#DeathMarch Planning Questions

Last Year Was A Blast-Story Here

For those that think they have a good route planned out for the Sub 9 Death March and are seemingly prepared, here are a few questions you should absolutely have an answer to before you clip in.

At the holeshot, are you turning left or right?

What about your teammate?

Are you sure that road marked on your map is an actual physical honest to goodness road?

Is that bridge physically crossable or a relic of an aged NASA Satellite photo?

What’s the elevation change between Camp and Hanner Cemetary?

How many valleys will you cross on your way to Lutes?

Are toe spikes a good idea or too much weight?

How are you going to wear toe spikes and shoe covers at the same time silly?

Have you every tried to read a map while riding a gravel road at 25 mph?


Shirley, you can't be serious?


Are you comfortable riding your bike under water?


Is there a compartment for a snorkel in your Hydrapak?

True or False:  Some of the gravel roads would be more stable under your wheels if they were paved 6 inches deep with marbles set in butter.

And, which roads are those?

Are you going up or down them?

If last year’s winning team from DRT spent 4 ½ Hours on their bikes and this year the promoters added a cemetery which is pretty dang far to the east which will no doubt extend saddle time, where and when do you plan on refilling your water?

Should you drink water from a cemetery well?

What time does the sun set?

Is your cell phone’s camera memory close to being full?

Do you know what happens to a paper map in your jersey pocket 5 hours into a ride?

Do you know what happens to the same map after riding through countless creeks?

Are the Garmin and Google maps of Hoosier National Forest as up to date as their map of 

New York City, or are they as old as the farm roads that once criss-crossed the area?

Have you seen the Sprint cell phone coverage map of the area?

So, you're certain your phone's mapping app will be functional?


By the way, have you ever climbed a cell phone tower?

You may not be afraid of heights, but are you may afraid of climbing a Fire Tower which feels like it has the same pieces and stability of a 6 year old’s erector set project?

True or False: Trailheads in Hoosier National Forest are marked with a nice big well painted signs and arrows like the tourist trail to Mt. Rushmore?

If you let the weeds in your driveway grow for 60 years, could you still call it a driveway?

Have you planned your route to Callahan cemetery on the map?

So, when you looked at the Google map you saw Callahan’s tombstones and an adjacent trail together?

You really don’t know where Callahan is, do you?

Multiple Choice: In the pouring rain, what is faster in and out of Callahan?  A horse trail  B) A fresh gravel road  C) A Hard Packed Gravel Road  D) Pavement E) We should really have a Plan B.

Euro Guide Map to #CXMasters2012 Worlds

If you’re traveling to the Cyclocross Masters World Championships from Europe you may have packed your bathing suit and open toed sandals after seeing that Louisville falls on the same geographic latitude line as Portugal, Spain and Southern Italy.  Sorry to disappoint.  This is no Mediterranean vacation.  The weather recently is more like the UK.  It’s wet, cloudy and a tish chilly.  Belgians however are rejoicing and wearing sandals.  It’s pretty much as sunless, muddy and miserable as the weather back home.  While you’re visiting, feel free to explore our area.  You’ll find, much like countries that accept the Euro, a rich diversity in people and landscapes and probably discover somewhere that feels like home.  Let’s go to the map.

INDIANA

As you can see, Northwestern Indiana is flat, barren and windswept much like The Netherlands.  There are probably more windmills along I-65 between Indianapolis and Chicago as there are along the North Sea.  While just as hypnotic, they are not as romantic.  If you’re looking for romance however, there is a Lions Den Adult Bookstore off the highway if you long for Amsterdam’s Red Light District.  Smack dab in the middle of the state is Superbowlianapolis, which in a few weeks will be overtaken with drunk and bare chested American Football fans much like those at the Cyclocross Elite World Championships in Koksijde.

OHIO

Northeast Ohio for all practical purposes is on the Baltic Sea and is as snow choked and frozen as Siberia.  In Cleveland you’ll see people wearing Russian style fur hats.  To keep warm locals burn old LeBron James Cavalier basketball jerseys.  Columbus, a university town is the cultural epicenter of the region.  It’s much like Austria, if you see Cornhole and Beer-Pong on the same level as artwork and classical music from the masters.  Cincinnati, with rolling hills and a rich history of brewing, is essentially Germany with an Ikea store, history being the operative word. 

KENTUCKY

With the recent wet and cold weather Kentucky is easily divided into two regions: the UK in the North and Redneckia in the South.  Contrary to world beliefs, not everyone in Louisville owns a horse, but like Mercedes in Germany, they know someone who does.  Louisville is currently soggy.  Those from the UK that have a “thing” for Wellies would feel right at home this weekend at the Masters World Championships.  The further south you travel in Kentucky, the larger the hills get and the harder it’ll be to understand what people are saying.  Welcome to Redneckia, the gateway to Countrymusica.  Don’t worry.  Simply heed the “no trespassing” signs.  Other than that, Kentucky is very friendly and known for Southern Hospitality.  However, when the clerk at the petrol station affectionately calls you “Honey,” rest assured she’s just being friendly and isn’t interested in a date.  

A KY Ride Nut For Winter: Kincaid-Claysville-Kincaid

Down here, they get the Sunday paper on Tuesday, one of my buddies joked.  “Claysville Kentucky hello.”  Personally, I pictured Larry King greeting the next caller from Tobacco  Basket, USA not realizing earlier the caller just finished hanging Tobacco to dry in the barn and now settled in for a little T-V.  I rode there yesterday.  Tobacco harvesting season is in full swing in Kentucky.  While some fields were still full of the giant yellowing leaves, others lie bare adjacent to a big black barn packed from floor to ceiling with hanging drying leaves.  While I’m not a fan of smoking, I am a fan of tobacco farming.  With the small black barns and plants with leaves as big as your face, it’s romantic in a way.  I don’t know if it’s true or not, but someone once told me the tobacco barns are black to draw more sunlit heat to the leaves.  While I didn’t smell any yesterday, in just the right conditions late in the summer you can smell the tobacco aroma from the fields and get a tish of a buzz.  Harry, my teammate and longtime Tobacco Basket resident, wrestled unwrapping a Clif Bar outside the Claysville General Store.  “It’s a dying breed,” he said in his soft drawl referring to the store’s genuine dusty boot-carved wooden floorboards which were perfectly unlevel.  Even having to hike around a warshed out bridge (pictured), it was a perfect end of summer ride.

“You know what’s wrong with this ride?”  All together now in staccato, "Not…A…Goddamned…Thing!”  I hate to say it, but the waning daylight doesn’t lie.  It was officially the last ride of the summer.  This blog post is my way of storing a ride nut away for winter.  I’m trying to remember the little details:  Grimes Road- pure Kentucky chip and seal no wider than a bridge of a dozen computer screens, tobacco hanging in little black barns so close to the side of the road you could practically reach inside and rip off a plug, the remarkably friendly farm dogs that just wanted to run with us for a while and drought baked dry creek beds revealing the flat stone underneath.  I like to think of the topography of Kentucky as God’s second draft.  Like he took a map of a flat tree lined beautiful forest, crumpled it up, uncrumpled it, and said, “There…that’s better.”  Then there was that kid on the Huffy.

My friend Tony, who scouted this route south of Kincaid Lake State Park near Falmouth, said the kid, now a young man, was involved in an ATV accident.  As they’d say in rural Kentucky, he’s a little slow.  In a voice that I’ll recall as heartbreaking, he slurred in a drawl, “y’all wanna race?”  My buddy replied, “Naw man, we’re just out for a ride.”  We turned past a house littered with aging old bikes in the front yard.  One of them, a rusted singlespeed with a Schwinn-like curving top tube and an orange panel decal caught our eye, but we didn’t stop and headed down another single lane road toward Claysville.

I don’t know how many hills we climbed, but everyone paid off with a panoramic vista of a creek carved valley.  The ride was a lumpy loop of what seemed like 90% single lane roads which sort of paralleled the Licking River Valley from Kincaid Lake State Park to Claysville touching Pendleton, Harrison and Bracken counties.  Tony brought up his recent trip to North Carolina and Virginia.  While the mountains are nice with their brutally long climbs, heavenly high views and hair raising descents, he reasoned that this was better.  Just off a recent trip to Park City, Utah I knew what he meant.  They payoffs are more frequent in Kentucky, and the price isn’t as high.  In the mountains you might climb up over one or two or three ridges in a long ride, here I literally lost count of the ridgelines, vistas and how many times I said wow.

Before we had left I mentioned the ride to a few friends on FB.  One replied asking, “how far and how fast?”  I had no idea.  Looking back, I seemingly clipped into the ride blind.  Maybe that made it even more enjoyable.  I didn’t care how fast or slow we rode, how much my legs hurt, how long it’d really take, how many miles, or how many climbs there’d be.  I really didn’t know where we were.  Sure I was somewhere around Falmouth, but I didn’t know where the next turn, or climb or sketchy chip and seal descent would be.  I really didn’t care.  I put my trust in two of my Kentucky buddies and like a movie, the ride just played out before my eyes.