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The cut used on the cover was rescued by Leah from a curio shop in the Crown Center during the Kansas City convention – the shop that was selling battered 48-point type at $1 per character as conversation pieces. Bike freaks will instantly see that it does not portray a high-quality bicycle – no high-quality bicycle has a kick stand.
Synopsis of First Two Journals
Boxwooders 96 and 103
In August, 1976, my son David and I discovered the world of high quality bicycles and bought new bikes. We were seized with the desire to ride a century (100 miles in a 12-hour period) and after an immoderate amount of suffering managed to complete one on 6 September 1977. Dave required 9 hours, and I took 9 hours 40 minutes to complete the ride.
Journal
27 September 1977. We are just back from eight days on Hatteras Island where we ate seafood, lay on the beach, and I rode my bicycle daily.
There is but one road down the islands from Nag’s Head in the north to Hatteras Village at the southern tip of Hatteras Island. We stayed at Buxton, ten miles north of Hatteras Village.
Bike riding is a different sport on Hatteras. The road is flat as a pancake and, unfortunately, not very wide. In many places you can see several miles of road, and I always have the sensation of being in the center of a saucer with the road slanting upward in both directions from my sitzpoint. The wind is the major factor, and normally there is a very steady breeze that may change direction from day to day but is quite constant in direction and speed for hours at a time. Also the road is perfectly straight for miles on end, generally north and south, of course. I have never seen the wind blow exactly across the island so one always rides with or against the wind.
Each morning I determined wind direction and rode off against the wind, shifting one or two gears down from my normal cruising gear. It was a bit like riding on rollers since one never had to change gear and the effort was very constant. Most days against the wind I could average 6 to 7 mph so I would ride about 15 to 20 miles and then turn around. Then I would shift into my highest gear and on the return trip average up to 16 mph. Again the effort was constant, but the high speed made it exhilarating. All in all, I found it more tiring to ride under Hatteras conditions than around my home.
I did learn not to fight the wind or curse about as I do at home but to accept it as part of the game and to grind away at slow speeds against it. One day there was no wind at all, and I rode easily and rapidly coming and going. I had never ridden mile after mile on a level road; it’s quite a different sensation.
The narrow road, no shoulders at all in most places, added unwanted adventure. Sometimes with only two cars in sight on miles of roadway, they would insist on meeting while abreast of my bike, and some RV’s and boat trailers left little room for my bike.
2 October. I have done another century. I rode the Oxon Hill Bicycle Club annual century yesterday. Thirty-eight riders started, but most of them were satisfied to do a half-century. Nine of us completed the 100 miles. It threatened rain all day and sprinkled on us a time or two, and in the afternoon we were faced with winds up to 20 mph. Nevertheless I finished in 8 hours 40 minutes, much faster than any previous ride of comparable distance.
Every long ride has a low point. In this one at about 70 miles, it was raining slightly, the wind was in my face, and the hills seemed impossible and my leg muscles exhausted. I rode along wondering why people were so stupid as to subject themselves to such ordeals. No other riders were in sight. If I had had any way of quitting, I would have gladly done so, but the closest way to my car was 30 miles ahead so I had little choice.
A few minutes later, I caught up with another rider at a traffic light, the road turned downwind, and minutes later we came to the 75-mile checkpoint. After a few minutes of rest, I felt fine again and rode the final 25 miles in comparative ease, though, as always, I was glad to finish. It was a much, much easier ride than my first century.
22 October. Rode 30 miles today. Since my retirement, last month, I have ridden at least 20 miles every day that the weather permits and have missed very few days.
On two days recently I tried riding 20 miles at my top speed. I averaged 13.5 mph but since then have not been able to ride fast. I guess my legs are still not ready for such speeds. My comfortable speed on short trips (20 miles) is 11.5 mph. It is very difficult to increase one’s speed.
25 October. Dave and I rode to Annapolis on Sunday by a rather roundabout route for a total of 75 miles. He has not been riding much and is a little out of condition. I felt splendid on the whole trip. However my legs are sore today. I don’t understand it; I’ve been riding at least 20 miles a day for a month, how could I suddenly get sore legs.
15 November. I am trying to prepare for cold-weather riding. Larry Redmon wrote that I should wear double mittens which he says are warmer than any gloves. So from L. L. Bean I ordered double wool mittens as liners for their “woodchopper” leather mittens. The whole business is a foot long and I feel as if my hands might drag the ground. I first tried the mittens Saturday, 12 November, when the temperature was 34 degrees. I can barely manipulate the gear levers with them, but my hands were almost too warm at Saturday’s temperatures.
Yesterday I installed toe muffs or toe-clip covers on my pedals. These are leather envelopes that cover the front half of the shoe and are drawn tight at the middle of the shoe by the tow-clip straps. I used them today, but the temperature was 45 and thus provided no test of their efficacy. A rider, I know, claims they make a tremendous difference; that the dead-air space between the muff and the shoe keeps one’s feet comfortably warm. I have my doubts, but we’ll see.
I am riding 21 miles each day now and have ridden 3600 mile since 1 April this year, nearly 500 miles per month. My Schwinn Super Record tires have gone 2800 miles; the back one is smooth, the front one barely worn.
17 November. I seem to have solved the headgear problem for cold weather riding. The Bell helmet comes in two basic sizes; the actual fitting is done using velcro-held, sponge pads of different thicknesses. So I bought an additional set of thinner pads (1/8 inch) and this makes the helmet such a loose fit that I can wear a wool watch cap (L. L. Bean, again) under it. The watch cap will, of course, also cover my ears when that is needed.
22 November. Sunday I went on a 52-mile Potomac Pedalers Club ride and again found that I cannot keep with the B group (11-14 mph). Out of 14 riders there was one slower than I, and by the time we reached Deale (a little town on the Chesapeake Bay), he and I were, 19 miles from the start, a half-mile behind the group. In the afternoon two or three people had mechanical trouble, and the route instructions had a left turn instead of a right so I was not left behind purely because of all the confusion.
In spite of riding at least 20 miles nearly every day, I was quite tired by the end of the ride. Trying to keep up with riders who are faster is very fatiguing.
24 February. I managed to ride 270 miles in January and have done 325 in February. Only snow, rain, or very cold, windy weather prevents me from riding at least 21 miles every day. Through the advice of Larry Redmon and Gracen Joiner and a little experimenting, I have pretty well come to terms with cold-weather riding. I’m going to go into detail about for other cyclists in the Appendix. Information in books and even in bicycling magazines is spotty and often misleading. One reason is that bicycling magazines tend to be published in southern California, and their articles about cold-weather riding are for 40 to 50-degree “cold” weather. Larry Redmon’s tip was that mittens were much warmer than gloves, something I had not thought of, and Gracen Joiner told me that it was impossible to keep one’s feet warm if one did not wear long underwear even though one’s legs might not feel cold. Someone else advised toe muffs for my bike pedals – these have helped a great deal.
Obviously people differ widely in their responses to the cold so the Appendix is merely offered as a guide from which you can determine your proper clothing. Unless your memory is better than mine (and that’s very likely), do, however, keep a record of what you wear at what temperature with what result.
If one is reasonably comfortable, riding in cold weather is very pleasant. It also allows you to feel smug and superior to the less daring.
26 February. My odometer, installed 29 March 1977, turned 5000 miles this afternoon.
1 March. Rode 450 miles in February. I have decided to keep a daily record of my mileage this year.
8 March. It started snowing very hard just as I started on my ride today. Had to cut it short, to 14 miles, because so much snow was accumulating on the road. On hills where the road was crowned steeply my bike kept slipping toward the edge of the road. We have had ten sizable snows this winter. I hope this is the last.
11 March. This was the first really nice day of the year. The temperature rose to the mid-fifties, and the sun was bright and warm. Dave and I met halfway between our houses and rode 47 miles. It was astonishingly pleasant to ride without jackets, long johns, extra socks, face masks, and all that cumbersome, cold-weather gear.
29 March. One year ago today, I installed an odometer on my bike. It now reads 5463 miles.
18 April. Have ridden every day this month, averaging about 20 miles per day. I have pretty well settled into a routine of riding a 22-mile loop. Takes me just under two hours. I’ve just about given up hoping to achieve any speed. But at least, 20 to 30 miles has now become a short ride.
19 April. After bragging yesterday, I pulled up lame today. I was not aware of straining any muscles, but my right leg, particularly the calf, is painful when I walk and throbs when I’m sitting.
20 April. Leg is a little better. It felt quite well when I got up, but as the day went on, it gradually began to be sensitive again, and by night I had developed a dull ache in my calf. Puzzling.
28 April. Had not ridden in four days. Leg is better but still a bit painful. I installed a new freewheel with 14-17-20-26-32 cogs that gives me a real “granny” gear of 30.3. I intend to use the 26 and 32 cogs in hilly centuries and the 24 and 28 cogs for low gears in normal riding. I also got a 19 cog to substitute for the 20 to increase my cruising speed a little. The freewheel cost $8 and the three extra cogs $6.
I had my first on-the-road puncture today after riding some 8000 miles; surprising for such fragile high-pressure tires. I carry both a patch kit and an extra inner tube. In pleasant weather, as it was today, it is quick and simple to put in a new tube. If this happened on one of the 20-degree riding days, I don’t really know what I could do. Walk ten miles home, I guess.
8 May. Phil Cade wrote that he is a runner and that the century must be somewhat equivalent to the runner’s marathon, but I believe he is considerably overrating the century. Perhaps the double century (200 miles in 24 hours) is more the equivalent of the marathon. Really hot-shot bikers pride themselves on not even being tired after a century. I don’t think anyone runs a marathon without pain and complete exhaustion.
21 May. The Oxon Hill Bicycle Club spring century took place yesterday. The last century that I rode was Oxon Hill’s fall century, reported earlier in this journal, and I did it with relative ease. For weeks now I have been riding an average of 20 miles per day so I should be in good condition. I therefore started yesterday’s century with confidence bordering on smugness.
I registered as early as possible and started at 7:30. The route was either 108 or 104 miles depending on whether one took a rather rugged short cut at one point in the ride.
Early in the ride I was riding along with a couple of fellows on a country road when we came up behind a man driving two bulls ahead of him. We tried to pass, but the bulls ran ahead and veered all over the road so we couldn’t pass. After a quarter of a mile or so, they turned right, into a lane, and one of the riders said, “That’s what I like about bicycling; every time there is something new and surprising.” As Mary Roberts Rhinehart used to write, “Had I but known.”
I rode the first 50 miles in slightly less than four hours and felt fine when I left Deale, Maryland going south through Chesapeake. This portion of the route had some long, steep hills, and about 60 miles into the ride, I started feeling a little discomfort in the muscle above my knee (I found out later it’s the vastus medialis.), and near the top of a hill I suddenly had a cramp in that muscle in my right leg. It was painful but went away in a minute or two, but as soon as I got halfway up the next hill, the cramp hit again. Then it was in both legs.
I had never had a cramp in that muscle, but I quickly found out that a cramp in that muscle, unlike one in the calf or foot, is made worse by weight on the leg, and the only relief is to assume a deep-knee-bend position. So I soon found myself having to assume this position for two or three excruciating minutes on every hill. By the time I got to the 75-mile checkpoint, I was in considerable pain and wondering if I should quit. The temperature was nearing 90 and in the sun on the open road I had some fear that I might be overheating as well. It had taken me two hours and 45 minutes to ride the last 25 miles.
After resting 20 minutes, I felt a little better and calculated that after all I had five hours and 40 minutes to make the final 29 miles (total 104 miles). But by four miles out, the cramps returned again and again. (I did not know, and do not know, whether once such cramps start they inevitably continue.) Two hours later I had made only eight miles of the final 29, and the cramping was the most painful thing I have ever felt.
I found a shade tree by the roadside and lay down for a while. The sag wagon (a car that picks up casualties and drop outs on some formal centuries) coming from the opposite direction stopped, and when I told the driver what was happening, he said, “Hop in.” But after my rest, I was feeling better, and I knew I still had over three hours to make the final 21 miles so I asked him to watch for me on his return trip because I didn’t think I could make it but wanted to give it one more try.
In the next hour I made seven more miles but was having to squat for five minutes on every hill, and then suddenly again I could get no relief so I lay down on the grass again for 15 to 20 minutes.
There were 92 people on the ride so people were now passing frequently. Some stopped to see what my trouble was. I decided to wait for the sag wagon and give up with only 14 miles to go. But no sag wagon came along so I began riding slowly on. That portion of the route was quite flat, and I rode in a low gear, and though I knew there was no possibility of making the 14 miles in one and one-half hours, I rode slowly on, massaging my leg muscles as I rode and on the level ground not having to exert enough force to bring on the cramps again. I knew there were hills ahead so it was hopeless.
I came around a curve and there was Jim Walczak with his truck full of bikes and bikers. Because of the heat they had decided to move the finish to the point where the longest ride was 100 instead of 108 miles and to give century credit also for the 96 miles for those who had taken the authorized earlier alternate route.
When I dismounted my legs cramped so badly that I could not stand and, in fact, could only kneel right on the pavement for a bit. Then I got in Jim’s truck, pulled my feet up on the seat to get maximum knee bend, and rode back to my car – the most appreciated ride of my life.
Last evening I continued to have attacks of cramping at longer and longer intervals, and today my leg muscles are very sore and have not improved any during the day. I must find out what caused these cramps. Some riders claim it is dehydration on a hot day. They could make me give up centuries or even bikes for that matter.
I started the century with smug, condescending arrogance and ended it in abject, ignominious agony. What a day.
28 May. Dave and I rode 80 miles today with no sign of muscle cramping. While we were on our ride, I suddenly thought of something. I have long had an allergy to too much orange juice. If I drink the normal breakfast portion, I have no reaction, but several glasses will cause hives and swollen eyes, etc. When I first, some 30 years ago, ran across screwdrivers, everyone else had a gin hangover, but I had an orange-juice hangover. Because more than normal quantities are required to produce a reaction, I never think of this allergy. On the century, at the 25-mile and 50-mile checkpoints, I drank orange juice. In all I drank no less than 32 and maybe as much as 48 ounces of orange juice. Could my allergy have produced muscle cramps? Never heard of such a thing, but it is notable that I did not have my customary symptoms.
1 June. Rode 576 miles in May; 2332 so far this year.
30 June. Have ridden every day but one in June. Total is 689 miles. So far this year: 3021.
I have managed to increase my speed on my daily 22 to 24-mile ride to about 12.5 mph including my mid-point watering stop of three or four minutes. Unfortunately I have done this by using higher gear (83) rather than 70 for normal cruising. It would be better to speed up by increasing my cadence (pedaling faster) rather than by pedaling harder, but I don’t seem to be able to do that. Pedaling should be a spinning motion not a pushing one. Maybe I’ll spend more effort trying to raise my cadence and lower my gear.
15 July. Blaine Lewis said my cramps on the century were probably due to an electrolytic imbalance and that salt might have helped. He doesn’t think the orange juice would cause it. At my annual exam I asked my doctor about the cramps, and he said to apply hot towels to the cramping muscles. Sometimes I wonder about him. A newspaper article claims that cramping is one of the symptoms of heat exhaustion; I guess that’s what it was.
20 July. Punctures have sort of caught up with me. Have had three lately. The tires are so small that they go flat in an instant. Today I was coasting down a steep hill and suddenly found myself riding on the rim. No damage to the rim however.
8 August. My odometer broke today. It had just turned 8000 miles. That’s a total of about 10,000 miles since I got my bike almost two years ago.
31 August. Have ridden 745 miles this month, the most of any. Missed only one day.
1 September. I have had my bike two years now, so it is time for an annual report of the cost:
Second Year Costs
3 Tires… $24
Chain… $6
Freewheel… $8
3 Extra cogwheels… $6
3 Inner tubes… $6
Water bottle holder… $4
Tools… $10
Odometer… $3
Mittens & watch cap… $19
Total: $86
In the Second Journal of a Century, Boxwooder 103, I reported first year costs, including the bike, of $588. So the total thus far is about $674 for 10,745 miles and approximately 975 hours of riding. That comes out to be 6.3 cents per mile, less than half the first year’s rate, and 69 cents per hour which for some reason seems high to me. But it is certainly worth the price.
This, in my mind, is to be the fall that I ride centuries right and left. I will, too, if the cramps don’t get me. I’ll have to see how it goes.
Appendix
Cold Weather Gear
For the temperature guides that I’m going to give you, I shall describe in some detail my various pieces of riding clothing:
Wool gloves: ordinary driving gloves.
Leather gloves: Eddie Bauer deerskin with separate wool gloves inside.
Mittens: Bean woodchopper leather mittens with double inner mittens; the outside inner mitten is knitted wool, the inside is terry cloth (The cold-hand solution.)
Windbreaker: Thin Nylon jacket with no lining.
Jacket: Light, zipper-front, pile lined jacket.
Shirt: Cotton flannel.
Long johns: Drawers only.
Watch cap: pulls down over ears if needed.
Ski mask: Acrylic, stocking type, holes for mouth and eyes. This or watch cap worn under helmet.
Helmet: Bell bicycle helmet. Extra set of thin pads permits watch cap or ski mask to be worn.
Leather shoes: Old, ordinary dress shoes.
Bata Bikers: Canvas, ventilated, rubber-soled shoes.
Socks: Acrylic, medium bulky.
Ski socks: Wool, very heavy.
Degrees in F and Attire for a Two-Hour Ride
45-55: Helmet, one shirt, windbreaker, wool gloves, Bata Bikers, one pair of socks.
42-45: Watch cap under helmet, one shirt, jacket, leather gloves, leather shoes, two pairs of socks.
38-42: As above but with mittens.
35-38: Watch cap under helmet, one shirt, jacket, mittens, long johns, leather shoes, two pairs of socks.
20-35: Ski mask under helmet, two shirts, jacket, mittens, long johns, leather shoes, ski socks over regular socks.
Under 20: If there is no wind, one can ride at 15 to 18 degrees comfortably, but that is my limit. Nothing I have found will keep my feet warm below this.
Wind: The wind speed is of great importance to the apparent temperature, and I guess a table based on chill factors might seem more meaningful, but it’s not so simple. Until you are into your ride, you will not know the local wind, and anyway downwind and upwind are usually quite different environments.
Trend: For physical or mental reasons one’s comfort at a given temperature is directly related to the direction of the change in the ambient temperature.
Colophon
Hand set in Deepdene and Glamour Medium. Text stock is 50-lb. Exact Matte, an easy paper to print on. Edited, published, and printed by Jake Warner. Printed in an edition of 530 copies on a 10 x 15 C&P at the Boxwood Press, Greenbelt, Maryland 20770