BFC Dog Prairie Ride

I have to credit Trailnet's Bicycle Fun Club with getting me interested in all of these long distance rides.  I bought my road bike in March 2009, and I either saw their calendar of rides online or in a shop not long after that.  Their first ride of the season was at the beginning of April, and on a cool, windy, Sunday morning, I ventured out to Orchard Farm High School to see what these rides were all about.  There were 3 choices of routes, one was about 11 miles, one about 25 miles, and one about 45 miles.  The day before, I had ridden 10 hilly miles around the house, so I figured I ought to be able to do 25 in the flood plain no problem.  I was mostly right.  Since there was this 20+ mph wind out of the south, and the route went north of the high school, everything was just fine until I had to turn around.  On the way back, there were probably 4-5 miles almost straight into the wind that about killed me, (I think I was going about 7-8 mph on those stretches) but I was hooked.  When I got home, my wife challenged me to do all of them, and not being one to back down from a challenge, I started all 20-some rides that year (2 or 3 ended in the SAG wagon), including the end of the year century.  I actually won a hydration pack from Trailnet for doing the most rides of anyone that year.

At any rate, the 2012 season of rides kicked off back on April 15th out at Wentzville HS.  Throughout the week, the forecast had some chance of rain, but Sunday morning, it was saying that the rain should hold off until about 3 or so.  I had volunteered to help at registration, so just before 8:00, I arrived at the high school ready to help set up.  Most of us who volunteered do so fairly regularly, and by 8:15 we were ready to start registering the riders.

Riders anxious to start the BFC season

 Attendance at the early season rides can be hit or miss, so while we had a crowd waiting to get going when we opened, traffic was somewhat slow the rest of the morning.  George and I were manning the non-member table in the trailer, which was nice given the wind that morning.  We didn't have to keep everything pinned down as much to keep papers from flying around.  A little before 10, Kristen & Jules, who were going to ride with George and I, showed up.  After we all got ready, we started the ride.

With the 20+ mph wind out of the south, the first leg north to Old Monroe was easy going.  This is always my favorite part of this ride, because it is also mostly downhill, with Old Monroe being in the flood plain of the Mississippi.  Here was also a decision point on whether to do the medium or long route.  By default, we usually just plan on doing whatever the longest route is, but with the storm front rolling towards us, we checked the radar while we refilled our water bottles.  The storms had reached the town of Mexico, which was about 70 or 80 miles west of us, and we thought we had about two hours before we would get wet.  If we continued with our plan to do the long route, we had about 30 miles left, but if we took the shorter one, it would only be around 20 miles to get back to the car.  We decided to push our luck and do the longer route.

I said the stretch getting to Old Monroe is my favorite part of this ride, but leaving Old Monroe is my least favorite, because the path out of town is on Highway C, which is a higher traffic road with a minimal to non-existent shoulder.  Sunday mornings sometimes aren't so bad on these roads, but it was pushing 12:00 now and church traffic was adding up.  The few miles we had along here were a bit nerve racking as we frequently had traffic stacking up behind us with no good place to pass.  When we made the left off of the highway to turn toward Chain of Rocks, I was relieved, even though it meant I now had to face the headwind.

The stretch here was definitely grueling, and speeds dropped to close to 10 mph.  George dropped us all, but when we regrouped at Chain of Rocks, we decided to try and ride a paceline to help move through the wind.  This definitely helped me out, but Jules was starting to cramp up, so he and Kristen took it easy to the next rest stop.  When we got to the Dog Prairie Tavern at St. Paul, we checked the radar again and from what we could tell, the storm hadn't moved much closer to us (though a slow internet connection may have been preventing the radar from refreshing).  We decided that we should be able to get back pretty easily now, but we got back on the bikes pretty quickly after everyone regrouped just in case.  At this point, we were the last group on the ride, so we had the SAG wagon practically following us in case the skies did open up.

The final stretch is also the hilliest, at least until we got back close to I-70.  Unfortunately, it also has more traffic on it and St. Charles County hasn't added much in the way of shoulders.  There were a couple of incidents here that reminded me why have this general disdain for the county.  The first was when I pulled off to let a pickup go by before I went down a hill, and got yelled at by someone in the truck, and then not long after that, I had another truck pass pretty closely to me.  Grr....  Fortunately, after that, we made it back to the cars without incident, and the rain held off as well, which I was happy about.  Except for those two idiot rednecks, it was a good start to the season.