So Holly wanted to do her first century, right? She asked me to ride the Firecracker Century with her in Greenville on Saturday, July 11, since Jason was doing SAG and tech support. 100K in the morning, then lunch and 30-some miles in the afternoon. http://www.moonlightramble.org/events/5star.aspx
The weather report called for scattered showers but we all left Jason’s house at 5:30 am and made it to Greenville in plenty of time with no rain. We were going to wait ’til the last moment to register and pay so we could back out if the rain was too bad but we got impatient, paid our $40 and started about 7:10.
To start we had to ride back west on 140 for 17 miles to Alhambra. Made good time because we had a nice tail wind. A few drops of rain before we got to the first rest stop but not bad.
Once we got under the shelter at the rest stop the rain really poured down. We waited for a few cloudbursts then got impatient again and started out. We just got to the road when Jason showed up so we stopped to talk to him. We said we’d see him at the next rest stop (only 5 miles away) and before we went too far it started to really pour.
When we got to I-55 we noticed that the orange triangles marking the trail had changed to red dots. We saw another guy out in the country (Byron) and hooked up with him for a while. We got to another small town and looked for the rest stop. We saw “rest stop” and an arrow on the road but all we saw was a filling station and we didn’t stop.
We kept going, following the red arrows wondering what happened to Jason. The third rest stop wasn’t until mile 50 so we kept going and never saw Jason or another rider.
Our road dead-ended into another (bigger) road with LOTS of bicycles going by. There were ladies giving out bottled water and saying, “Only 2 1/2 miles to go.” We asked them if they were the rest stop and they said “Yes.” Holly said, “Are those people on the afternoon loop?” and the ladies kind of stared blankly. Finally they said, “This the Tour de Donut.” http://www.stauntonil.com/events/communityevents.aspx#
We said, “Well, where are we?” “You’re in Staunton.” “How far are we from Greenville?” “About 40 minutes…by car.” Apparently the two rides, on the same day, overlapped for about 1/4 mile close to I-55. We couldn’t look at our maps because it was pouring down rain and we just assumed that the Firecracker people got tired of drawing triangles and started drawing dots intead.
So, after after a frustrating cell phone call trying to explain to the Firecracker people where we were and that we needed a ride we started up the road toward Staunton to wait for SAG. (Jason was on another call.) Holly, of course…to make her day complete…immediately got a flat. After fixing that, we went up to the corner. After about a half hour, Byron showed up and said, “At least I’m not the only one! I’ve been riding through Staunton trying to figure out where I am.” We told him there was a SAG coming so we all waited.
When the SAG got there, he only had a 2-bike rack. He said, “Well, maybe we can get 3 bikes on it” and grabbed my bike. Meanwhile, Holly finally got a hold of Jason and was talking to him. I grabbed my bike back and Holly said Jason told her we were only anout 30 miles from Bethalto so we let Byron go with the SAG and started down Renken Road, the opposite direction from all the Tour de Donut folks who were finishing their ride.
They kept asking us if we were doing it again. Naturally we said, “Yes.” The ride into Bethalto to Jason’s house was the best part of the ride. Not a century but about 67 miles. Holly rode strong all day. She could’ve done 100 easily.
Guess we’ll try again sometime.