July 19, 2021
Day 8 Making it to Madison, deciding to abort this tour, and not being able to
Today, I only rode 24 miles, but it was a very hard 24 miles. Most of the problem was my sore back. i tried several different ways to avoid the pain and distortion cause by my spine bending to the right as I rode. None of the things I tried worked. Within ten miles I was as bent as ever. Most of those miles were relatively flat. After 20 miles I was able to stop in Milton, the town across the river from Madison, at the Dairy Queen - the only place to eat in Milton - for lunch which I ate outside sitting at a table next to my bike since there were no window that were low enough to let me see my bike while inside.
Then I rode over the mile wide river on the newish - new since I've been riding it - bridge which has good shoulders. Earlier I'd stopped on 227 to take an image of the Ohio up river from Madison. Now. at roughly the middle of the bridge - it is easiest to stop there because that section is flat - I took images looking up river - the side of the bridge i was on - and down river showing the bridge structure and the Madison Power Plant smoke stacks. As in Asheville where I live now, one the stacks is thicker than the other two and has scrubbers inside to remove a lot of the pollution. It is now probably connected to natural gas powered turbines which are cleaner burning. My younger daughter is a manager at one of the largest plants that makes those turbines in the US.
Once I got to Madison, I did a nostalgic ride through part of town near the river and then headed north on US 421. I stopped shortly after I got on 421 and, climbing over the guard rail and down a grass covered bank, used the toilet at one of Madison's parks. Then I made the mistake of continuing on up the miles long - at least three miles - steep hill. I knew there were better alternatives for getting to North Madison where all the 'Strip' stuff is but I forgot just how unpleasant the 421 hill was.
My family left Madison in 1954. I was 8 years old. That was also the year that Madison was frozen in time by being declared a Federal Historical Preserve. Ironically. I didn't come back for over 30 years and did come back to Madison after moving to Asheville NC where Thomas Wolfe said "You can never go home again!" I went back to a Madison which was unchanged after over 30 years. The only change I noticed was that it had shrunk. middle aged eyes see the world from higher up than 8 year old eyes. So when I say I did a nostalgic ride through Madison, that is the literal truth. I rode through places whose appearance had not changed in nearly 70 years! I needed to climb up the side of the river valley to North Madison which did not exist in 1954 to find a place to spend the night.
Doing that climb in hot weather and a bad back, even with e-assist, wiped me out. I was barely able to get to the top and literally staggered over a grassy area belonging to a church in order to drop my bike and fall down in the shaded area. I rested there for half an hour or so before I was able to get up again and pick my bike up in order to get through a dangerously modified roundabout and get to the strip where I saw a Super 8, parked my bike, got a room and fell into bed for an hour.
At that point I had decided to abort this tour. Then, after cleaning up, I tried, and totally failed to find a rental car to rent. Now I plan to continue my ride to Bloomington which is less than 90 miles away, in hopes of finding a rental cat there or on the way. The first half of the ride from here to Bloomington is very straight forward and, except for the danger from traffic on roads which no longer have rideable shoulders, easy riding. Given my back problems i may need to stop in North Vernon which has a motel and is at the mid point of the ride to Columbus.
After Columbus the riding gets much more challenging and I may decide, depending on my back and the availability of rental cars as well as my friends schedule, to head south on 31 to ride down to the Louisville area which is likely to have better rental car availability and is also an easy ride. If getting a rental car continues to be impossible, I may be able to talk my wife into coming to get me in the Louisville area.
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I hope that later you write a final report regarding your touring experiences the TSDZ2 and battery life etc.
2 years ago
2 years ago