6-9-10 Day 12: Dunkirk, NY to Conneaut, Ohio: 81 miles in 6:32 hrs: Rt 20 west all the way.
Well, the weather certainly had a say-so in today’s ride all right, just about as much say-so as me! Woke up to a whole different day this morning as a front had moved in with strong winds out of the southwest and just a socked in sky and rain. Got out the computer and dialed in the weather online and saw the chances for the day looked pretty grim, BUT there was lower chances for rain later in the day. Decided to wait until around 11 AM to get going in hopes that I’d hit a dry spot in the day.
Packed up during on of those dry spots within the day and was ready by 10:30, just in time for the rain to come back. Now for this trip I’m not going to sit around and wait out a day. About the only way I’ll hang somewhere for this gig is if the rain is just a gullywasher downpour or if there’s lightning or sever storm warnings. Otherwise I’d just rather ride and make time on the road – that rather than sit in a tent and babble to myself or sit in a motel room and veg on TV all day. Regular old rain, what the hell – I can dry out later in the afternoon and continue to make time.
So anyway, this morning I didn’t really phret too much about getting pee’d on from the get go. My biggest fear was the wind, which was out of the southwest and just killer hard to ride into. Not only that but the morning wasn’t more than 58-degrees and couple that with the wind and it made for some very mild wind chill on my hands and face. Now by this time Rt. 20 is pretty damned flat, and would normally make for some great riding time. But with the wind and rain I was struggling to make even 11.5 mph. I’ll tell you, you get under like 12, 13 mph and it’s like riding in a time warp. It’s just so freaking slow that you feel you’re just not getting anywhere. You measure your progress just a mile at a time. Ride an hour and you’re 11 miles down the road. It’s rather disheartening, but there’s nothing I can do. If I were to ride like a gangbuster I’d be fried in a matter of 3 hours, and totally out of gas for the rest of the day. So my strategy is to just ride a mid to high Z2 the whole time, and spin a bit higher cadence rather than mash against the wind. Mashing means blowing up for sure.
To backtrack just a sec….I had originally wanted to ride on Rt 5 west out of Dunkirk, but what with the terrible weather, the scenic route was just useless to ride on because everything was kind of whited out. So I got back on Rt 20 because it has a giant berm that I could ride on and stay way out of traffic during the rain. Not nearly as scenic I was told as riding on Rt. 5, but it is what it is. I just needed to ride today. Scenery was tertiary! So I just tried to concentrate on a nice rhythm and stay far off to the right side of the berm because the rain clouds were so thick and all the cars were driving with their lights on. Every once in a while I’d get sprayed big time by the semi’s going by. By the time I reached Ripley, a couple of hours and pretty much on the NY-PA state line, the rain had stopped and cleared up enough so that I could take off my rain jacket.
Next stop Erie PA. And I had decided to ride Rt 20 right through the middle of Erie. Couldn’t be that bad? WRONG! Bad move. As I got to about 6 miles east of Erie I lost my precious berm and had to ride with traffic, on a road that switched back and forth from dbl lane to single lane. Traffic got super heavy and suddenly I was riding through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods. “Dumbass” I thought to myself, “too lazy to look for a bypass and this is what I get.” So I’m riding shit road, crap surroundings, amidst a gazillion traffic lights. Total hell. And that was going to be my lunch stop, in Erie – what a dingbat I am!
I ditched the lunch idea immediately and just worked on getting the hell out of that place. Now downtown Erie is a decent place, but Rt 20 kind of stayed to the south of the downtown so I was just languishing in hellish side of town. Light after light after light, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, riding over junk, potholes and dealing with angry drivers, I had it all. Just about this time the rain began again, this time starting as a light spitting. Took me nearly an hour to totally get well west of Erie and all the crazyness. By then the spitting had turned into a steady rain, and the whiteout conditions set in again.
Good news though was that the temps had risen by about 6-8 degrees, so I didn’t mind getting soaked as I rode along. Seemed like forever that I was still riding in PA, and not having a map of PA or Ohio I just waited and waited for the Welcome to Ohio sign. Mile after mile in the rain and still nothing. Hell, there were mileage signs that had Cleveland up there, but nothing for Conneaut or Ashtabula. Just kept ticking out a rhythm on the bike, in the rain, in the whiteout. Finally saw the mileage sign for Conneaut just before the the Ohio-PA line, and that’s about the time the rain stopped. Pulled in to town and treated myself to a cheap motel so I could strip off the soaking clothing and stand in a shower for 30 minutes!
Today was probably the only day of the trip that I’ll be able to ride in three different states in the same day – whoope! Plus, I did the whole ride without stopping to eat, and only one quick stop and that was to, well…….take a leak. By the time the rain started again, I just didn’t want to stop for fear of getting too chilled out to get back on the bike. So keeping the train rolling was my only option. The terrain I rode through today was almost exclusively Lake Erie wine country, with vineyards each and every mile of the way. And I would have totally enjoyed a leisurely ride along the lake and through the vineyards – BUT can’t control the weather. So what could have been a great ride was a survival ride. And today was THE first day of the trip where I didn’t have a butt load of climbing to day. Had to get up out of the saddle every once in a while just to give my butt a break with all the flats riding. Managed to eek out a 12.2 mph average with the gnarly cross headwind – and I felt good about that!
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