Rescue Me

Those were the words I said to Robin on the phone while I sat hunched over my handlebars some 30 miles outside of Iowa City. Being the wonderful person she is, she dropped Harry Potter and picked me up instead. So I gave her directions to a gas station in Lone Tree and hoped that I would make it there before she did. After I hung up the phone I limped north at about 11 miles per hour, on a flat road, and with a tail wind. Each seam in the concrete brought a pang of nausea. Both of my quadriceps had been cramping for some time, so any attempts at standing brought little lightening bolts through them. And just recently, my left hamstring started to cramp also. Dealing with cramps from both sides of a leg is not much fun. Plus couldn't stretch my back by riding without hands or my hamstring would cramp. And of course, I was out of water. This is not what I had planned when I left the house hours before.

It was a beautiful sunny late morning, with light winds out of the south. I had just finished watching a rather grueling mountain stage in the Tour de France. I had not been on the bike for a week and I was excited to have nothing to do that day but ride. I headed out on a Lone Tree loop with a vague idea of heading further south and east, perhaps to a town called Letts that I had scoped out on the map. Letts is about 38 miles out of town, so riding there and back would make for a nice mid-distance ride.

My initial thoughts on the ride were that I would just cut it short and take the lower mileage route. But when I approached the edge of the loop I was feeling quite good and still had some food and water, so I figured I would at least go a little more. I continued on towards Muscatine with the intention of turning south and going towards Letts. From G-28 I turned onto Cranston road. I was not sure if this was correct, but it looked quiet and inviting, so I went. It turned to sandy gravel a few miles later, but it ultimately got me to the correct road and eventually to Letts.

Letts is a quiet town with a population of 398. There are a few blocks of neat old houses and a very nice looking city park. The town was rather dead though, I saw two kids outside, and that was it. And for a town that size I was expecting perhaps a general store or a gas station, what I found was a Pepsi machine that had a giant hole in the plastic front. Thankfully it still worked. Unfortunately it was out of water. So I got a Mountain Dew and a Sierra Mist. They tasted quite good, and kept me feeling good too. But with only these sugary drinks and no more food I thought I should look around the area for something more substantial. Knowing Lone Tree was quite a few miles away I foolishly road just a bit further south in search of something that sold cheese and crackers and Little Debbies, or if I was really lucky, slices of pizza. No luck, just a large, crowded state highway.

On my way back through Letts I double checked the streets to make sure there was no establishment that I had missed; but the results were the same, Pepsi machine, closed bar, closed Post Office, and a closed Library. I did see an extremely large funeral procession heading towards the cemetery. This explained why I did not see any person or open signs in the town.

Riding back towards Iowa City started out pretty good. I had a small tailwind, a couple sugary drinks, and little bit of water. Only the tailwind lasted. The demise crept on slowly over the next hour or so. It was not nearly as dramatic as I made it sound earlier, but I still felt thoroughly rotten.

All in all I ended up riding 70 miles in about four and a half hours. Pretty close to my original goal, of course I was still over 20 miles away from home when my ride came. From this I learned that I need to drink more (I wasn't too dumb on this one, I did have three large bottles with me) on hot days, which I guess for me is anything starting around the mid to high 80s. I should look into bail out options when attempting to ride to unknown towns, or at the very least bring more food (again, I had three granola bars, not enough though). And finally, don't try to ride your bike for four or five hours when your fitness levels have been declining for the past many weeks from only riding about 1.35 times a week. Not enough.