Ride 2016 Day 23 extra

This has turned out to be a forced rest day. If it had to happen, I couldn’t have had it happen in a better place. My warm showers hosts, Alan and Renee offered to let me stay an extra day if the weather was bad. It rained most of the night and was still coming down this morning. As I write this in the afternoon, it has stopped raining, but things are still wet. The cars would be spraying me if I was on the road.

In the meantime, I thought I’d do what the networks and my buddies at Car Talk would do. I will leave you with some “best of”, or as they say on Car Talk, “old”. Here are some videos from the climb to Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado on May 8 that did not make it to the blog, at that time.

Eight miles to the Top    https://youtu.be/rPJOd-XQE2M

I Walk/Ride The Line    https://youtu.be/Gfkt_SebmpA

At The Top     https://youtu.be/j-6Ir-pFsVg

Also, I wrote this post back when it was still cold and doing time on the bike trainer on my outside back porch. I was thinking of the desert, but it could have applied to the grind on the way to Cortez, Colorado or the 100 mile ride to Greensburg.

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The song, “Cool Water” by the Sons of the Pioneers popped up on my iPod while I was on the bike trainer this morning. I had loaded it on the iPod a few weeks ago. I think it was because I had been flipping channels on the TV and came across an old rerun of the Roy Rogers TV show. The episode finished in its usual way, with Dale Evans and Roy singing “Happy Trails to You”. It brought back fond memories of my childhood.
With that, I went searching on freegal ( a free music service associated with the local public library) for Roy Rogers and Dale Evans doing their signature tune. In retrieving that song, I learned that Roy had started his career with the Sons of the Pioneers. This group also popularized the western classics “Tumbling Tumbleweeds”(as reprised by Billy Crystal in City Slickers) , “Ghost Riders in the Sky”, and, of course, “Cool Water”.
As I pedaled away on the screened back porch in a frigid 18 F temperature, my mind wandered to the point in my ride where I would be in the southern reaches of California heading for the Arizona border. I had researched this stretch on Google maps and noted that on this 90 mile day there was only one road, one convenience store at 30 miles, and then nothing else for the next 60 miles. It will be 90 miles of barren desert. There would be no “Cool Water”. [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnt30ICso_c ]
Keep a movin’ Dan
Don’t you listen to him Dan
He’s a Devil not a man
And he spreads the burning sand with water (Water , Water .. Cool Water)
…
Dan can you see that big green tree
Where the water’s running free and it’s waiting there for me and you (Cool Clear Water)
At any rate, in the company of the Sons of The Pioneers, I no longer felt the sting of the 18 degrees. I started getting warm and maybe even a little thirsty. I don’t plan on carrying an iPod for the upcoming ride. I don’t want to have any distractions and want to be fully aware of any traffic that might be coming or going on the road I’m riding. As those that know me will tell you, that won’t stop my mental jukebox from playing in the background, helping me pedal through the isolation. Today I was pedaling, searching for water – Cool Water (Water water water …)

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Hopefully, I will be on the bike tomorrow.

The Lone Rider