The Thin Blue Ride - Part 2 Day 79, Chavies, KY to Bypro, KY

Monday, August 26th, 2019

Ride Report: 64 Miles, 3,626 Total Miles (plus one mile, so 3,627 - more on this below), 14.9 Avg. mph, 3,888 Ft. Climbing, 5,116 calories.

As I draft this, we're up at the crack of (before) dawn.  Beating the roosters out of bed this morning proved particularly useful, since it started raining about 20 minutes later.  This is what we got up for? I've still not having gotten outside The Rig this morning due to the weather, the rain delay will clearly be of indeterminate length.  Right now “AccuWeather” is saying three hours.  Last night they said there was a 51% chance of .05 inches of rain at 0700 this morning.  Typical.  When one examines their forecast for our destination today (Bypro) the forecast looks better.  A 5% chance of .05 inches at 0700 hours, then clear for the rest of the day.  Where have I heard that before?  We’ll see.  I hate to get in to Bypro at 1700-01800 tonight, but may have no choice in the matter.  More on this as it develops...

Additional news here at The Thin Blue Ride...

In keeping with their desire for accuracy in all things, the Accounting Department completed its audit of The Thin Blue Ride’s activities to date.  Something about determining costs on a per diem basis and comparing riding days to non-riding days, or something like that.  If you’ve ever been thru an audit, you know the drill.  “Do you have a receipt for these miles you reported from Tribune to Dighton?”  Me: What?  I was on a bike!  “Your total reported miles are 41 more than actual on (insert date), we’ll make an adjustment.”  Me: OK.  (Never argue with your auditor.). Or better yet, “You went from day 55 to day 57 here.  What happened to day 56?”  That one I had an answer for.  I told her that if she was correct, that must mean that today is actually August 25th instead of the 26th.  Readers should adjust their calendars accordingly.

Anyway, after all of this, the Accounting Department reports that my mileage was within one mile of actual.  Apparently my math is so good that my mistakes negate each other.  I called it Karma.  The Accounting Department laughed and glanced sideways at me, saying nothing.  Accounting Departments are always non-committal until the final report is out.  The reader will note that I made the appropriate adjustment in tonight’s ride report.  I don’t know if I can stand another rain delay...

On the up side, having completed its exhaustive review of my mileage totals, the Accounting Department finally completed its tabulation of the (single) vote in the best suntan contest and announced herself the winner.  I wuz robbed.  There’s no way that an “evenly tanned” pair of white legs beats a biker’s tan the shades of which I’ve not seen since my misspent youth hanging out at the pool all day.  But it is what it is.  I’ll move on and be better for it.

Now on with the rest of the day...

I took this out the window of The Rig while being audited and eating my breakfast of Reese's Puffs.  This made for a rather interesting combination since I really like Reese's Puffs for breakfast.  BTW - them right there are some low clouds. 

This is me being bored and deciding to do something.  As I said earlier, we were up for 20 minutes before the leading edge of this rain hit us.  I think I finally got on the road at about 0945.  What the reader can't see is the follow on rain.  It was a huge storm on the radar and lagged behind this stuff by about 3 hours.  Since it was moving generally East and it was our plan to do the same, the hope was that we could ride out the day in the gap between the storms.  This worked - mostly...

A wet start to the day headed South out of Chavies, but optimism reigned.  Susan took a different route having been advised by a local not to take The Rig down this same road.  Turned out to be a good call.  They have signs in Kentucky warning "Break In Pavement Ahead".  There was one just a few miles down the road that was so severe it would have caused the rear of the frame to drag if The Rig went over it.  This is a constant problem for the highway department here in Kentucky since they build roads on the side of hills and hills do what is their nature: erode and slide down to the creek/river.  The road suffers the same fate.

There was some great scenery on the first 16 mile leg of today's ride.  But by the time I got to The Rig for my first break I told Susan, "I am so done with Kentucky."  I wasn't able to appreciate the scenery because once I hit the area where people has installed trailers on the edge of the road, I was too busy watching for dogs to look around.  It's frustrating.  On this road a golden retriever (a golden retriever - of all breeds) came at me five times as I was grinding up a hill.  This dog was serious and crazy aggressive.  I don't know how one turns a golden retriever into something like that.  Normally the only danger they present is licking ya to death.  This guy didn't have licking on his mind, trust me.  I didn't get my heart rate back down for 5 minutes.

Just before I made it to Combs, KY, I saw this.  It's a coal conveyor belt.  Note the pile of coal at the base of the support column in the center of the pic.  There were railroad cars to the left running under the terminus of the belt, but no loading was going on today.  I seem to recall that the coal industry is under considerable stress right now.  Which might also explain why I've seen not a single coal truck on the route during our entire time in Kentucky.  This despite the ACA maps warning of same.

We spent a lot of time today working either up or down various creek/river valleys before climbing over the ridges dividing them in order to move further East on the route.  This is one such creek.

For what is, by all appearances locally a distressed economy here in Eastern Kentucky, there were some gorgeous homes on the route today.  I even managed to take a pic of this one - because it wasn't raining at the time.

This one was just a short distance down the road.  How'd ya like to have to mow that front yard?

There's nothing phenomenal about this pic.  Sig just took it because a road that was almost dry was a novelty today.  I think we were well past the 30 mile mark before we saw this.  I did some recollecting when I made it to The Rig tonight.  I'm pretty sure that of today's 64 miles 35 or slightly more were in the rain.  And when it wasn't raining, the roads were wet.  Thankfully, I packed a rear fender that straps onto either bike easily.  I can handle wet feet.  Wet butt is another matter.

They take decorating cemeteries serious here in Kentucky.  Take a look at all the flowers and flags.  At the other end of the spectrum, I saw several instances today of a trailer stuck on the side of the road with 3 or 4 tombstones beside it.  Ya gotta wonder.  

The guys just never get tired of these.  They call 'em their "militaria" pics.  OK...  Delta just wants the pics.  At least Sig takes the time to read the plaques.

We're gonna climb that ridge momentarily.  This would be the last of five such ridge crossings today - and it sucked.  Probably mostly because it came at mile 60 on a 64 mile day.  And because just as I started up, the rain commenced - again.  I kept an eye on Garmin for this one.  At the base, elevation was 800 ft.  At the top it was 1,460.   That, boys and girls, is 660 feet of fun and all in just 3 miles.

So the long and short of it is that this was another tough day.  The weather didn't help.  The dog early in the day sorta ruined my attitude for 20 miles or so.  And as I was climbing the last ridge of the day, it started raining again - with about 10 miles to go.  As a result, all the fun went out of descending a 10-12% grade after that last climb.  I wasn't a nervous wreck, but I was nervous.  Then when I got to The Rig at our stopover for the night in a church parking lot, Susan had discovered that they're having a viewing prior to a funeral tomorrow and we can't get into the parking lot till 2030.  That'll change a guy's perspective.  At least my day is going better than the guy whose funeral is tomorrow.

Let's all hope for a change of pace tomorrow.

Till next time.