Christopher Rowe

A Thousand Miles Across the Commonwealth

This is a post about a bicycle and a bunch of bicycle rides. If that’s not your jam, fret not, I’m planning a writing update over the weekend.

Onward.

In the next day or two, I’m taking delivery on a 2020 Trek Émonda SL 6 Disc full carbon road bike. The picture is from Trek’s online catalog, but mine will have minimal modifications (it will have pedals and a computer mount, for example), so this will give you a good idea. The only substantial change to the stock bike I’m making is swapping out the 172.5mm cranks for 165mm versions, on the advice of the eerily competent bike fitter I visited in Louisville last spring.

I’ll be riding this bike a lot on my own and on club rides, once weather permits (it’ll take awhile before I’ll be willing to ride my new baby on wet roads). In addition to those regular rides, though, I’ve registered for nine “event” rides throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, all in Kentucky. Those event rides total fourteen days of riding, just over a thousand miles, and an amount of vertical climbing that I’m choosing not to think about at this time. Thus, “A Thousand Miles Across the Commonwealth.”

Those of you in the know, well, know that a thousand miles is not a particularly great amount for even a casual club cyclist to aim for, and I certainly plan to hit multiples of that number in 2020. I just like the sound of it as my “title” for this “project.”

Here are the Kentucky event rides I’ll be participating in.

Saturday, April 18. The Redbud Ride starts and finishes in London. This is the kickoff event of the five-ride Kentucky Cycling Challenge. If the weather cooperates, it should feature spectacular views of Eastern Kentucky’s mountainsides spotted with blooming redbud and dogwood trees. I’m riding the 71 mile route.

Sunday, April 26. The Tour de Lou is a 62 mile ride (or “metric century”) that takes in many of the sights of the Commonwealth’s largest city. I’m most looking forward to riding through the parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, and along the tree-lined parkways that connect them. This ride is part of the Kentucky Derby Festival.

Friday, May 22 through Sunday, May 24. The Horsey Hundred is the signature event of the Bluegrass Cycling Club and the largest annual cycling event in the Commonwealth, drawing thousands of riders from all over North America. I’ll ride a tune-up ride of approximately 25 miles on Friday, an “imperial century” of 100 miles on Saturday, and a 75-mile route on Sunday. The weekend rides start and finish in Georgetown and take riders throughout the rolling hills and past the scenic horse farms of the central Bluegrass. The Horsey is the second stop in the Kentucky Cycling Challenge.

Saturday, June 27. The Licking Valley Century out of Alexandria is a new event sponsored by the venerable Cincinnati Cycling Club and constitutes the third stop on the Challenge. It takes in the ridges and valleys along the Licking River, which drains Northeast Kentucky into the mighty Ohio.

Saturday, August 15. The fourth stop of the Challenge is the 100-mile Rock the Crater ride (no website that I can find) out of Middlesboro, in Southeast Kentucky, right on the Tennessee border. Middlesboro is located within a mile of the famous Cumberland Gap and has a couple of interesting claims to fame. It is (allegedly) the birthplace of ragtime music and (definitely) located entirely within an enormous meteorite crater.

Friday, August 21 through Sunday, August. The Derby City Fondo, put on by the Louisville Bicycle Club, is the successor event to that club’s My Old Kentucky Home cycling weekends. I’ll be riding the 20-mile Friday tuneup, the century route on Saturday, and a 40-mile ride on Sunday. All of these start and finish at the Milewide Beer Company near downtown Louisville.

Saturday, September 12. Starting and finishing on the Ohio in Maysville, the Limestone Cycling Tour is the century that marks the fifth and final stop of this year’s Kentucky Cycling Challenge. Maysville is a fascinating place. Daniel Boone was one of the founders and it was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. The slave auction scene in Uncle Tom’s Cabin was inspired by such an event witnessed at the court house by author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Saturday, September 19. Elizabethtown is the host city for the Hub City Tour. I’ll be riding the century route. Of all these rides, these will be along the roads I know least well.

Saturday, October 3 and Sunday October 4. 2020 marks the 51st edition of the oldest continually held cycling event in Kentucky, the Red River Rally. The Rally consists of two days of riding through the astonishingly beautiful Natural Bridge State Park and surrounding Red River Gorge. I’ll be riding the 64 mile and 43 mile routes on the successive days, and hoping for some spectacular fall colors along the bluffs.

Starting with the blooming redbuds and ending with the bright colors of autumn sounds like a great way to bookend the cycling year to me.

Y’all come with.

I like to wrangle

Hey, I'm on the front page of kentucky.com. A life's dream, realized. Here's an article about one of my gigs. It'll be in the Lexington Herald-Leader tomorrow.

On my mark...

Over the last few months, I've got some coaching and even started a race team. Now it's time to start the season. I'm still 25 pounds heavier than Merckx and Indurain were when they were at their best, but actually, and I realize this may come as a shock, there are other differences between me and those guys in terms of our cycling as well.

So, I've pre-registered, and on Saturday I'll take the start at the annual L'Esprit Road Race near Louisville. I'm in the beginner category, which means three laps around this course. On the profile, I've marked the place where I believe I'm most likely to explode (figuratively, Barb!) on the second or third lap.

I'm a demon and I'm gonna be chasin' after someone

Big, big, bicycling day here in the Athens of the West.

First of all, through the generosity of my family (yesterday was my birthday as well as another locally popular gift giving occasion), I was able to contract with a cycling coach to guide my training in 2008. It's not too late to make even the smallest Paypal contribution to the cause, readers. Ahem.

Then, one of my side projects finally propagated. The Lexington Bike Race Calendar has an URL (pronounced "Earl" in these parts, thus the "an") that makes up in specificity what it lacks in elegance. Also lacking in elegance is the current logo. Want to win a fabulous prize basket* mailed directly to your home? Come up with something better.

And then this came in the mail, yay! It's my 2008 cycling license, which qualifies me to participate in any sanctioned bike race in the country. I'm part of the Olympic movement! In the tiniest possible way, but still.

I'm also leading, at least starting off the season, the newly revived race team of the Bluegrass Cycling Club. We're looking for riders in Central Kentucky, especially riders new to racing (like, y'know, me). And we'll be competing in a bunch of the races listed on that calendar.

* Prizes will actually be mailed in a box, not a basket, and will most likely consist of whatever books, comics and other stuff are laying close to my desk if and when anybody actually bothers to come up with a cool logo.

At least as cool as a shiny rocket trophy...

Hey, check this out. The organization I work with to promote cycling in Lexington, Yellow Bikes, won the Smiley Pete Award. Smiley Pete was a beloved town dog back in the mid-twen, and his name is evoked whenever people do things downtown just to make life a little more fun.

The citation accompanying the award, which will be displayed at Pedal Power Bike Shop, says it was awarded "for taking a risk and introducing these alternative modes of transportation to downtown Lexington. Yellow Bikes have served to make a true statement about the health and vitality of our community and give Lexington a more international and caring flare."

They made this little movie to play at the presentation ceremony (which I missed 'cause we were in Jamaica). Sorry about the trial software words floating in the middle--it was the only way I could figure out to get it to upload. The narrator's voice kind of trips me out--I can't help thinking that he's getting ready to say something like "but now, as the cubs grow ever more independent, the mother bear must spend all of her time laying on an extra layer of fat for the coming winter months."

These guys...

These guys better not break my heart. (Be sure and check out the pictures--they seem to have hired a giantess to run the auction at the end of the presentation!)

----

"If we really want to keep doping off of this team, off of the stage, out of   cycling, we have to win within the context of humanity. It's simply saying that   some days are great, some days are not. The wins will come to this team, but   when no one expects it. And when everyone thinks we'll be there, we may fail.   To agree to not dope, to agree to never let that enter the context the team   is to agree to fail sometimes. To agree to let your fans down sometimes is to   agree to the fallibility of the human body… but to abide by humanity is also   to go beyond anyone's dreams on the occasion, to celebrate the joy, the rarity,   and the preciousness of winning when it does occur, and to celebrate with honesty.   You have a choice in cycling: you can choose to turn a blind eye and cheer for   glory at all costs… or you can choose to choose to cheer humanity and celebrate   the rarity of victory and perfection."  --Jonathan Vaughters

Warms my heart on a cold, cold night

When I was a teenager, I had a summer job through some kind of youth program in Columbia and I would ride my bike into town from our family farm off the old Campbellsville Road. It was a pretty sure bet that on both my morning and evening commutes, two or three folks in passing cars (or, more likely, trucks) would stop to ask me if I needed a ride. They really couldn't imagine that I would be riding my bike to town by choice.

Now there's a United States Cycling Federation sanctioned road race in Adair County, and I hope something happens to you soon that makes you feel the way that this makes me feel.

TTT

Cycling is the most beautiful sport in the world. This is mostly true because the "pitch" for road cycling consists largely of the countryside of six continents. It's also true because the machines themselves are so elegant and because of the colors and designs of the various team and championship jerseys. The action of the race itself is beautiful; the tactics, the effort.

Nothing brings all those elements together quite like the team time trial. I won't go into detail about the rules and definitions of a TTT (this Wiki article does a pretty good job of that); suffice it to say that the teams race as tightly drilled units, against the clock, instead of the entire peloton being on the road in one great mass.

I encourage all of you to watch this year's ProTour Team Time Trial in the lovely city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The race will be broadcast Sunday afternoon (eastern U.S. time) for free on cycling.tv, so anyplace you can score a broadband connection is a place you can watch the race.

If you haven't seen one before, you'll definitely be in for a treat. Seriously, they look really damned cool.

Let's give a big hand to the Ditty Bops!

Some reasons the fabulous Ditty Bops are my new favorite band:

• The have cartoon images of themselves as lady pirates on their website.
• They play groovy tunes.
• One of which is "Walk or Ride."
• They're touring the USA via bicycle, and posting a detailed diary about the journey as they go.
• The slogan for their tour is We Shall Ride Under a Black Flag and Call the Streets Our Empire.

Like sugar and spice

Yesterday, the Tour de Georgia kicked off with a 129 mile stage that saw riders racing from Augusta to Macon.

The starter's pistol was fired by Augusta's most famous native son, and you know what every picture does, don't you?