“Gotta keep rollin’, gotta keep ridin’ / Keep searchin’ ’til I find what’s right.” – Bob Seeger, “Roll Me Away”
Once we reached Rolla today, I had decided on the song title for today’s post. “Roll Me Away” has been on my cycling playlist for years, whenever traffic and road conditions permit me to pop in my earbuds and cue up some music. Today was definitely not of of those days, but I nevertheless had that song in my head for a good deal of the ride.
This may have been the most hilly route I’ve encountered in 7+ years of distance riding. I regret to announce that—for the first time in all those years—I had to get off and walk. (Jon, who was a short distance behind me, pointed out that—although he was still pedaling and I was walking—he wasn’t gaining on me.) Granted, what goes up must come down, and we also experienced some long, thrilling descents, but they were hard to enjoy because you could see the upslope ahead of you.
The roads were also narrow, with largely nonexistent shoulders, and well-traveled with drivers who don’t really appreciate the need to give cyclists some degree of clearance.
We had anticipated that Rolla could be a final destination today, but it was less than 45 miles from Sullivan, and we reached it in good shape, so we powered on to St. Robert. It leaves us with another short haul to one possible destination, Lebanon, so I think we’ll be forced to power on again to Marshfield. We’re looking at close to 5K feet of climbing over 60+ miles, with the worst part in the first 25.
But then things flatten out considerably. It’s going to leave us with some decisions when we get to Springfield and Joplin, when “powering on” could mean an 80 mile day, because of hotel spacing. It also opens the prospect that we would arrive in Tulsa a day early and have to kill time because our transportation back to STL (a one-way SUV rental) isn’t ready. But… there’s also the prospect of rain on Friday and Saturday, which could kill an entire day.
Best to make hay while the sun shines, and bank these early miles against a possible wet weekend.
No Panzerschwein today, but we did stop (briefly) at the kitschy-but-amusing Uranus Fudge in St. Robert, about five miles before reaching our hotel this afternoon. If there’s a puerile play-on-words that you can make with “Uranus,” they’ve made it, beginning with the tagline that started it all: “The best fudge comes from Uranus.”
Rideworthy 