A Century of Centuries

Last Saturday I rode the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) Spring Tune-Up (STU).  Besides a few RUSA rides, which resumed last September, it was the first organized ride I've done since the pandemic started.  RUSA events have been very small (a dozen people or fewer) with staggered start times.  The BRAG STU last Saturday had several hundred people.  However, I felt comfortable at the STU because I rode solo, I was socially distanced from the few people who were at the rest stops when I was, and food was packaged and handled safely.  Also, a show-and-go start minimized people clustering together at one time.

As an introvert, I've largely been fine with the reduced social contact caused by the pandemic, but it was nice to interact with some other cyclists last weekend.  My first encounter was while I was driving to the Sunflower Farm, the staging area for the BRAG STU, about a half-hour drive from home.  The shortest route to the start took me down several miles of dirt rode.  I saw a cyclist riding toward me.  He flagged me down.  He was also an STU rider and said he had gotten turned around.  Could I help?  Sure!  I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and pointed out where to go to get back on the route.  Fortunately, he hadn't gone too far out of the way.  We chatted for a few moments.  He said that he was from Birmingham and that everyone calls him Boss Hogg, as in The Dukes of Hazzard.

I drove another few miles to the Sunflower Farm.  It's the perfect venue for this event.  It has a huge field for camping as well as car and RV parking.  I quickly got my bicycle and gear ready and pedaled off on the century route.

I started passing other riders.  Hey, I think I recognize one - is that Boss Hogg?  Yes!  We said hello to each other again and rode side by side for a while.  He was quite a hoot.  And amazingly, he's 78!  I want to still be riding when I'm 78.

About 23 miles into the ride, the 60- and 100-mile routes split.  I definitely would be riding solo for the rest of the ride.  I did see a few other cyclists, though.  I approached one on the big climb out of Hard Labor Creek State Park.  A long ponytail made me think it was a woman at first, but as I got closer, I saw huge, muscular calves and realized that it was a dude.  I said hello as I pedaled by, and he responded in a very pleasant Aussie accent.

I didn't stop at the first few rest stops, waiting until the third one around mile 40 at a park in North High Shoals.  The volunteers had just arrived.  No worries - a few other riders showed up right after I did, and we helped unload the truck.

A little something to improve my personality

I enjoyed talking with the other riders, including Mr. Aussie and a nice guy from Jacksonville who looked like Garth from Wayne's World.

I continued on.  It was a cool but pleasant day.  It was also really nice being on my Factor instead of my Trek.  I love both bikes, but they serve different purposes.  I ride my Trek on self-supported permanents, carrying all my provisions in my Yogi Bear picnic basket.  Today, however, I had the luxury of restocking at rest stops, allowing me to ride my significantly lighter Factor.  I felt like I was breezing along with hardly any effort.

I estimated that I needed only one more rest stop.  I chose the one in Rutledge at about mile 78.  The famous BRAG STU Oreo Farm unofficial rest stop was only a couple of miles farther.  I definitely wanted to stop there, too, but I wasn't sure if it would be open because of the pandemic.  Better to stop in Rutledge to make sure I got enough to eat.  Happily, the Oreo Farm rest stop was also open!  For years, the couple who lives here has offered free Oreo cookies and adult beverages to BRAG STU riders on their way by.  Currently, they don't have any Oreo cows (belted Galloways), and their adult son stood in for them this time, but it was so nice that this tradition is still going.  Usually, they have Bloody Marys, but last Saturday it was just beer.  Not that I was complaining.

It was only 20 miles to the end.  Ha ha! I remember the first time I rode 20 miles at one time and thought that was a lot -  more on that in a minute :)

BRAG had mailed an event packet ahead of time so that we didn't have to do in-person check-in.  I saw that there would be food trucks, and one was Vietnamese.  I had heard of banh mi but had never had a chance to try one.  So, ever since my packet had arrived in the mail, I had been looking forward to a post-ride banh mi.

After changing clothes, I walked over to the food truck area, wearing the sporty mask that BRAG had given me rather than the usual T-shirt.  For some reason, the mask was huge.  I had to twist the ear loops twice to get it to stay on.

I got in line, anticipating a delicious banh mi.  A few minutes later, the woman in front of me said that she was the last customer, and then the Vietnamese food truck was shutting down for a few hours.  Bummer!  I was about to head home and certainly didn't want to wait around.  My consolation prize was a fried peach pie from another vendor, The Caboose from nearby Rutledge.  Not too shabby.

There was a live music stage by the food area.  Another rider had commented on how good the bands were the night before.  The guy playing while I was in the food line was quite good, too.  BRAG has added so many great features over the years to add to the festiveness of its events.  I get why so many people come from so many states to be part of it all.

During last Saturday's ride I realized its significance.  Nine years ago I had a serious crash in a road race.  It took me seven months to fully recover.  I gave up road racing (except time trials), but I still wanted to keep challenging myself on the bike.  The next year, 2013, I decided to show my gratitude for my recovery by riding a century a month for 12 months on behalf of 12 charities.  I called it A Year of Centuries.  My last ride in A Year of Centuries was also my first brevet.  I've been randonneuring ever since.  Last Saturday's ride was my 100th month in a row when I've ridden a century or longer.  That makes a Century of Centuries.  I had realized for a while that I would reach this milestone this month, but I was thinking it would be with a permanent.  I hadn't yet done my April permanent (I did it two days ago), and so my Century of Centuries snuck up on me last weekend with the BRAG STU.  It's quite fitting, though, because BRAG is what started my love of long-distance cycling.

I first heard of BRAG as a teenager, when a neighbor did it.  It blew my mind back then to think of riding all the way across the state!  Still, cycling piqued my interest; I just didn't know how to go about it.

When I met Robert toward the end of my college days, he was into triathlon.  He helped me buy my first decent road bike, which was a Cannondale.  Incidentally, we lived in Atlanta at the time but drove all the way to Bike Tech in Macon to get the bike because it was a several-year-old-model that I got a good deal on.  Who knew that a dozen years later, Robert and I would be heavily into the Macon cycling scene and going to Bike Tech all the time?  Anyway, now having a trusty road steed, I started riding longer and longer distances.  I distinctly remember riding 20 miles one day and thinking that was a lot!  Somehow, we decided that we would do BRAG in 1994.  It was a particularly flat route that year, from Bainbridge to St. Simons Island, which sounded easier.  I was also excited because I had never seen much of South Georgia.

BRAG '94 was a blast, and we did it again in '95 across North Georgia and in '96 across Middle Georgia.  From there, we started doing cycling trips in other states and even overseas.  Then came racing, randonneuring, RAAM, PBP, gravel riding - so many adventures!

I often think about my cycling history while I'm riding, but it had a certain poignancy at last Saturday's BRAG STU.  Jerry Colley, the founder of BRAG, died a few months ago from leukemia.  I got to know him more personally years ago when the BRAG STU was held in Monticello, and I helped with the local planning.  Also, Jerry coordinated BRAG groups that did Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), sponsored by The Des Moines Register.  Every serious cyclist should do RAGBRAI!  (When it's not pandemic times, that is.) It's a weeklong, rolling party of 10,000+ cyclists.  Robert and I joined the BRAG group that did RAGBRAI in 2007.  That's Jerry on the right end of the back row.

I dedicated last Saturday's BRAG STU ride to Jerry.  Thank you, Jerry, for helping launch a very important part of my life.  Ride on!

National Bark Rangers

Yesterday was the most fun thing I've done with my greyhounds in a long time.  Allie, Fleetwood, and I went to Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park so that they could become National Bark Rangers.  This had been on my 2020 to-do list, and then the pandemic hit.  Recently, I checked the Ocmulgee Mounds website and saw that the grounds are now back open daily, and the visitors center is open Friday through Sunday (masks required).  Time for a hound hike!

Ready for our outing!

The hounds had to dress for the occasion.  Allie wore my cool Smokey Bear bandanna.

Fleetwood wore my bat bandanna because he's kind of batty.

After we ran a few errands in the Macon area, the hounds and I headed to the park.  I made a quick stop inside the visitors center to verify the Bark Ranger requirements.  Mainly it involved walking the hounds on leashes and picking up after them (i.e., a regular walk).  There are a few pet stations with poopy sacks around the park, but I'm glad I brought my own sacks because Allie and Fleetwood decided to do their business on more remote parts of the trails.

I had been to the Ocmulgee Mounds before, but this was a great refresher on things I had learned previously.  Native Americans lived continuously in this area for thousands of years.  During the Mississippian period (900 - 1600 CE), which refers to the archeological period rather than the geological period, they built a number of mounds here.  The mound closest to the visitors center is the Earth Lodge.  It was used for political and religious ceremonies.  The Earth Lodge has been carbon dated to the year 1015, and the interior has been restored to look like it might have back then.  Although the Earth Lodge had been closed because of the pandemic, it is now reopened to the public (one family at a time).  However, because I've been inside it before and to be more COVID cautious, I didn't go inside on this visit.  Besides, I thought maybe dogs weren't supposed to go in.  Fleetwood wanted to, though.

The Creeks were the Native Americans who lived in the area most recently.  They were actually the remnants of a number of other tribes who were decimated by smallpox and other diseases that Europeans brought.  These remnants banded together to form the Creeks.  People usually think of Cherokees when they think of Native Americans in Georgia, but the Cherokees were in North Georgia.  Creeks (who call themselves Muscogee/Muskogee) lived here in Middle Georgia.

The park has many trails, and I wanted to explore some I had never been on  - but not this one.

The trail not taken

Instead, we went on one of the most popular trails that leads to the Great Temple Mound.

The greyhounds did great climbing all the stairs to the top of the Great Temple Mound.  When we reached the top, we walked around the large, grassy area.  Here's a view looking at downtown Maconga.  (Well, the hounds aren't looking in that direction, but I am.)

We descended from the Great Temple Mound and went exploring further.  We walked toward the Funeral Mound and found a nice wooded loop trail.

Fleetwood always walks ahead of me, but Allie always stays right by my side.  Therefore, it's hard to get her in a picture while we're walking.

The mounds are right next to I-16.  You can hear traffic from the park.  It's an odd juxtaposition between ancient and modern civilizations.  I thought about the innumerable Native Americans who lived here over thousands of years.  They managed to survive and thrive, using the land and other natural resources but not overstressing or using up everything.  Then, the U.S. government drove out the last natives.  Today, we humans might make ourselves go extinct because of the way we treat the Earth.  The Ocmulgee Mounds are a good reminder that it's possible for humans to live on the Earth in a sustainable way.

The train tracks running through the mounds are another reminder of modern people's effects.

A train went by while the greyhounds and I were walking.  We were headed back to the visitors center anyway, and I hoped to make it back to the footbridge over the tracks before the train finished passing.  Although we didn't make it in time, it was still an interesting view below.

The hounds were thirsty after all that hiking.  The visitors center has this nice dog water fountain.

We were close to 5K total, and so we walked to the end of the parking lot.  I was tempted to go on the Bartram Trail, named for the naturalist and explorer who documented his travels through the southern British colonies in the 1770s.

However, I could tell that the hounds had had enough walking.  Also, the rain was starting to pick up.  The forecast had looked rather iffy all day, but we managed to do the majority of our walk during a break in the rain.  The spotty weather didn't bother me, though.  In fact, it was rather invigorating.

I had brought a picnic lunch, but it was too wet to eat outside.  Instead, I ate it in my car while Allie and Fleetwood lounged in the back.  I also admired their National Bark Ranger tags.

When we got home, I also did all the activities in the booklet that the ranger in the visitors center had given me.

I'll make a copy of this last page of the booklet so both hounds can have a certificate.

This post has been primarily about hiking, but I also went for a dirt road ride late yesterday afternoon.  The rain had let up, and the sun even peeked out.  The fresh green of early spring leaves was everywhere.  Tree trunks and woody stems were dark with rain, making a stunning contrast with the bright leaves.  My ride reminded me of the name of one of the Strava segments on our Tuesday Worlds route: Icing on the Kake.