There are many beautiful places in this US of A, and I think that Lexington, KY is right up there. When the wife, of one of my best childhood friends, suggested that he and I meet in Lexington for a bike ride I jumped at the chance. I knew about it for months before he did, but she kept it as a surprise for his birthday and she hit a homerun. Zach has been an avid endurance cyclist for years and is also the one who rode 140.6 miles (on his trainer!!) at the same time I was completing 140.6 miles at Ironman Florida last November. Yet, he had never entered a cycling event and this was to be his first and I was going to do my best to make it as memorable as possible.
It all started a few days before the event when he contacted me telling me his bike frame had cracked and he was scrambling to find a bike. Long story short, he bought a brand new bike that was a day late being ready and the first time he ever saw the bike was when they were strapping it to his car on his way out of town to meet me! “Nothing New on Race Day” philosophy was out the window. When he arrived at our hotel in Lexington we rode around the parking lot in the dark adjusting his seat and handle bars to the correct height and decided it would do okay. We also kept hearing a “click” every so often, but it was too dark to decipher what the sound was. I told him that sometimes the chains on new bikes are noisy and moody,
and it should be fine.
The morning before the event was beautiful. Perfect weather, perfect temperature and a good crowd was gathering on the campus of Georgetown College in Georgetown, KY. The event was very well run and organized I would go back and do it again in a minute. The crowd was friendly and talkative, and Zach and I loved looking at all the bikes…. No two were alike. Before long we were off in our pack of about 1000+. We hadn’t yet decided whether we were going to complete the 50 or 75 mile route, and decision time was at mile 39. Since the rainy weather in both Ohio and Tennessee for the last few weeks had prevented us from training properly for this ride, we decided we would make a game-time decision at mile 39.
I helped wi
th that decision process at mile 11 when coming down a small little decline there was a slight bend in the road. At the bend was a gravel driveway where some of the gravel had made its way out onto the road. I thought I had safely avoided the gravel, however, my rear tire caught it and I began to slide. While I was able to upright myself with luck, I up righted myself right into a grassy ditch with a row of trees and roots and fence in the ditch. As my tires became wet in the grass my breaks stopped working as I pumped on them and finally my shoulder caught a tree and sent me straight off my bike.
This all happened within about 1 second. The thoughts that can go through your mind during this brief encounter are almost infinite. I thought, “This is how people break their collarbone; I’ve never had a broken bone; I’ve always thought I was indestructible; I wasn’t even screwing off this time; I just hope I don’t get hit in the face; Is anyone watching?; Oh man, I may get out of this if I can just get out of this ditch…”
As I was on the ground in the ditch, peeling myself out from under my bike, surprisingly I felt completely fine. I was bloody and got a Charlie horse from hitting my calf muscle, but I popped right up. As people came running up to me to see if I was okay, I was already cracking jokes like “Who put the tr
ee in the middle of the road?” And “I’m ok really… I broke my fall with my arm.” That helped to ease all the concerned faces around, and Zach and I hopped on our bikes and rode off again. My scars and bloody shoulder made for good conversation as we passed cyclists all day. Even a day later as I write this it doesn’t look as gnarly as before.
Only a few miles later as we were headed up a big climb I was feeling good and rode ahead because I had some momentum and at the top of the hill I just pedaled softly waiting for my companion to which he never showed. I stopped, waited, waited, waited and knew it had been too long, something had happened. I rode back a short way and sure enough there was Zach and two gentleman standing on the side of the road with Zach’s broken chain in hand! As I tried to decipher their broken English, I used my principles of detection (reading “FRANCE” their cycle jersey) to make conversation about the Tour de France and other such things while the mechanic pulled cycle tools I had never seen before out of his bag. After a while of road-side maintenance the chain was fixed! We thanked them profusely and offered them a Pint as a thank you. They just told us to pay-it-forward, and we were all on our way again.
By this time, we were toward the back of the pack and with the real party. No pace lines, no hammerheads, just cycling for the joy of cycling and taking in the beautiful countryside. I loved it. We took extra time at the aid stations, and met the locals and called it a day at 50 miles. We joked it was longest 50 miles of our life (took over 4 hours to complete), but it was so enjoyable. And we smelled roasted pig as we rolled in, and it called us home. 
As we sat down in our sweaty spandex to a fully catered, top-notch dinner on the lawn of Georgetown Campus, we knew we’d be back. It could have been the waiters in white Oxford button-downs and black pants serving us sweet deliciousness, or it could have been the amazing volunteers who went out of their way to help, or it could have been the whole Horsey Hundred experience.
Do this ride, you won’t regret it.
