The Fruit Street Detour

The ride

With my handlebar bag and jersey pockets crammed with sweetened vanilla cream cheese rice blocks, I headed out this morning.

An hour into the ride, I couldn’t feel my fingers. I couldn’t tell my friction shifters apart from my down tube by touch. I couldn’t pull my water bottle out of its cage. It had been a balmy 44F in Cambridge when I started out. Down the road, my thermometer read 36F.

I was concerned about dehydration. If I can’t get my water bottle out, I can’t drink. If I can’t drink, I’ll get dehydrated. I stopped every fifteen minutes, fumbling at my bottle with the palms of both hands.

I came upon a flock of turkeys. I saw more toms (delightfully, also called “gobblers”) in one place than I had ever seen before. They fanned their tail feathers which doubled them in size, paced back and forth, and gobbled. I was thoroughly charmed. I attempted to take pictures, my efforts severely hampered by the zipper on my handlebar bag (which took me two minutes to open), the zipper on my camera case (another minute), and all the little buttons on my camera.

Five hours or so into the ride, I started to regain some sensation in my fingers, only to hit a new roadblock of the literal kind. The Fruit Street Bridge in Hopkinton, MA was closed. “No problem”, I thought, “I’ll follow these helpful detour signs.” “This’ll be fine”, I thought. The detour signs took me on a five-mile jaunt to a state highway. Eighteen-wheelers zoomed past. There was no end to this detour that I could see. My GPS computer helpfully suggested an alternate route. I followed the revised route. It took me right back to the closed bridge.

After cursing the bridge and staring at maps, I found a way around the closure that involved climbing over some railroad tracks. All said and done, the closure cost me over an hour and added another ten miles onto the ride, turning what was supposed to be an easy 82 miler into a 93 miler. It also killed my motivation; following the detour signs only to later arrive back at the bridge demoralized me.

I hobbled the rest of the way back home, attempting to maintain a steady pace and muster a good attitude. Back home, I treated myself to a post-ride feast.

Nominal

• My new lighting system worked very well. My forehead was happy.
• The rice cakes provided adequate fuel on a challenging ride. I supplemented them towards the end with Cliff Bloks when I was feeling burnt out. I didn’t suffer from the same stomach emptiness or hurting teeth. I’ll stick with these for the time being.

Off nominal

• Frigid extremities. Discussed at length earlier. If it’s colder than 45F when heading out, wear long-fingered gloves and heavy socks.
• I spent over an hour working my way around a closed bridge. I let the delay and closure upset me. Three takeaways:
  1. Don’t trust the Garmin rerouting function. Remember: it’ll just take you back to the next point on the planned route.
  2. Plan for and expect delays. In my pre-ride timing estimates, I didn’t factor in any tolerance for failures of any kind. I should mentally allocate, say, 10% of my “happy path” estimate for dealing with emergent issues. That way, wasting an hour on unhelpful signs isn’t an unexpected, unpleasant experience. Rather, it’s one that I’ve planned on.
  3. Follow detour signs in cities; avoid them in the countryside. Unlike those in the countryside, detours in cities are (mostly) short and well marked. In the countryside, I should consult a map right away. There’s likely a shorter, bike-friendly route that I can follow.

The route

Note the detour.

The ride preparations

“What on earth do I eat?” asks anyone attempting to ride long distances. I struggled with this question last year, reaching the uneasy practice of scarfing down Cliff Bloks (glorified candy) every fifteen minutes throughout the ride. By hour seven, my stomach felt hollow and my teeth hurt.

Hoping to revolutionize my cycling fuel, I bought Fueling the Cycling Revolution by the guy who cooks for the British cycling team. Long story short, Thursday evening I found myself “cooking”. I made a bunch of rice mixed with coconut oil, a bit of salt, vanilla extract and sugar. Once prepared, I threw in a whole block of cream cheese, stirred it up, and smooshed it into a big plastic bag.

After it sat in the fridge overnight, I brought it out, cut it into blocks, and shoved the blocks into plastic bags to take with me on the ride.

Here’s a link to the British cycling team’s offical recipe, if you want to give these a shot.