Two Wheel Blogs

Friday 6.11: Downtown St. Louis

I had an hour to kill before a recording session at KDHX, so I parked my car at the station, suited up, and set out. I took Grand north to the SLU campus, then headed east toward downtown. As I passed the park area that faces Union Station and City Hall, I could see people busily preparing for the Susan B. Komen Race For The Cure, an event that would be held the next day.

I've spent my share of time around race sites, so I'm familiar with the trappings. At every race, you see tables marked "Packet Pickup" or "Registration." At the Komen, you see one you don't see anywhere else: "Survivors."

I ran the Komen race back in 2005, and I plan to run it again someday. As I rode on, I reflected on the "Survivors" sign. Breast cancer makes my knee surgery look like a blister. I need inspiration to motivate me, to keep me going. Few things motivate like the example of people who have overcome adversity -- especially when it threatens to take their life.

Saturday 6.12: Around St. Louis

I hesitated to ride at all today. Storm clouds, building all day, had amassed by mid-afternoon when I set out. I tried to ride away from the dark patches of sky and toward the clear ones. And I did pretty well for a while. I ended up heading south out of Maplewood and soon found myself in parts unknown.

I'm not from St. Louis. Though I've lived in the area -- originally Webster Groves, then Edwardsville -- since 1977, I have never been to a lot of places that native St. Louisan's know like their own reflection. So when I do these "whereve the Bike St. Louis lane takes me" ride, I always end up riding in places I have heard of but never visited before.

I was lucky. I rode through a lot of places where it had rained, but nowhere where it was raining. After riding for an hour, I considered calling it quits and heading for the Folk School, my final destination, where I would attend a concert at 7:00 p.m. But it wasn't raining where I was, so I headed for downtown St. Louis, then up the Riverfront Trail and across the McKinley Bridge to Illinois. As I crossed the bridge, I passed a couple who were out for a recreational ride.

As I turned around and headed back across the bridge towards Missouri, I could see an enormous curtain of rain covering downtown St. Louis and heading straight for me. I had a matter of minutes to get under cover. I rode down the ramp up to the bridge, then sought cover underneath it. As I surveyed my surroundings, next to a set of railroard tracks, I saw orange plastic fencing ringing an excavated area. On it were bright red and yellow signs saying "Warning: Radioactive Materials." Great!

Fortunately, I would not be there long. After about twenty minutes, the rain let up enough for me to ride, so I mounted up and got out of there. I headed toward downtown, hoping to reach a Metrolink station before the next wave of rain moved through. As I approached downtown, I passed the Bikers' Paradise, a large bar/tattoo establishment catering to bikers. "Hey," I figured, "They're bikers. I'm a biker. If it starts to rain, I could just hang out here." And I laughed at the idea of me in my cycling gear rubbing elbows with denim- and leather-clad bikers at the bar. I rode on.

And no sooner had I passed the bar than it started to rain -- hard. Fortunately, I was right near the big green Vess bottle across from the Edward Jones Dome. Right next to it was an old building with a large awning overhanging it. I headed straight for it and was soon under the cover of its canopy. This was a much better place to ride out the storm than my previous location, and I was very glad that I chose to ride when I did. I spent the next thirty to forty minutes in relative comfort as it rained and rained and rained.

Finally, it started to clear. If I had to ride all the way to Maplewood, I figured, I could make it in time for the concert. Then I remembered: Metrolink! I headed straight for Busch Stadium, intending to ride it to Maplewood, then biking the two miles to the Folk School. I selected my fare, inserted my $5 bill, and ... it spit it back out. I tried again. Same result. My bill was too wet for the machine to accept it. So it was back on the bike and off to Maplewood.

I picked up the nearest Bike St. Louis lane and headed west. As I approached the Central West End, I saw a familiar pair of riders approaching from a side street: it was the couple I'd seen on the McKinley Bridge about an hour earlier. "Hey," I called to them, "McKinley Bridge!" They smiled in recognition. I rode through Forest Park to Tamm Avenue, then to McCausland and finally, Manchester. With my wet $5 bill, I bought a sandwich for supper, then rolled down to the hill to the Folk School, arriving in time to get changed before the concert.

Sunday 6.13: Belk Park Loop

Having done two "sightseeing" rides in the past two days, I figured I should try to ride hard -- or, at least, harder. It was clear and dry when I got up, so I suited up and headed for Belk.

Right away, I could tell the wind was out of the southeast. This meant one thing: fast first half, slow second half. And I managed to get through the park at about the 27-minute mark. I made the turn onto Moreland at 32:00 and, in doing so, I turned directly into the wind. To complete the loop in under an hour, I've always had to reach the 143 intersection by at least the 40:00, preferably under. Today, that would mean covering the Moreland in eight minutes, and that was not going to happen. But I attacked it with what I had, and I managed to reach the intersection in ten minutes.

I kept my pace up as much as I could as I headed down the Watershed Trail. After climbing Union and the final push to home, I arrived with a time of 1:03. That afternoon, I gave my bike a much-needed bath.

Monday 6.14: Mueller Road

Steve-o and I rolled out ten to fifteen minutes ahead of the main group. While we've always taken turns pulling, we've always changed when it suited us to do so, usually at the point where the road turns in a new direction. But tonight, Steve kep his eye on the Cat Eye, and we changed every two miles.

We had a good, fast first half, as the wind favored our direction. But when we turned onto Portage, we were heading straight into the wind. Our pace, previously in the low 20s, dropped to 17-18 mph. Oddly enough, with our two-mile rotation, I ended up doing most of my pulls into the wind. And that was fine with me. Steve-o has dragged my a** around this route and Wednesay night's Chesterfield route more times than I care to count. If I took more harder pulls tonight, that's only fair.

We finished the 30.25-mile route in 1:31 for a pace of 19.7. We probably could have broken 20 mph if Steve hadn't ridden a century on Saturday. Still, we were satisfied with our effort. He's probably going to do another century (actually, the same one, the Ronald McDonald House Ride) next Saturday, after which he's going to take next Monday off. So if I ride Mueller next week, I'll be riding it alone.