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Friday, May 29: Just absolutely dead tired today. My intent was to gallantly try to stay on schedule today, but with some routing gaffs on my part, and Judy and I again, AGAIN having trouble getting a couple of our support stops together, I ended up about 13-15 miles short of our goal - Lake Hope State park - and 13-15 miles at 6-8mph is an additional 2 hrs of riding I have to tack on to the next day. I guess this is going to be the theme of American Dirt: unable to complete the daily schedule and having directional issues. 


Got going around 9 AM today, and did the reverse ride technique such that I could navigate Judy to the start, and then ride back to where I left off yesterday. Now this the a section of the Athens-Belpre Railtrail. And I’ll tell you what….you think that Harrison County Railtrail in Wva was bad, wow, this thing is worse that anything I think could ever be conceived for the mt bike portion of an adventure race. It was just pure degradation! To start with, the weather down here is hot and humid, so as soon as you enter the woods it’s like stepping into a rain forest, and I had to wear these bushwhacking pants to boot…with low top hiking shoes instead of my cycling shoes…wearing a small backpack…and sporting a duel suspension mt bike that weighs about 27 lbs. 


The first half mile was pretty reasonable, which lulled me into this false sense of security. That, until I hit this bridge abutment where the bridge was out, and below me, down about 40 feet was a Skunk Creek which looked to be about 4-5 feet deep in the middle. So I kind of left the bike up high while I did recon below hoping to either find a shallower Xing area, or find some trees that fell across the creek. Well, the shallow thing was a no-go, but down the creek about 30 yards to my left were two downed trees that completely Xed the stream. So I went back up to the top, drug my bike down to the creek - with much strain and drain - and then traversed over to the trees. Put the bike down in the creek, with the water coming up to about my seat, then I straddled one of the trees and did this very slow shuffle of my feet on the tree as I lifted the bike along, using it as a kind of counterbalance against my going in the drink. 


Got across ok, then had to drag the bike back up the embankment to the top, which was WAY harder than doing the stream Xing! Was able to ride some, then walk some, then ride some, then walk some. But it was much faster than just doing a hike-a-bike with the big bike pack on, that’s for sure. I hit 4 abutments where the bridges were out, and had to do that same routine of thrashing down to the creek, ford the creek, then thrash back up to the top. Got same stupid video of me doing this crap, and just showed it to Judy tonight. Not surprisingly she thinks this is just ridiculous. But anyway, made it back to yesterday’s parking area, at the east end of the trail in about 1 hr. That section was about 4-5 miles in length, but if just felt like 15-20 miles of effort! 


Ok, so then we went back to where I’d just started, and I began this 9-10 mile gravel road section up Frost Rd going west along the Hocking River towards Athens, and paralleling more of the Athens-Belpre Railtrail. Now I could have continued to ride the rail trail, but honestly, hell, I could just cruise on the gravel road that was only 50 feet away. The rail trail was just a continuation of the same bungle in the jungle stuff I’d just spent an hr thrashing through. Now this road was mostly gravel, but there were spots that turned to pavement, they were rough, and the gravel berms on both sides pretty much negated me even having to worry about them. Judy just kind of went up the road a few miles at a time until I told her to just go up ahead to the little hamlet of Stewart - I WAS GOOD! Yea, famous last words. 


Somehow I did this bonehead move and continued north on Rt 329 instead of going south on 329, and damn, I do my homework each night on the next day’s ride, and I’d darn well gone over this move. But nope, I went the wrong freaking way…like 5 miles of berminator riding out of the way. Judy had called me and I told her I was on 329, and almost there…and I just kept riding and riding, passing these little hamlets I hadn’t been familiar with while doing the homework. Finally, I saw this kid riding his bike going north as I was, and I asked him how far up to Stewart? He looked at me like I was a total freak, “Stewart’s 10 miles back that away,” he told me. “If you’re riding that bike it’s going to take you all day,” he added! Felt like I’d been hit with a hammer in the head. so I tried to call Judy, but had zero bars - no service. So I turned around and just rode on the pavement about about 18mph, occasionally stopping to check to see if I had service. Finally did about 4 miles back down the road. Got ahold of Judy and asked her to drive up me way to get me. 


When she arrived I was just smoked from the berm riding and then smoked from the TT effort to get my ass back down the road. I sheepishly told her how I just totally screwed up. And, then added “I’m applying that 5+ miles of berminating I just did to the north, to the southern end of 329 to Guysville.” And she was VERY good with that idea. She made me a turkey sandwich which I chased down with a coke and a ton of water, and then we drove back to where I made my mistake, and then continued south to Guysville, at the junction with Rt 50/32 to Athens. From there I did the berminator thing 9 miles all the way to Athens, one of the longer berm sections of the trip thus far. At that point the old RR grade is just obliterated by the construction of Rt 50/32, dbl lane highway on both sides. So my only choices were to berminate or paddle up the Hocking into Athens. Berm riding was the easy choice since it’s way faster. And actually I was able to do anywhere from 6-11 mph on that section of road all the way to the junction with the Hocking-Adena Bikeway in southern Athens. 


So along the way, and I’m just sweating my butt off on this nasty humid afternoon, riding in the grass berm along the highway trying to really keep the speed up and the rhythm consistent, and Judy calls me to tell me she cannot find any bike and hike trailhead I’d told her to meet me at, and that she got off of exit 17 in downtown Athens. And like the &%&^$^# that I am, I kind of snapped at her telling her how hard it is to stop and answer the phone when I’m dripping with sweat and working my tail off. Told her rather tersely to just hang there and I’d call her when I got into town. When I did get to the trailhead I’d told her about (and in her defense it was NOT on Rt 50, but on State St., because 50 turns into a kind of interstate and goes around town, I tried to call her 5-6x, but she had no service. Actually tossed the phone to the ground I was so miffed. Yea, made it a “soft” toss rather than a hard slam so as to not end up in even more of a pickle. 


So I rode back a bike on the grassy berm further north to try to meet up with her at Richland Rd, which is where exit 17 goes. Now this bikeway is really all paved, but it’s easy to ride on the grass berm all the way through Athens, but right now they tore up the asphalt on a bout a 3-mile section and left it as a gravel base, which worked perfect for me. Got all the way to Richland Rd, right next to the U football stadium, and lo and behold I see Judy driving by right as I got to Richland. Well, to make a long story short she found out that she had no service and went to begin looking for me, then realized that the last thing she told me was exit 17 in downtown Athens, so she was driving back to park. We hooked up at the stadium. Man, I was just parched, pissed, nearly cracked from the riding and grinding all day, and completely drenched in sweat. 


Divine timing for sure, because the whole way up that stretch I was  worried I would not be able to contact her if I couldn’t find her on Richland. Ok, by this time we’re at like 2 PM, in the heat of the day. So new strategy: let’s do a reverse segment where I navigate her down to the end of the next section and then I ride it back to Athens to where we were at at the football stadium. It’s been working pretty well lately, let’s try it again. We drive to Mansfield to where this abandoned RR line from Athens goes. And I look at it on the west to east section, and it’s a bloody jungle. It’s quite possibly a hike-a-bike to be sure. Just didn’t have it in me to do that 7 mile section on top of what I’d already done. Rode back to the other side of Mansfield (takes about 10 pedal strokes to go from the east side of town to the west side!!!) to look at the east to west section and it looked good with really solid ATC track. Ok, how about plan #3: drive back and finish the whole Athens section from the start of the abandoned RR line…AND secure a motel for the night because we were both just at wit’s end at that point. Done - Super 8 Athens. So I was going to deliberate on how I wanted to approach that jungle section tonight, kind of sleep on it as to whether it was a berminator   session or a thrash and push session, or a hike-a-bike session. 


Got dropped off and rode the initial abandoned RR grade back into Athens to it’s junction with the Hocking-Adena Railtrail, and then rode that back to the stadium to meet up with Judy. Did Subway on the way back to the motel and now we’re just relaxing in the AC after a 30 minutes shower each. We’re both just slammed tired right now. Tomorrow I’ll have to pick my poison as to how to approach that 7-mile section. From Mansfield it looks like it may be easier to get to Lake Hope State Park. We’ll see. Until tomorrow.