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| The long and not-so-winding road |
I check my radar app and the massive cloud system overhead is moving eastward. It looks like I’ll have clear skies in less than an hour. By the time I’m ready to roll, it’s barely drizzling out. And I’m off! Less than an hour later, the skies are decidedly not clear. The rain has instead picked up. Well, it’s not like meteorology is a science or anything (it’s more like astrology and horoscopes).
By lunchtime, it’s really coming down and the wind has picked up something fierce. I take refuge in a pizza joint with the intention of waiting out the brunt of what has developed into a full-fledged storm. After more than an hour, it hasn’t let up, and I can’t avoid getting back on the road any longer. I double check to see if there’s a hotel close by, but no luck. Gotta press ahead.
I don my rain shell and rain pants, and plunge into the thick of it. Only a few minutes later, I’m regretting my decision. While riding in the rain isn’t fun, it’s not all that bad. You get wet and deal with it. But, when the rain is cold and being driven into the side of your face by a relentless 20+ MPH wind, it can be somewhat trying. The real challenge is that wind.
It was blowing hard and steady out of the north. As I rode west, it pelted me from the side with stinging rain and did everything it could to impede my momentum. There were stretches where I had to lean to my right to keep from being blown over into the road. With no hills or woods to get in the way, the wind just shoots across the wide open spaces with impunity. The large ditches to left and right between the road and the corn fields had flooded – and there were waves! I’m not talking about ripples from the wind, but actual flippin’ waves! Who says there’s no surfing in Indiana?
On the few occasions I have to turn north, I’m fighting head-on into the teeth of the beast. I’m lucky if I can maintain 4 MPH. Visibility is reduced to less than ten feet, but this doesn’t matter much since I have to keep my head down and body low in an effort to cut into the oncoming gale. I think about dismounting and walking my bike into the torrent, but that doesn’t seem to be any better of a prospect. Nothing to do but count the number of feet until the next turn and grind ahead.
Turning west after a foray to the north is sweet relief. Hey, only one side of my face is getting pelted now, yay! I can almost get up to 7 MPH, woohoo! But then I take a turn to the south and my whole universe changes in an instant.
I slow down at the stop sign, crank around to the left, and just like that the storm ends. Wow, that was abrupt, I think as I pick up speed. The rain has all but stopped, and the wind has gone quiet. I knew it couldn’t last forever. Whew, glad that’s over and done with. I pedal on in my deluded state until I turn west again. Just like that, the storm is back. Singing rain, raging winds, the whole shebang. WTF!?
With my next southward turn, the calming effect occurs again. It’s uncanny. Turning 90 degrees makes the difference between heaven and hell. I sit up straight in the saddle and get pushed along at 10 MPH by the tailwind without having to pedal. Freaky! If I had a sail, I could be in Oklahoma by sundown!
This day came very close to taking the top spot for most difficult day away from Day 4, but even with all the struggles I logged a surprisingly big number of miles. Plus, this riding day ended before nightfall in a hotel instead of a campsite in a downpour. I kept telling myself that no matter how bad it got, as long as I was moving forward I’d reach my goal. It was just a matter of time. No matter how wet, cold and tired I was, I had endured worse and made it through. Screw you, storm! Is this the best you got?
When he rain finally did stop, I was treated to another new experience that I won’t soon forget. In the previous post, I talked about the wind as a peaceful element gently bringing out the subtle joys of nature. Today I was introduced to an entirely different aspect of this invisible force. As I rode, from behind me I heard a mournful wail rising in the distance. Is that what a tornado sounds like? I turned to look, but there were only dark clouds. And yet that low, forlorn sound that was part howl and part moan seemed to loom behind me, emanating more menace than anything I’d ever known before. I’ve heard the wind blow plenty of times back home, but it sounded nothing like it did on those exposed flatlands. I couldn’t quite admire the awful beauty of it in the moment as I was certain I was about to be crushed by it at any moment.
What I Learned: Indiana worms go on a bizarre kind of suicidal stampede during a storm. As I toiled along through the tempest, I kept noticing worms valiantly attempting to make their way across the road. The corpses of those who didn’t succeed were grim testimony to the harrowing danger these brave sojourners risked to get to the other side. Oddly, they were only crossing the east-west roads and were all traveling from north to south. I have no idea why they were so keen on making this death-defying pilgrimage only to get across a road to a patch of ground that was exactly the same as the one they were leaving. Dumb worms.
Distance Today: 68 miles
Total Distance: 1,039 miles
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