggs and apple.  If I had thought about it, I might have gotten a sandwich from The Caboose.  Maybe I'll do that if I ride another V-200 through Rutledge.

From there, I rode eastward on Dixie Highway toward Madison.  This is a favorite road of local cyclists.  I've always thought it would make a great time trial course.  Speaking of which, I was tickled by this sign:

Honest, Officer!  I was only going 15 mph!

I felt slightly deflated by my low average speed, but there were logical reasons why I wasn't very fast.  I didn't get to draft off of anyone the whole time, and there was significant headwind on some portions.  Also, my Trek with Yogi Bear picnic basket mounted on the back is ideal for these virtual brevets, but it's not the speediest cycling setup.  However, I was well within my allotted V-200 time limit.  Most importantly, my main goal was to have fun, which I definitely achieved.  Still it's sometimes hard to turn off being competitive.

I had carried two large bottles of Gatorade with me but needed more fluids toward the end of my ride.  I knew just the place to stop for water: the checking station at the B. F. Grant Wildlife Management Area.  Robert and I have used this as a stop on the BBQ Bass ride several times.  There's an outdoor spigot and a comfortable spot to rest.

That was just the boost I needed to get me to the end.  I got home a little more than an hour later.

Stay tuned for the V-200 to Maebob's...

Dirt Road Scavenger Hunt

Last week my church published its monthly e-newsletter.  It included a scavenger hunt that families can do at home because we can't do the usual church Easter egg hunt.

Being an overgrown kid, I took the scavenger hunt challenge.  However, I put my own twist on it.  I did it as a a dirt road ride and took a photo of each item on the list.  I taped the list to my handlebars for easy reference.

It was so much fun!  As I focused on the landscape, looking for various items, it really helped me simply be in the moment.  I looked at the clock on my bike computer about an hour and a half into my ride and was surprised to realize I had been out there that long!  

Here are my photos in the same order as on the list (not the order that I took them):

Two different types of leaves (sweetgum and muscadine)

Something prickly (thistle)

There were plenty of flowers!  This was a pretty one.  Later, I used my iNaturalist app to identify it.  It's a wild geranium.

I looked forward to Jackson Road because it's particularly fun for dirt road riding.  I don't get to ride on it very often because it's too far away for my relatively short weeknight dirt rides.  Additionally, I predicted that there would be a good photo opp of the cows that graze behind a fence right next to the road.  Sure enough, a herd was gathered idyllically exactly where I expected.  However, their people were nearby.  They probably would have been concerned if they saw me taking a picture of their cows, and I felt too weird to ask permission.  So, I kept an eye out for more cows during the remainder of my ride.  I didn't see any more until I pulled into my own driveway.  This was actually the last photo I took on my scavenger hunt:

Something smoooooth

What's brown and sticky?  A stick.

Three clovers

Something rough (pine bark)

Mulch is really a landscaping thing (for preventing erosion, inhibiting the growth of weeds, etc.) and not something you find explicitly in the wild.  Therefore, I figured that my best bet for finding a piece of mulch was in front of one of the houses in Hillsboro.  Actually, I found a bunch of pieces of mulch:

Pine needles

A type of weed (poison ivy!)

A rock

Something yellow (buttercups)

Something man-made (dam at Hungerford Lake)

Caterpillars abound right now, and so I decided to find one for something fuzzy.  I didn't have to look too long.  This one plopped on the ground in front of me less than 1/4 mile into my ride.  I moved it to a safer place in the grass beside the road.

Because it's spring, it's easy to find something green!  Here's my father-in-law's hay field in front of his house, about ready for cutting.  Right now you can just see the roof line (right of center) above the grass.  After he cuts the hay, you'll be able to see the entire house.

Something soft (moss)

Ideally, I would have uploaded my route to my bike computer ahead of time.  However, our home wi-fi went out over the weekend, making our home PC unusable for Internet service.  (AT&T is supposed to deliver a new router today.)  Therefore, I couldn't create and upload a route like I usually do.  Fortunately, I'm pretty familiar with all the dirt roads I planned to ride.  I still had cellular data available on my phone, and so I studied a map before I headed out.  There was one little section that I tried to memorize: after the lake with the dam, take the first right, then the first left.  However, I then came to a fork that I didn't remember studying ahead of time.  Which way should I go?  I guessed.  I guessed wrong.  Although I wasn't truly lost, when I came to an intersection I recognized, I was farther from home than I should have been.  I modified my route, taking paved roads the rest of the way home.  Like a kid, I had to hurry home for dinner.  But mainly because I'm the cook!

V-200 - Fried Green Tomatoes Route Modified

On Saturday I did my first 200K for the Virtual Brevet Series 2020.  I used a modified version of the Audax Atlanta Fried Green Tomatoes route.  The route goes about 1/4 mile from my house - convenient!

My Yogi Bear picnic basket is still on my Trek from the 400K I did in March.  I could easily carry arm and knee warmers, extra gloves, sunscreen, and - most importantly - plenty of food.  On these virtual brevets, I want to minimize my store stops.

The first part of the route was my favorite, taking me through the Piedmont Wildlife Refuge to Juliette.  From there I headed toward Jackson.  I took a few slight detours from the original Fried Green Tomatoes route so that I could travel more county roads instead of state highways.  Then, when I got to Indian Springs, I made a big detour to Fresh Air BBQ.

Fresh Air is the best BBQ in Georgia!  Currently, they are doing takeout only, of course.  You order at one window and pick up at another, just like they did in 1929 when they first opened.  Signs reminded everyone to remain at least six feet apart while waiting in line.

I had thought I might eat my lunch at the edge of the parking lot, but a sign said no dining on the premises.  My Yogi Bear picnic basket definitely came in handy as I squeezed the clam-shell takeout container into it.  I rode a few miles to a quiet spot and had a side-of-the-road picnic.  It was totally fun!

I rode a few more miles and eventually reconnected with the original Fried Green Tomatoes route north of Jackson.  Although I'll probably ride a lot of the Fried Green Tomatoes roads on another one of my V-200s, next time I'll modify the route again.  I'll take out the entire northern portion that goes into Henry County and substitute something to the south, maybe down to Jones County.

I had thought traffic would be noticeable lighter because of COVID-19 shelter-in-place requirements, but it wasn't.  In fact, both of the negative encounters I had with cars on Saturday's ride were in the northern part.  In the first one, I was on a road with little traffic, riding close to the white line.  A car passed right next to me, even though there were no other cars around.  I yelled and shook my fist.  What else could I do?  Well, I caught up to the same car about half a mile later at a red light.  It was in the right turn lane, and I pulled up beside it in the lane to go straight.  I started yelling at the woman in the car to give me three feet.  She realized I was talking to her and rolled her window down.  I yelled again, "You're supposed to give me three feet!  You almost hit me back there!"  She apologized and seemed genuinely remorseful.  I thanked her and asked her to please watch out for cyclists.  Although my adrenaline was still pumping, I truly was grateful for her acknowledgement of her error.

The other bad driver I encountered wasn't so nice.  Again, I was on a road with little traffic, riding right next to the white line.  A huge pickup truck roared around me, and right after he passed, he blew his air horn.  Sorry for being on "your" road, dude.  I was so mad that I said out loud, "Why do people have to be so mean and rude?"  Jesus had to have a serious talk with me after that about loving my neighbor.

I don't want to focus on the negative because overall it was a great ride.  In fact, there were several big positives on that northern portion of the route.  I was able to get water at a church and later a fire station.  Also, at a particular intersection someone had put out a bunch of encouraging signs like this:

When I got back to Jasper County, I deviated from the original Fried Green Tomatoes route for pretty much the remainder of the ride, avoiding Jackson Lake Road and Highway 11 N.  I had about 15 miles to go.  That was only about another hour of riding, but my energy was getting low.  I sat in the grass next to the road and had a quick snack from my Yogi Bear picnic basket.

Despite my late-ride snack, I followed through on my end-of-ride plan: ride through the Dairy Queen drive-through for a mint shake!

Dairy Queen had advertised mint shakes a month or so ago, and I've been wanting to try one ever since.  It was delicious and rejuvenating at the end of my ride.

When I got home, I took a shower and brushed my teeth.  I was minty fresh, too.