Saturday, May 19, 2012

TOSRV Tales


Last weekend was TOSRV (Tour of the Scioto Rover Valley) which is a very well know ride in the Ohio cycling community. The ride is always held Mother’s Day weekend and goes 104 miles from Columbus to Portsmouth on Saturday and then returns the 104 miles to Columbus on Sunday. This is high mileage back to back especially this early in the cycling season.

People often ask “Have you done TOSRV?” and what they are really asking is “Are you a casual enthusiast or a committed fanatic?” I have never done this ride before although I have heard many tales of the tortuous mileage and extreme weather conditions. I decided this would be a great year to cross the line of "committed fanatic" and get TOSRV under my belt because the mileage would be great practice and I have so many miles in already this season. I asked Karen Z to drive my car with the bike rack on and meet me at the rest stops as my own personal support team.

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful and Karen dropped my off  in downtown Columbus. The next 104 miles were relatively uneventful. There were a few challenging inclines and I was grateful that I had enough strength and technique that I didn’t have to walk up any of the hills. When I met Karen in Portsmouth I felt like I had paced myself well and had plenty of “leg” left to complete Sunday’s ride.

Sunday morning, we awoke to POURING rain. There was a solid band of rain stretching from Portsmouth to Columbus and the radar showed that it was going to be with us for the entire day. Yikes!

I told Karen that I was committed to completing the ride and I would meet her 30 miles later at the first rest stop in Waverly.  Just six miles later, I pulled off the side of the road and started calling her to come pick me up. We finally connected 12 miles into the ride and I accepted my first ever SAG to bail from a ride. I was cold, I was completely soaked, and I was sobbing. “How can I ride my bike across America if I can’t even ride to Columbus in the rain?” I wailed to Karen.

“It will be different then,” she replied. “Let’s go to the Tim Horton’s in Waverly, you go into the bathroom and change into dry clothes, then we’ll get coffee through the drive-thru and all will be well.”

There were hundreds of cyclists in Waverly and I was glad we were not stopping long because the Tim Horton’s was full of soggy cyclists and I felt like a wimp for bailing. When I walked back out to the car after changing my clothes, I noticed there were now two bikes on my bike rack. We had picked up another soul who was calling it a day.

Our new friend’s name is Michele and her entrance into the story at this point is another sure sign of the hand of God. Michele started to share her story with us as we began the hour long drive back to Columbus. Turns out, she went with America by Bike from Maine to Florida 20 years ago and still keeps in contact with the people she met on that ride. She helped me to see that I have been thinking of the trip like it’s the Tour de France and forgetting that it’s a bicycling vacation. She taught me that there’s no shame in getting SAGed in (cycling term for rescued) if conditions aren’t safe or if it’s just not your day.

Michele said, “America by Bike will take great care of you. You’ll ride what you can, walk what you can’t, and at the end of the day if you’re not back to the hotel in time they’ll come pick you up. You will have so much fun and meet amazing people.”

What a great perspective! Once again, I am guilty of over-thinking the situation and making everything too important.

A wise priest once told me, “When you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget that you came here to drain the swamp.” I have been so busy trying to manage every minute detail of this trip and my training process that I forgot that the purpose of the trip is to have fun.

There were 6,000 riders on TOSRV and Michele knocked on my car window and brought with her the exact words of encouragement and wisdom of perspective that I needed at that precise moment.

Wow. What are the odds of that!?!

 I am truly blessed and truly grateful.


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