A good way to spend part of Labor Day.

Morning Expedition

Bicycling can be a good way to explore little-traveled rural roads. Over the years I’ve cycled many stretches of back road in the neighborhood of our town. Usually these excursions are limited to no more than a two-hour round trip. I seldom have time or energy for more.

A couple of times a year—usually on Monday holidays, when I’m off work, still in town, not otherwise obligated, and have favorable weather—I can try something more ambitious. These trips are usually planned ahead of time, using detailed county maps that show such landmarks as houses and churches. If a stretch of country lacks such landmarks, I try to avoid it. Such areas in our region consist mainly of timber clear-cuts and pine plantations, accessed by tough-to-ride gravel roads. Areas of more inhabited countryside are usually much more interesting and pleasant to visit.

For years now I’ve wanted to cycle a promising area located some miles to the north of town. The simplest way to get there would be to ride up the highway that heads to the north. But this would mean riding up a couple of miles of commercial strip, with double lanes and no shoulders, sidewalks, or quiet residential streets running in parallel to the main drag. This area on the north end is one of the few places in town where a cyclist would be ill-advised to travel. Bypassing it on my way to the north would mean going miles out of my way.

This Labor Day I decided to try it. Early on a holiday morning there would presumably be very little traffic. If I left early enough, I could be north of town before the traffic picked up. I could return by an alternative route that would avoid the main highways. In all I estimated that the circuit would cover about forty miles—not much for a serious cyclist, something of a challenge for somebody who very seldom rides more than about half that distance.

On Labor Day morning I slept in until 6:30. At ten-‘til I set out. Sure enough, I found almost no traffic north of town. The very few vehicles that overtook me had plenty of room to pass in the next lane. By the time I stopped for my first half-hourly rest and water break, I was well past the city limits. The highway had narrowed to two lanes, and now had a good paved shoulder on which to ride.

For the next hour I rode north on the road shoulder. Usually I ride on the shoulder only for brief connecting stretches between back-road routes. Though riding the road shoulders around here is generally safe enough, having all manner of vehicles zoom by at highway speeds isn’t much fun. At least there wasn’t much traffic during the earlier part of the period. As the morning progressed it picked up. I was not at all sad when, some fifteen miles north of my starting point, I finally reached the county road where I had planned to leave the main highway.

From here I had a good hour and a half of riding back roads in settled country. It was mostly a pleasant area of rolling hills, pastures, and meadows, dotted with houses and hay bales, and here and there the occasional barn or well-kept country church. It is one of the few areas in our sparsely-populated neck of the woods where houses and open areas are not few and far between, where the countryside could be considered somewhat scenic. The only thing that prevented the day looking truly beautiful was an overcast sky that made the scene a bit gloomy. Even that was not without its advantages. The overcast helped to keep the temperature pleasant.

I had very occasionally driven or motorcycled through the area before. On this bicycle trip I found a couple of stretches of road that I had never yet gone down in or on any kind of vehicle. It felt good to explore a bit of new country by bicycle. I had not had a chance to do that in some time.

There is really no substitute for exploring by bicycle. The slow speed, in comparison to driving through, gives time to notice details that I might otherwise have missed. I saw signs for a now-deserted commercial business in the middle of nowhere…wooded fence-rows and stands of shady hardwoods…a tiny, well-kept family cemetery I’d never before noticed. One section of pasture sloped steeply down into a small creek. The cattle had all come down to the water to cool off. The scene made me think of an American version of a Constable landscape.

Now and then I stopped to rest, get a drink of water, and consult my map. Seeing for the first time an area known mainly from maps always brings its surprises. Distances can sometimes be less than you think they’ll be from the map. Intersections can appear very different from what you expected. And sometimes road signs that you’d hoped to use to verify your location and route turn up missing. A missing sign of this sort caused my only navigational error. I overshot a turnoff and had to backtrack a mile or so after realizing for certain that I had made a mistake. At least on the way back I did not have a second encounter with a belligerent dog that gave me a bit of trouble the first time.

Eventually I came to the one stretch of road that I had not been looking forward to. Between the area I was exploring in the north, and the familiar roads that would lead me home in the south, lay a four-mile stretch of deserted road labeled “TAR”—Timber Access Road. This meant four miles of gravel road surrounded by dreary clear-cuts and pine plantations. Traversing it would be something of a grind.

Initially the road surface was hard-packed enough to make good riding. Soon it deteriorated into more normal-quality gravel road. This meant that it was too bumpy to be very comfortable. Worse, it had areas of loose sand and gravel that wasted much of my traveling energy. Riding across a level stretch of such road felt like pedaling uphill, especially now that I was starting to tire. At least the actual uphill stretches in this area were not very steep.

Though the road wasn’t actually that bad as gravel road goes, in my tired condition, with the protective overcast now breaking up, I found twenty minutes of riding on it all I could take before needing to stop for a break. Fortunately I hit that point in an area where the plantation pines had grown tall enough to provide good shade. I stopped, dismounted, and reached for my water.

For several minutes I rested. Above the trees a large, soft mass of cloud rolled along. The blue above it had a softness to it as well, as if previewing the milder skies of the autumn that still lay two months in the future. A cooling breeze whispered in the pines. An insect buzzed by. I heard birds singing. It suddenly occurred to me that, in the middle of the stretch of riding that I had expected to be nothing but a grind, I felt as joyful and satisfied as I had felt all morning long. It was probably the best moment of the whole ride. I suppose there’s a life-lesson there somewhere.

Then it was time to get back underway. Another ten minutes of hard pedaling brought me back to pavement. From here I had an hour or so more to go across familiar paved roads to get home. By now I felt sufficiently played out to keep the ride from feeling too easy. But I knew that I was in the home stretch. I made it home at 11:30, after exactly four hours and forty minutes on the road. I’d covered everything I had planned to, without completely exhausting myself or wrecking my knees. After a bath, some lunch, and a brief nap I was ready for the rest of the day. That evening I made a brief ride into town for a pint of cherry vanilla ice cream. I felt I’d earned it.

The following weekend, I retraced most of the route by motorcycle to check my mileage. I had covered 42 miles, including the one place that I’d had to backtrack. On this powered ride I got to see the terrain by evening. It was even more beautiful. While passing one pasture I startled a large flock of brilliantly white egrets into flight. The world is just filled with such unexpected beauties, if one gets the chance to go looking for them now and then.

Sounds absolutely gorgeous. I wish I were there.
Maybe not now as it's the middle of the night...