The Ozark Hills Finally Appear
Saturday was going to be a long day, 77 miles from Houston to Ellington. I had thought that the hills in the Ozarks hadn’t been that bad, but would find out this day that you don’t get away that easy. I wasn’t on the road until a little after 9:00 and the weather was overcast and cool.
The past few days I felt great, but this morning I was dragging and felt slow. A friend had recently mentioned that this ride is like going to the gym six or seven days a week for eight hours a day. It’s strange when you think of it like that.
About ten miles in I saw the tandem of Marcus and Kirsty far off in the distance climbing the worst hill of the day, up to that point. They stopped at the top and waited to take a photo of me surviving the last part of it. It seems that any time you want to take a photo of someone on the bike, it doesn’t matter if cars haven’t passed by for ten minutes, they are sure to come by and get in the way, which again happened here.
Further on, the three of us stopped at a cafe late in the morning in the small town of Summersville. The waitress with the accent was incredibly cheerful. Then you look around and see people in their flannel shirts, or some in overalls, and you think about what a different type of place this is.
Along the lines of a different kind of place, I’d say that Trump signs in front yards here outnumber Clinton ones by 20-1, far more than any other part of the country that I’ve noticed. But I can see why. When that guy buckles down and focuses on the important stuff, such as tearing into a former Miss Universe a few days ago, you can’t help but be impressed.
Just up the street from the cafe, the town had a pumpkin festival going on, which was full of activity and everyone out enjoying themselves. I stayed for a while and walked around, but not for too long as I still had a lot of miles to put in.
After a much welcomed lunch stop at an outdoor hamburger/milkshake restaurant in the town of Eminence, there were 27 miles to go until Ellington. This is where things got difficult.
If I mentioned in the last few posts that I was doing constant uphill/downhill riding, it wasn’t, at least compared with this. All I did was shift to low gear, climb a very steep hill, shift to high gear, go downhill and then do it all over again. And if I messed up with shifting when the uphill became really steep, I had to ride perpendicular to the lane or go downhill a bit to correct it.
To add to the fun later in the afternoon on the climbs, small swarms of gnats would fly around my eyes, which I constantly had to swat away while riding. It was very annoying. Moving along at 3.6 mph or so it was easy for them to keep up.
Marcus and Kirsty caught up with me towards the end of the day on a bridge. Marcus was telling me how his bike computer calculates how much climbing you do for the day. By this point we had done nearly 5,000 feet (about 1,500 meters), with more still to come.
When we arrived in Ellington (population 900), it was close to sunset as the days are getting shorter. Here we finally saw Charlie. We never knew if he was ahead or behind us all day. He had a derailleur cable break along the way, but was prepared as he carried an extra one and fixed it. Just another reminder that something can go wrong when you’re far away from a bike shop.
Ellington is another town that has an indoor structure for cyclists to stay in. This one was very small for the four of us plus two others who were there, so Charlie and I set our tents up in a covered deck area just outside.
What a day, especially for beginning it with no energy.
The evening ended with having dinner with Marcus and Kirsty at Saso’s Pizza, which has all kinds of arcade games, and with that a little noise to add to the ambience.
Outside as we were leaving, we had a nice chat with the owner and a young employee. The young kid was curious and asking questions about the trip. If only you could give some of these people you talk to along the way the spark needed to give it a try some day.