Social media may claim to make us more connected, but it has been a death knell to the art of descriptive, thoughtfully written trip reports. A ride this past weekend to Avella and to find out what really lurks on Shades of Death Road spurred Tim to dig into his MtLCCC email archives for this gem from 2007. It’s written by earlier member, Chuck Kahn, as he shares a hilariously worded day spent riding to Avella and a nearby goat track with Shoeless Joe.
Greetings,
Since it's been awhile since we've heard any updates from our brother Kevin, I thought I'd share some experiences from my own current vacation in southwestern Pennsylvania. It's a bit of a cumulative series of ride reports, but I wanted to break away from the traditional style of "Joe rode off solo for the victory, Tim crashed out after clipping a wheel of another rider who was bunny-hopping road kill at 25 mph without warning and I sat in for 4th place in my category." Having just completed a century with Shoeless Joe, I'm sure my finished product with look much less carefully crafted than any of Kevin's reports, but heck, most of the places I've been to haven't even heard of the internet let alone have webpages to link to. But I've had a drink resembling melted cremecicles and chowed some Kim Chi, so I'll try to make this interesting, nevertheless.
I've had the good pleasure to ride everyday all week, and the weather has been grand. 75 and sunny most days, although you would never be able to tell from looking at my episodic pre-ride partner, still dressed in tights, long jersey, jacket, head warmer, booties?? and long fingered gloves. Ok, episodic is me. He's like that everyday. But I digress.
I've ridden with regulars, old friends I haven't seen in a while, and new blood. Dave, Jeff, John, Joe, Horst these weekdays, in addition to the rest of the weekend crew. And Wayne, who if you don't know you may soon will.
I learned that Dave Bodnar got into the sport of big-chain-ring bike riding as a departure from running, in order to protect his knees. And that his daily diet consists of 1/2 a banana at breakfast, which produces enough energy to power him until dinner and bed. He'd like to eat the other half, recognizing this pattern sometimes affects his ability to down-shift and stand when the hill starts to bite, but his doggie Dylan also loves bananas, so he shares one between them.
When reviewing the 6000 page Operation Puerto dossier, it was discovered that the code name "Dylan" is in fact also referred to as "DB". This clarifies both Dave's pre-ride meal choice strictly of bananas and his utilization of Campagnolo components, as he has been quietly participating as a control in Dr. Fuentes' lesser known Primate research program. As a shared characteristic of all primates is an opposible thumb, it makes sense to utilize the Campagnolo thumb shifters as opposed to the lesser advanced STI shifters featured on other products.
Jeff has proven himself to be either an ingenious managing partner at his law firm, able to create free time from the office to go for morning rides while still keeping a packed schedule or a lousy player of the odds. In an arena where 95% of all cases get settled in arbitration or other pre-trial settlements, he's managed to book himself for trial for three consecutive Fridays. When the cases miraculously settle, what else is there to do but ride? I'm putting my money on evil genius, for the record, but either way it was great to have him along!
Which brings us to Shoeless. When Joe offered to bring Dave Bodnar the C&O Railroad DVD to the Coffee Tree, he made vague reference to returning to his home in Moon Township via West Virginia. Calling his bluff, I accompanied him on Tuesday for a sun-filled 92 mile jaunt into Wierton, WVa and back. Amazingly enough, despite his employment as a Fed Ex driver (not Fed Ex Ground, mind you), he was unaware of the navigational powers of the GPS. Ummm, shiny! So we relied on painted Rural Delivery route numbers as our course direction. Of course, as a result, I was unaware of the upcoming PA State Line or Allegheny County line sign that sprung up out of nowhere at the top of 2 separate agonizing mile long climbs, contributing to my inability to take either! He was kind enough to gift me the West Virginia sign, although I suspect the Fed Ex policy prohibiting their drivers from making left turns left him momentarily ambivalent, allowing me to make my move.
Shoeless allotted us 6 hours CLOCK time to complete our century today. Hard time limit, the guy needed to get done in order to go to work! Again without GPS, relying on the kindness of strangers to get us through the tricky parts. Important COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT #1: Do not ask for directions to ANYWHERE at the Avella gas station. Poor Nick is still rumored to be missing after last year's misinformed attempt to make it back to Mt. Lebanon through Bavington. "Yes, the road's now open." Sadly, it was not.
So despite that error in judgement last year, we again relied on the navigation aide of "Chuck-o", the Avella socialite at the gas station. Chuck-o engaged us in conversation while we happily munched our snacks and refilled our bottles. Chuck-o apparently is a recent bike aficionado, having upgraded his Murray for a Diamondback mountain bike with so many gears it just "pulls you up the hills." Chuck-o had given up on motor bikes after crashing twice, but apparently remains vertically challenged as is his wife who recently broke her elbow falling off her bicycle. "I'm gonna wear elbow pads so when I fall off my bike I can land on my elbows and not my knees" he declared. "You can't wear knee pads and ride a bike."
Chuck-o questioned Joe "There was a guy here last time riding a Cannodale, said he was going to buy a $4,000 TREK for the next time. When I saw the TREK I thought it was him. You're not him?" Joe, looking ashamedly at his TREK 1500 said meekly "no", then sought for a way to bring his Pinarello Dogma FP frame sitting in his basement or his pending acquisition of a Look 595 into the conversation. But to no avail. Chuck-o was on to rhetorical questions. "Why do your shorts say 'Quick-Step' if you're riding a bike?"
With well-wishes that we not break a knee or elbow, we set off in the direction they promised was the best way to Atlasburg to continue our ride. Two miles into the Dolomites of the region, our Giro turned legit, as the road turned into an unpaved goat-track, climbing with enormous pitch to the ridgetop. Ostriches, cows and chickens served only moderately more useful at giving directions along the way than the Avello gas station crew. The good thing about riding with Joe (and me, I guess) is that you always get these bonus "Epic Miles". The road is never impassable, just off-piste. And we were never "lost." While we didn't know EXACTLY where we were, it was quite obvious which way to go when we came to the intersection of Bethel Ridge Road and Shades of Death road. Seriously:
See the "alternate" story for the relevant issues at hand. So with that motivation, and that our average speed had been dwindling as a result of the two mile gravel climb, Joe set out to immediately restore our ride's average speed.
Once back to the relative civilization of Eldersville we were able to avoid the blue-haired drivers and maintain flat land pulls of 26-30 mph, with a headwind. Joe seems to approach century rides just like he's doing a Sunday ride. Fast. Just longer. COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT #2: Joe's planning to organize a double century with a plan for this to be done in 10 hours. "Ride time" he assured me. My query "20 mphC average over 200 miles?" only reassured him his math was in fact correct. Sign on at your own risk.
Well, I'm proud to say that we did in fact make it to our departure point with enough time for him to prepare for work in time. He logged 115 miles back to his home with the unfair advantage of a full warm-up riding into the Coffee Tree before the ride. I finished with 100.06 miles for my first century of the season and a 6 day vacation total approaching 390 miles. Looking forward to another spin tomorrow!
Thanks for reading. No trees were killed in the creation of this report, so simply hit delete if it's not to your liking. See you at the Tree.
Chuck