Ocmulgee to Oconee

Robert came up with a great idea for Peach Peloton: ride from the Ocmulgee River to the Oconee River and back.  His goal was to dip our bicycle wheels in each river and ride 100 miles total.  It was tricky for him to plan a route on decent roads that met these criteria, but he did it.  Yesterday nine of us gathered at Juliette Park on the Ocmulgee River.

Cal, Van, Allen, Tony, Jason, and Robert.  Cody is getting his shoe covers.  I'm not sure where Chris is.

It was the coldest Peach Peloton of the year!  The temperature was 28 degrees at the start and only rose to the mid 30s that afternoon.  We bundled up in our warmest riding gear: balaclavas, jackets, insulated shoes, hand warmers, etc.  The wind was rough, too, at more than 10 mph.

Robert and I were the only ones who dipped our wheels into the Ocmulgee River.

I told the other guys that they had no sense of adventure!

Typically on Peach Peloton, I do a few pulls at the beginning of the ride but then settle in at the back to draft.  Because I get dropped so often, I don't want to expend too much energy pulling.  Jason and I were on the front when it was time for my first pull.  He wasn't half-wheeling me; he was whole-biking me!  I think the wind made it harder than usual for me.  I peeled off to the back pronto.

I had put some hand warmers inside my gloves.  The warmth felt good, but they were too bulky between my hands and the handlebars.  I needed my usual grip.  Therefore, at the first nature break, I put the hand warmers in my jersey pockets.  At the second nature break I took a Lara Bar (lemon - my favorite flavor) from my jersey pocket.  The hand warmer had made my Lara Bar warm, too - delicious!

The busiest part of the route was about a two-mile section on US Highway 129 near Gray.  We rode single file.  I was the last one and got dropped on a big downhill.  I often have difficulty hanging on anyway on the downhills because I'm lighter than the guys, and this time whoever was on the front probably went a little harder to minimize our time on this highway.  Also, a gust of wind made we swerve.  I was fine, but I did feel some adrenaline.  Whenever I felt one of these gusts of wind yesterday, I sang in my mind, "Sailing...takes me away to where I'm going."

We rode through some unfamiliar parts of Milledgeville to the Oconee River Greenway.  Time for our second wheel dip!

Then, it was on to Blackbird Coffee, a much swankier than usual store stop.  I got a cinnamon roll and matcha green tea latte.  A large blackbird sculpture hung over the counter.  If it had been any later in the ride, I would have thought it was a buzzard who had come for me.

When we got back on the road, I couldn't keep up much longer.  I had expended a great deal of energy to ride at the peloton's pace.  So, I rode about the last 40 miles by myself.  I didn't mind because I felt so much better when I slowed down.  Actually, I still made pretty good time given the difficult conditions.

Riding solo also gave me the opportunity to stop for a picture of Smokey Bear at the Georgia Forestry Commission office.

I've taken photos of my bicycle with Smokey a number of times before, but I think this was the first time when the fire danger has been extreme.  It must have been extreme because of the low humidity and significant wind.

This was also a great stop because I needed food and water.  I ate a Clif Bar and felt much better.  My energy was up again for the last 10 miles.  In fact, I set a couple of late-ride goals: finish with less than 6 hours of moving time and finish before 4:00 PM.  I met both with a few minutes to spare!

Back home, it felt so good take a shower.

I put on my super fuzzy pajamas with feet - my favorite thing to wear after riding all day when it's especially cold.  We hadn't had a real lunch, and so I cooked dinner a little earlier than usual.  Robert opened a bottle of Riesling, and I cooked green curry shrimp, jasmine rice, and kung pao carrots.  It was so good!

It takes a lot for me to call a ride epic, but this one was epic!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  I'm looking forward to a great year of riding and, hopefully, a little more writing than last year.

I always go on a bicycle ride on New Year's Day.  Usually it’s a 200K brevet. However, because New Year’s was on Saturday this year, I rode Peach Peloton with my Macon cyclopeeps instead. My cycling team has a new points system to help keep everyone engaged, and one way to earn points is to ride at least eight Peach Pelotons over the winter. Yesterday's ride got me up to six, and so I shouldn't have any trouble riding two more Peach Pelotons before the grand finale Pine Mountain Challenge on February 5. It was a good but hard ride (i.e., the usual - ha ha!). We started in east Macon and went toward kaolin country, a nod to Peach Peloton's roots back when godfather Chad Madan led it.

Another reason I opted for Peach Peloton is that the New Year's Day brevet was the Athens 200K. I ride this route a lot as a permanent. Additionally, we have another brevet later in January, the Albany 200K. I enjoy that one in a different part of the state, and I'm already looking forward to the peanut butter ice cream in Plains! The biggest downside to not doing the Athens 200K yesterday is that Calista from the D.C. area was in town. I'm sorry to have missed her.

A benefit of Peach Peloton is that it was only 82 miles, giving me more time to cook New Year's dinner than the brevet would have. Among my rando buddies, I’m about the only native Southerner, and so they’ve never had much sympathy when I’ve told them I have to get home after our ride to cook black eyed peas and collard greens. My teammates, however, are mostly Georgia natives and were also looking forward to going home for traditional New Year’s fare yesterday.

I was telling my teammates about Grits and Greens, a recipe from a friend and my favorite way to eat collards. Several wanted the recipe (see below). I'm pleased that this year's New Year's dinner was extra good: black eyed peas, Grits and Greens, bacon, sweet potatoes, and cornbread pancakes. The oven went out last week, and so I cooked the cornbread batter as pancakes rather than baking it in my cast iron skillet like usual. (The new oven should be here in about 10 days.) Also, I remembered that I had one jar of homemade chowchow left from the last batch I put up - perfect for the peas. Finally, I made sure to cook the collards for Grits and Greens in plenty of liquid so that I would have pot likker for my cornbread; those are some good eats, especially with some vinegar pepper sauce on top.

Grits and Greens

1 cup half-and-half
4 cups chicken broth, divided
1 cup grits
1 lb. fresh or frozen collards
1/4 cup butter
1 to 1-1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese

Combine half-and-half and 3 cups of broth in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil and add grits.  Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until done, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, cook greens in 1 cup of broth until tender (may need to add more broth and/or water).  Drain well.  Add butter and cheese to grits, stirring until melted.  Stir in greens.

Dale's 77th Birthday

Yesterday's Peach Peloton was extra special; it was also Dale's 77th birthday!  Dale is a legend in the Macon cycling community.  He's an extremely talented cyclist and triathlete.  In fact, he's the world champion in his age group in XTERRA (off-road triathlon).

Dale is also fun to be around.  He has a tendency toward malapropisms.  That's a fancy way of saying that he sometimes says funny stuff.  He probably has a hundred Dale-isms.  Robert has written down a few:

• I am a habit of creature.
• I have acid reflex.
• Pour me another IPO.
• We weren't lolly-dallying*
• Let's eat at Pandora's Box
• Helicopters were hoovering over my tent.
• The peloton was riding in epsilon formation.
• I was sorry to hear ZZ Gabor died.
• Boy, you'd better watch out for those cha wow wow dogs!
• Sitting in an MRI machine: "It's torture, like being watergated!"
• I heard about Bill's surgery.  Is he having a peacemaker put in?
• Put your clampons on so you don't slip and fall into a carafe.

*I have a direct connection to this one.  Dale and I rode with the B group one week at Peach Peloton, and it was a hard ride.  In the middle of it, I noted to Dale that we weren't lollygagging.  Dale confirmed this back at the parking lot, telling someone else, "We weren't lolly-dallying."

At 77 Dale has fewer great days on the bike, but we were all happy that he had one of those yesterday on his birthday.  He even pulled the peloton for a while.

Party time!  Dale and me at the Big Chief store stop

I made Dale a peppermint pound cake, which the group enjoyed after the ride.  The ride was from Gresco, and Steve was so nice to let us have our post-ride celebration inside.

Steve also gave each of us a Gresco cap.

Steve, me, Robert, Cody, Dale, Tony, Stoney, Angie, and Jason

Good route, we avoided the rain, and great friends - I feel like it's already Christmas!

Coffeeneuring 2021

The 2021 Coffeeneuring Challenge is complete!  This was my second time participating in this fun and simple activity.  Mary Gersemalina, a fellow randonneur who lives in the Washington, D.C. area, created the Coffeeneuring Challenge 10 years ago.  The basics are to ride your bicycle to seven different locations over about six weeks.  Each ride has to be at least two miles long, and you have to drink a coffeeneuring approved beverage along the way.  In addition to coffee, other acceptable beverages are tea, cider, and coffee porter or stout beer.  Even coffee flavored ice cream is OK in moderation; after all, it’s a beverage-focused challenge.

Because I don’t like coffee, I drink tea during my coffeeneruing rides.  Additionally, I usually stop at a Coffee Shop Without Walls, i.e., somewhere outside along my route where I drink tea that I brewed at home beforehand.  I’m grateful for this option because I don’t live near a plethora of coffee shops, unlike most of the other coffeeneurs who live in urban areas.

Mary has a theme each year for coffeeneuring.  This year it’s c+1.  She leaves the meaning of c+1 open to interpretation.  It might be always one more ride than what you’ve done so far.  I chose c+1 as noting each location where I enjoyed my tea using both latitude/longitude and the what3words app.  I discovered what3words right before the 2021 Coffeeneuring Challenge began, when I downloaded it for the Stuckey’s Valley of the Giants race (see my blog post from 10/17/21).  And I have another c+1!  I wrote a haiku for each ride.

Thank you, Mary, for coordinating this fun event, and thank you to all my fellow coffeeneurs for sharing all your adventures on the Coffeeneurs Facebook page.

 

2021 Coffeeneuring #1 (10/18/21)

This year’s challenge ran from October 18 through November 30, 2021.  I jumped right in on the first day.  It was a great way to decompress after a busy workday.  I rode an out-and-back route to a bridge on a nearby dirt road.

Distance: 10.0 miles

Tea: Tazo Passion (because I’m passionate about cycling!)

Latitude/Longitude: 33°13’24” N, 83°37’52” W

what3words: drummer.birdcage.spooked

Haiku:
Summer is gone – sad
But all is not gloom and doom
Coffeeneuring – yea!

2021 Coffeeneuring #2 (10/24/21)

I rode south to visit Smokey Bear at the Georgia Forestry Commission office.  This time, in addition to my tea, I had a snack, which was a Little Debbie peanut butter oatmeal creme pie (OCP).  There’s a slight story behind the OCP.

Pumpkin Peloton was the day before.  This time it was on dirt roads.  The out-and-back route went to a campground in the Ocmulgee National Forest.  Because it was a remote area with no store stops available, Robert and I stashed some water and snacks at the campground ahead of time.  OCPs are a Pumpkin/Peach Peloton favorite.  However, my local Ingles grocery store was out of regular OCPs.  (Supply chain issues?)  So, I substituted peanut butter OCPs.  I didn’t have one on the Pumpkin Peloton ride, and there was one left.  That’s how it became my snack on the next day's coffeeneuring ride.  I missed the regular OCP creme filling, but the peanut butter variety was still pretty tasty with my chai.

Distance: 30.4 miles

Tea: chai

Latitude/Longitude: 33°07’12” N, 83°37’32” W

what3words: contributing.eels.vacuums

Haiku:
Smokey Bear picnic
Tea – the perfect refreshment
No campfire to douse

2021 Coffeeneuring #3 (10/30/21)

I'm an introvert and enjoy my alone time, but this day and ride reminded me that community is important, too. Normally, I would have gone to Pumpkin Peloton on this Saturday, but it was Haunticello. Haunticello is trick-or-treating on the Monticello square. This was my 24th year being The Mad Doctor. It's based on the only Scooby Doo villain that scared me when I was little, Dr. Coffin, a.k.a. The Mad Doctor. Haunticello is usually on Halloween itself, but this is the Deep South, and people freak out about trick-or-treating on Sunday. Regardless of the day, Haunticello was a lot of fun. We had a bonus farmers market on the square in conjunction with Haunticello. (The seasonal farmers market had ended the previous month.)

Dr. Seuss characters and pork skins: an obvious juxtaposition

My neighbor Joe and his grandson with some of the very large sweet potatoes they grew

The Mad Doctor offers free psychiatric evaluations.

The Mad Doctor and Ms. Frizzle. The Magic School Bus was also on the square and gave out books to the kids.

The Mad Doctor and Tyra. I don't know Tyra, but she seemed pretty excited to take our photo together, too.

I also used the day's unusual Saturday schedule to do a coffeeneuring ride to an actual coffee shop! After Haunticello I went home and got my bicycle. I rode back to the square for lunch. There was a food truck there.

Alas, they didn't have turkey legs, and so I got ribs.

I sat on a bench on the square to eat them. They were pretty good, but I don't expect ribneuring to become a thing. I wish I had realized that there was a fish guy set up on the square, too. Oh, well.

Before I got back on the road, I went to The Vanilla Bean, which is a really good coffee shop on our square. We're lucky to have it in our small town. I always get tea there, but today I discovered that they blend several loose teas of their own! I got peach ginger tea, which was delicious. They also have wonderful baked goods. I got a slice of pumpkin roll to go with my tea.

There was a very nice couple named Mike and Doyce at The Vanilla Bean. They were visiting from out of town, taking a Saturday drive. Mike said that in June he had a ruptured aorta and open heart surgery. Doyce told me how grateful she is that they could be out for an enjoyable day together today. I was happy to celebrate with them for a few moments.

Then, my ride was underway in earnest. I did a loop north of town. On my way back into town, I saw a bouncy house at the fire station. I rolled in to check it out. They were just finishing setting it up for a haunted house that night. One of my bucket list items has been to stop at a bouncy house while riding my bicycle. Check!

I noted the big warning label on the entrance into the bouncy house.

Absolutely no adults permitted!!! Good thing I’m just a 12-year-old trapped in a 51-year-old body. Besides, it was the fire station, not the police station, so I figured they couldn't arrest me.

Distance: 22.5 miles

Tea: peach ginger

Latitude/Longitude: 33°18’17” N, 83°41’02” W

what3words: elegantly.springing.coupons

Haiku:
Blustery fall day
Haunticello, ribs, tea, friends
Bouncy house – bonus!

 

2021 Coffeeneuring #4 (11/7/21)

I had done the Bird Dog 100 gravel race the day before, and so a chill coffeeneuring ride was perfect. Also, the extra hour of sleep (going back to Standard Time) was a great excuse for second breakfast!

Actually, I just had regular breakfast with tea, and second breakfast was the thermos of Irish breakfast tea that I brewed to take on my ride a few hours later.

My route was a mixed surface loop of dirt and paved roads. I enjoyed seeing several deer along the way. I stopped for tea at the Hillsboro Hilton, which is an old hunting camp. It has been used until the last few years but has become dilapidated. The surrounding property is also not as pretty as it used to be because it has been timbered. I wanted to sit on the front porch to drink my tea, but the building has been fenced off, and there’s a no trespassing sign. So, I sat on the grass in the right-of-way next to the road.

My what3words location reminded me of my niece Sylvie, who is a freshman at Georgia Tech and is an avid birder. I texted her and told her that my location sounded like an elective she might be enjoying.

Distance: 17.2 miles

Tea: Irish breakfast tea

Latitude/Longitude: 33°11’19” N, 83°37’42” W

what3words: introductory.mathematical.birdseed

Haiku:
Hillsboro Hilton
Make sure to bring your own tea
Awful room service

 

2021 Coffeeneuring 5 (11/14/21)

This was a trail work day in the Oconee National Forest near the Ocmulgee River in south Jasper County. Some of the horse people and some of us cycling people helped out. Robert, our friend Bill, and I worked together. They used a Billy Goat (heavy-duty mower), chainsaw, and bush axe to do the clearing, and I handled logistics like carrying supplies and moving the truck and trailer from one trail end to another.

A turkey tail mushroom that has gotten so big that it looks feathery

Wise Creek, a tributary to the Ocmulgee River

Bill putting the chain back on the chainsaw - just like putting a chain back on a bicycle

Some fallen logs were cleared with the chainsaw.

A beautiful hardwood hillside on the Oakfuskee Trail. This trail was on a route connecting Charleston, SC to New Orleans, LA that Native Americans used for hundreds of years before white settlers arrived.

Hardwoods and pines live in the Oconee National Forest.

Robert with the Billy Goat

After we worked several hours, Bill headed home, and Robert and I had a picnic lunch sitting in the back of the trailer.

Robert was a lot happier to have this pb&j sandwich than he looks in this photo.

Then, he worked a while longer while I rode home on dirt roads.

Trailhead near the horse camp where everyone gathered

The Ocmulgee River from River Road

I rode on some of my favorite roads in the Piedmont Wildlife Refuge, stopping at Natural Rock Crossing for my tea and an oatmeal raisin walnut Clif Bar.

Distance: 34.4 miles

Tea: lemon ginger

Latitude/Longitude: 33°08’17” N, 83°43’05” W

what3words: pictures.scorpions.rearrange

Haiku:
Trail work, then a ride
Forest and wildlife refuge
I love public lands

 

2021 Coffeeneuring #6 (11/22/21)

The end of the Coffeeneuring Challenge was drawing nigh, and so I was glad to get coffeeneuring #6 in after work that Monday evening. It was a great way to slow down after a lot of riding over the weekend (the Sasquatch Ride), followed by a long, busy workday. What would be a good spot to stop for the day's tea? I decided to ride in honor of my beagle Shelly and stop at the spot where Robert and I found her almost 16 years ago, on December 26, 2005. She was skin and bones. We think she was a hunting dog who got lost and that she was about a year old at the time. That makes her about 17 now.

Shelly holds her own in the Land of the Giants; all the other dogs we have had during her tenure have been greyhounds. She has been the benevolent dictator during most of her time.

As I approached the spot where we found Shelly, I saw a rabbit cross the road. I decided that that must be the exact spot! I sat on the side of the dirt road, drinking my tea in the dark and enjoying the peace and quiet. I thought about how grateful I am to have had such a great dog for so many years. (I’m also grateful that no one drove by and wondered what I was doing!) Shelly is still doing terrific, thankfully. Here’s to Shelly!

Distance: 5.7 miles

Tea: cinnamon spice

Latitude/Longitude: 33°16’49” N, 83°39’00” W

what3words: challenger.registrar.twitchy

Haiku:
Lost, starving beagle
Needed to find her a home
We did – it was ours

Shelly says, “Can I go back to my nap now?”

 

2021 Coffeeneuring #7 (11/28/21)

For my grand finale, I rode to the giant wooden Sasquatch about 20 miles south of where I live. For perspective, the butterfly is about 2 feet tall.

Sasquatch kept me company while I drank Earl Grey tea (my favorite tea) from a thermos and had a couple of homemade pumpkin cookies.

There is an annual chainsaw carving festival called Chaptacular at this location. The last time it was held, pre-pandemic, the participants created Sasquatch as a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis. I discovered Sasquatch only about a month ago when we rode by during Pumpkin Peloton. At that time I didn't have any money with me. I made a mental note to ride back another time to make a donation. I set aside an amount of "mad" money each month for charitable purposes. I was glad to give some mad money to Sasquatch during my last coffeeneuring ride of 2021.

Distance: 45.6 miles

Tea: Earl Grey

Latitude/Longitude: 33°05’00” N, 83°33’13” W

what3words: pure.zebras.cuddled

Haiku:
Last coffeeneuring
Found the elusive Sasquatch
Stomping out disease