The First 50 Miles

On Friday I went on my first fully loaded bike camping/touring trip from downtown St. Pete to Starkey Wilderness Preserve. Over the course of two days, I rode 100 miles! My longest trip to date.

I started off late. I had all of my gear out, but it took longer than I anticipated to figure out how to get it on my bike.  I got everything secured, and I thought I did a good job of packing everything up. When I rolled up to pick my friend up on the way, I thought I saw a glimmer of laughter cross his face, which made me think that I’d done something wrong… When I asked him if he had wanted to laugh when I pulled up he said it was because of the rearview mirror that attaches to my sunglasses. Nerdy he said.

Maybe, but I do appreciate it when I have to ride in traffic. It’s nice to keep my eyes on the road if I need to get over.

We started rolling and stopped at a nearby diner for a BOGO breakfast. My bike fell over in the parking lot. Seems my kickstand is only really functional if the wheel doesn’t turn. I fashioned a strap to help with that in the future.

After breakfast, we started riding the Pinellas Trail. We rode into a pretty strong headwind. There are a number of overpasses the first 10-15 miles from St. Pete. I made it up and over them, and mostly felt good. But I was much slower than my traveling partner. He’d ride ahead for awhile, and then pause to wait for me. We’d take a break, snack, stretch, chat. Then move on.

During one of our breaks, I readjusted my gear. I had stacked two bags tall on my back rack. I readjusted so they were side-by-side instead, to lower the center of gravity.

On we rolled. I got more and more tired. The wind felt terrible. This was the first time I’d ridden any bike fully loaded (an estimated 70 lbs between the bike and the gear). Our average speed through the first day of the trip was less than 8 miles per hour.

As we were rolling out of a break, I asked to stop again because I was pretty sure my back brake was rubbing. I remember having an inkling it might have been before, but I’d added some air to my tires and figured that was what was slowing me down. When you are already tired, having your back brake rub is a sure way to make you even more tired. It was, indeed, rubbing. Once my friend helped fix that, riding felt a little easier. I wasn’t much faster, but at least I wasn’t fighting myself anymore.

During one break, when I was feeling really tired, I was trying to figure out why I was doing this to myself. I was pushing my body hard. I felt miserable. I felt guilty because I was going so slow and my friend was so much faster. He wasn’t hassling me and was incredibly patient, yet I felt that personal pressure. 

More than once while riding my mind went through a series of questions.

• What am I doing?
• What am I trying to prove?
• Who am I trying to prove it to?

I realized I needed to get out of that headspace. I started a sing-song chant about all of the good things about the trip and my future Canada trip.

• I’m doing something good for my body.
• Happy dogs, tails wagging as we pass.
• Looks of amazement at all of our gear.
• Cardinals and bluejays crossing our path.
• A heron racing us and leaving us behind.
• People asking where we were going and where we came from.
• Jacaranda trees in full, purpley-pink bloom.
• People letting us through crosswalks even if we haven’t yet hit the crossing button.
• Beautiful blue skies with moderate temperatures.
• Good conversation with a good friend…

With each rotation of my pedal, my chant grew longer. It did help my mood.

Though at various times during the trip an f-bomb or two made me feel better instead. And I cried twice on this trip. I guess you’ve just got to go with the flow.

Even though I had looked at the route a bunch of times, I somehow had it in my head that it was ~40. It was more like 50, which is something you want to know when it takes an hour (or more) to go 10 miles. The hour grew later, and final check-in time at the park was 5:00. At 3:00 we were 17 miles out. At my pace, that would put us there after 5:00. Thank goodness for technology, since I was able to call and let them know we were on our way. The guy said it was cool, and the pressure was off.

About 12 miles from the park, the Pinellas Trail ended.

That’s right. I rode the entire Pinellas Trail from start to finish and back again!! Woot!

But it didn’t feel so good to have to take urban paths to get to our site. We rode the sidewalk along Alt-19, which is really curvy, bumpy, and narrow. In hindsight, I would have just taken the bike path. Yes, there is heavy traffic, but at least we would have avoided some of the bumpiness. (My girly bits are not happy today.)

The wind was at our nose the entire trip. But we were getting close, and the anticipation helped keep me pedaling. We finally ended up on less traveled roads. There was no bike lane, but traffic wasn’t bad and cars were accommodating.

Finally, we crossed into the park. Huzzah! We made it! It was nearly 6:00. We started at close to 10:00 from the breakfast joint.

We set up camp. I was slow going at that too, 1) because my brain was mush from being so tired and 2) because I’d only put up my tent two other times. But I got it set up before dark. While I was doing that, my friend got his tent up, got some firewood together, and cooked up some macaroni… Ahhh, traveling with a companion. Definitely nice to be able to split the labor. Not to mention sharing stories and jokes.

My friend helped me try out my camping stove, and once we got it going I cooked up the cheesy brats we brought. We popped open the PBRs we got at a gas station a while back and got a fire going. We talked until we ran out of wood and then went to bed by about 9:30. I opened up the rain cover on my tent and fell asleep watching the stars.

This bicycling thing is turning into one of those big, life-altering events. Part of me wonders why I keep picking those sorts of things to do. I know I can do hard things. At the very least my Masters and Ph.D. support that, since both of those feats contained huge mental hurdles. My victories in counseling after my divorce further support my willingness to challenge myself.

But it seems like I keep trying to go one bigger. Will I always need to keep doing new things like this? Will cycling be the one big thing I can just stick with? Am I trying to one-up myself? Am I trying to prove something to myself or the world?

Maybe I’ll figure it out by the time I come back from Canada. 

Day two of the ride in tomorrow’s blog!