2019 - Bicycle Travel Weekend - a group camping ride

The Adventure Bicycling Association has sponsored Bicycle Travel Weekend on the first weekend of June since 2016 and this was the third year Nathan and Kristen Dinges have organized CIBA’s participation.   The goal of Bicycle Travel Weekend is to expose more riders to bicycle travel, and Nathan and Kristen have done this for dozens’s of CIBA members.  A first this year, along with 8 riders starting from Beech Grove, 4 riders started from the Columbus (Indiana) area and joined us at the campground in St. Paul.

Picture perfect passing Red Mills

The touring experience of this year’s riders ranged from 40 plus years and thousand of miles to first timers riding with borrowed gear.  This also meant that some of the riders were on purpose built touring bikes, including some of the latest features like disc brakes, gravel-ready wheels and full touring bits; while the first timers were just on a road bike with a rack added.  This lead to lot of experience sharing, with each rider relating their trips and gear selection.

A short portage across some construction

After a 10 am start on Saturday, we rode under dry and sunny skies along a route that followed the back roads from Beech Grove to Shelbyville, with a few short detours and a portage over railroad crossing construction.   In Shelbyville, we stopped for lunch at the Bear Drive-in, and we all welcomed the cold mugs of root beer.  After lunch, it was another  15 miles of riding to the Paradise Campground on the Flat Rock River.

In bike camping, just like bicycling, it’s all about the weight you save, and what keeps you comfortable. A wide selection of backpacking tents went up in our riverside campsite, and out came a variety of light weight chairs.  After the tents were up, most of us hopped on our now emptied bikes, and rode the mile back to St. Paul for additional groceries and refreshments the night and morning.  Back in camp, and after showers,  the cookstoves came out, and we prepared our own meals, comparing notes and favorites.  Dinner was finished a few shared deserts came out as the sun went down.

Dinner time - the table cloth was a small touch of elegance

After dinner, it was relaxing and storytelling around the campfire till almost 11, before we all retreated to our tents.  It only took a few minutes for a pair of visitors, 4 legged and masked, to come out and investigate the remains of our dinner.   There were just a few scraps left, and I did learn that raccoons don’t like strobing, 800 lumen headlights, and they moved on for the night.

Our night was otherwise quiet, and the threatened storms never came south of I-70. In the morning,  the stoves fired up again for a mix of hot breakfasts and coffee, along with the juice and fruit we had picked up the night before.   We then broke camp, and after a group picture, including the poster that Nathan and Kristen had carried, we were all on our way.  Our Columbus contingent now had the tailwind, and we had the headwind for ride back to Beech Grove.   The ride home included a second breakfast stop in Shelbyville, and then a final ice cream stop, before finishing back in Beech Grove.

Group shot before we were on the way home.

Thanks again to Nathan and Kristen for organizing the ride, and I look forward to joining them again for next year’s Bicycle Travel Weekend Ride, the first weekend of June.

2019 - The Tour de Mulberry Century - CIBA Gran Sport Ride

A version of this Ride Report appears in the June, 2019 edition of CIBA News, the newsletter of the Central Indian Bicycling Association – CIBAride.org.

A total of 7 riders participated in the first CIBA Gran Sport ride of 2019 (and the first under the new adopted guidelines), on Sunday April 27, 2019.  Starting from the north side of Carmel, the Tour de Mulberry century has been a spring tradition for a circle of north side riders (and my family) since 2005.   Why ride a century in April? To prepare for the annual TOSRV ride in Columbus Ohio in May, which includes TWO centuries when you do the full ride.  And why ride to Mulberry? Well, it just happens to be 50ish miles to Mulberry from the end of my driveway; riding 50 miles from home and then turning back is a simple way to get in a 100 miles!

Finishing up brisk miles.

Another aspect of this route is the option for riders to join along the way.  The route passes through Sheridan, Kirklin, Frankfort (Indiana), and over the years, riders not ready the full 100 would join in along the way, and this year’s was no exception. Three riders started from my driveway, another joined us heading north on Monon Trail, and another tandem couple met us for lunch in Frankfort on the return leg. Gran Sport rides are self-supporting, so we “sagged local” in the small towns along the way. This included our 60-mile lunch stop at Arni’s in Frankfort.

Gran Sport ride are based on speed groups, and the Tour De Mulberry goal was for 15 mph – or 7.5 hour century (riding time).  And while we were all ready for that pace, the challenge is always presented by Indiana’s spring winds.  The course is North/Northwest going out, and South/Southeast for the return, and this year we were dealt a steady 10-15 mph wind out of the Northeast.  So while we had some favoring winds for much of  the 50 miles out, and managed a little faster, our return ride required good team work, and some tandem help, to maintain our pace heading in.

Thanks to everyone who came out for the inaugural CIBA version of this annual ride!

Lunch in Frankfort at 65 miles.

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2019: The Simple Truths of Group Riding

Unless you are riding on a closed course or other controlled route,  bicyclists riding in a group must follow the rules of the road, including the requirement to ride no more than 2 abreast and obey traffic signals and signage.

Speed is an ability, group riding is a skill.

Safe group riding requires Teamwork and Trust, Communication and Compromise; the larger the group, the faster the pace, the more critical those requirements become.

Safe riding can be encouraged in a pre-ride announcement, but that cannot take the place of training to ride safely, an understanding of the requirements of safe group riding, or the attitude of the participants toward safe riding practices.

Every cyclist is solely responsible for their safety, and for the situations they choose to participate in.

When riding in a group, your skills, experience and decisions impacts the safety of every rider in the group.  If you are not willing to accept that responsibility, you should not be riding in a group.