Ralph's Ozark Bike Blog: Edwardsville Again

There was another full brevet series in Edwardsville, IL, last weekend. Dan Pfaff and I drove up Friday evening and stayed at the Innkeeper Motel in Hamel. A storm came through during the night, and we hoped the rain and lightning were done for the weekend.

There was quite a crowd when we arrived at 3:30 for the 4:00 start. Most were riding the 600K. John and I were only riding the 200K that I needed to complete the Super Randonneur series and John needed to complete his first R-12. Most of the riders took off at a fairly fast pace. The bike trail out of town was sprinkled with debris and there was a fallen tree from the storm, so we took it a little slower. The tail lights of the front group continued to pull away as we headed east on Fruit Road. We began to see lightning, and the rain caught up with us just before we got to Grandfork. The rain drops were big and cold and made quite a sound as they approached us from the west.

The rain stopped by the time we got to Pocahontas where we stopped to use the restroom and get some chocolate milk. John Jost (St. Louis Region RBA) and Randy Johnson caught up with us there and so did another major storm cell. A driver who stopped had driven through it and said there was also hail. We decided to wait it out, and since the c-store had a grill, we decided to have breakfast. We spent about an hour in Pocahontas.

We got to the first control in Breese at 8:30 (51 miles). Scott Thompson, who was making the bag drop in Vienna for the 600K riders, stopped to see how we were doing. While we were there one of the 600K riders, Rudy from Florida, pulled in having stopped at a church to sit out the storm.

We were in Okawville at 11:00 (78 miles), and John, Randy and Rudy arrived shortly after we did. As we were leaving, Dan commented to John that we were heading back with a tailwind. Unfortunately the tailwind only lasted until New Baden where we stopped at McDonald's for yogurt parfait and frozen strawberry lemonade. We also stopped in St. Jacob to make sure we had enough water to finish the ride. The sky was pretty much overcast by then so it seemed cooler.

There was a large snapping turtle in the middle of the Fruit Road being harassed by a dog. I tried to move it off, but it spun around too fast when I got near it and we ended up just dancing in the middle of the road. Since there was not much traffic, I just left it. It was big enough that most drivers would see it from quite a distance.

We finished up in Edwardsville (126 miles) at 16:04. Not one of our faster times.