[/caption]On Saturday I did my longest ride of the year so far, and hoo boy did I pick a hot day for that. New rule: no more than two hours when it's in the upper 90s. I did what I call the Big Wanda Loop.
I did 44 miles on the Motobecane Fantom Cross, starting in Wanda at the start of the Watershed Trail, traveling up to Edwardsville. Then I went down the Nickel Plate trail through Glen Carbon, out to merge onto the Nature Trail at Pontoon Beach. From there I went to Horseshoe Lake and went a couple of miles toward Madison before I realized how far I was going. I turned around and headed back through the southern part of the loop.
This was my first long ride with the new Gatorskins, and I was very happy with their performance. I hit 27 miles at the Collinsville rest area and stopped for a short break. My water was warm and I needed to freshen that up and get out of the helmet for a while. I was pretty toasted, but the math said I had 17 more miles to go to get back to Wanda, using the most direct route.
A lot of times I'll take a shorter loop, then add little small side trips to add miles on. On Saturday I just wanted to get back in one piece. I felt fine heading up the bluff at Collinsville, and that seems to be a good route for me since it's probably the most gradual way to go up the bluff, and if you have to go uphill toward the end of the ride it's nice to go easy.
I don't care that much for the final section of trail going from Old Troy Road into Edwardsville for the same reason most people like it: the tunnels. It's fun to go through all those tunnels, but when you're tired, you have all the uphill runs coming out of those tunnels. And there's usually puddles inside that splash all over. Note to self: fenders on at least one bike.
When I finally got through Edwardsville and was ready to start my decline back down the final six miles to Wanda I had a really startling event. A bee flew high speed right into my mouth and stung me at the base of my tongue! I immediately jumped off the bike, spitting out the bee. It hurt like crazy! I couldn't tell if I got stung once or twice, but my mouth was on fire. I began drinking my water and rinsing my mouth out at the same time. By now the temperature was over 95. I started worrying that I was going to swell up or have a reaction to the bee sting.
I was lucky. Other than being freaked out and having pain for another half hour or so, I had no bad effects from it. I had some pain for about 24 hours, and a little swelling, but I have to admit it made the next six miles go a bit quicker. The pain that I did suffer a lot from was burning in my neck and shoulders and numb hands. That's become a tough problem to beat. Later in the afternoon I did a test ride on a Specialized Sirrus Elite hybrid. I liked it -- more on that later.
The last stretch from Edwardsville to Wanda is primarily downhill. That trail is also good because it has a lot of trees and blocks the wind well. That's probably one of the reasons I like to start from there so much. I was really suffering the last few miles, and did a lot of coasting, just anxious to be done.
I looked at the computer on the bike and it took me right at three hours. When I got home I got plenty of ice and water and worked it around my bee sting and tried to get rehydrated. I think in the future I'll limit those rides to around 30 miles unless I can get out of the house really early and beat the heat.
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