Arkansaw High Country Race Day 5 / Mt. Ida to Thornburg / 115 miles

Anticipating rain, I carefully stretched the thin rubber cover I had brought from Texas over my helmet as part of my process to leave the hotel in Mt. Ida. I also swapped out my wool socks for waterproof ones and put on my rain pants and rain jacket. My rain gear is made by Outdoor Research[1]. It is light, breathable and packable, and I believe the Helium II is the optimum fabric for bikepacking in rainy weather with temperatures above 40 degrees. The other side of the coin of this fabric is that it is not totally waterproof. Prolonged hard rain will seep in through the fabric. Here’s what you must remember, though: trying to stay totally dry while bikepacking in Arkansas is a fool’s errand. It cannot be done since you are pedaling a loaded bike up and down mountains and generating an enormous amount of body heat. Let me hasten to add that I’m talking about warm weather. If the temperatures are 15 – 20 degrees colder, this calculus may change[2]. Waterproof socks and gloves may then be worth wearing since even if they are damp inside, the vapor barrier will hold in some crucial body heat[3]. Over the last half of the High Country Race, I only wore rain gear if the protection from a downpour was worth the sweat I would build up. So, if it was very light rain or a drizzle, I went without.

Because of the long, paved net downhill from Wye on (roughly the final 30 miles), I had planned for this day to be my longest: 150 miles to Little Rock. I woke at 4 a.m, ate my remaining Subway sandwich, and departed the hotel in total darkness and drizzling rain. The rain soon paused, and I started to generate an unacceptable amount of heat under my jacket. I stopped, took my jacket off, and stowed it in my seat bag. The rain started again, harder now. Jacket on. Rinse and repeat. Somewhere in the process of leaning my bike against myself to stow and retrieve my jacket I managed to knock off and lose the little mirror mounted to the end of my left handlebar. I also managed to swipe off and lose my rubber helmet cover in the jacket on/off process. Both losses happened in pre-dawn darkness, and I wasn’t about to go looking for them[4]. I remembered a podcast I had heard with Jay Petervary about paradoxical freedom that accompanies not having something you thought you needed. “Well,” I thought, “There go two less things to adjust, keep track of, and worry about.” I arrived at Hot Springs behind schedule, muddy and thoroughly soaked with 50 miles done, intent on stopping at the bike shop on the route to pick up some chain lube that would work better in wet conditions[5]. Consistent with how the rest of my day was going, the bike shop was closed. I went into the Colonial Pancake and Waffle House in the touristy downtown, ordered a big breakfast, and checked the weather, grateful to see that the afternoon would be largely rain-free. 

I didn’t have a good understanding of just how much rain had fallen overnight, though, and after I saddled up and continued to ride north for a couple of hours was surprised to run into an unfordable section of Alum Creek where it crosses Mt. Ida Road about as far north as Hot Springs Village. The first half of the creek may have been fordable but seemed to be deeper and faster through the trees in the distance. After catching a ride around to the far side of the creek, I could see that the deeper, faster north side of the creek was an unquestionable no-go. 


I forgot to stop my bike computer, so my ride data for that day included the long, vehicle workaround which corrupted my speed and distance. The loop around is also evident on the Trackleaders page. The ethics of accepting a ride in a vehicle seemed a little complicated to me in this case. You can accept a ride to be taken off the course to fix a bike or health problem if you get delivered to the same spot to resume racing. The spot I was taken to, some 80 yards further up Mt. Ida Road, was the best I could do. I could have backtracked, cut east to Paron and ridden Highway 9 north to Thornburg and safely circumvented the uncrossable creek, but I would have cut an enormous  section of hard gravel off the course. I thought what I did was the most sportsmanlike, fair option without putting myself in an obviously dangerous situation. I doubtless added a few miles, too, riding up and down Mt. Ida Road trying to catch a ride.   

Late in the afternoon I realized that my dynamo-powered sinewave light was not charging my Wahoo bike computer, and I was stunned to see that the USB plug of my charging cable was covered with rust when I removed it. I wouldn’t be able to get another one until Little Rock. I also discovered that phone cords won’t charge phones when they get wet, either. My lesson learned from all of this is that in rainy weather, charging cables, phones and batteries need to be sealed in Ziplock bags and then stored away in at least a weather-proof bag.  

All the shenanigans involved in getting across Alum Creek added a couple of hours to an already-long day. The ride up to Flatside Pinnacle through the Ouachita National Forest was in alternating thick fog and drizzle, and by the time I dug my phone out in the dark to take a selfie at Flatside my phone, hands, and everything available to wipe my screen dry were too wet to even unlock my phone screen to take a photo. Forest Road 86 was disastrously muddy, and I plowed through deep baby-crap yellowish mud for miles until I got to Thornburg. Having ridden from Thornburg to Little Rock a few years prior, I had nostalgically fixed in my mind that it was all smooth, mostly downhill pavement from there to Little Rock (it was Wye I was thinking about). I was disabused of that notion the moment about midnight when Tram Road left town and turned to gravel. A lake of mud and water shone in my headlight. I remembered from my map study that Tram Road stretched on for nine miles. I had no stomach for it.

I turned back to Thornburg to look for some version of a roof for a few hours sleep out of the rain. I took cover in the carport of a burned down house, changed into my dry clothes, got into my bivvy and lay awake listening to the frantic barking of three dogs at separate points distant from me like a triangle. I was exhausted and a little demoralized since I was at least 30 miles behind schedule and now had a ruined Wahoo charging cable. It would be another no-supper night, too, but I took comfort in the knowledge that I was just a few hours of easy pedaling from Little Rock.  

     

 



[1] I am not sponsored by Outdoor Research. I have found that their gear works well for bikepacking.

[2] Scottie and Ernie Lechuga first did this course as an ITT in the bitter cold of November, and Scottie comments in a video how wet they were the entire time. I think this was due to ambient humidity, not precipitation.

[3] The situations in which you would want to use raingear and waterproof socks and gloves vary greatly. I think if you are a park ranger making the rounds in a vehicle that you get in and out of through the course of a rainy day, you might want a totally waterproof shell as well as waterproof boots. Similarly, if you’re a rancher out checking fences or putting out feed in cold, windy weather, you’d want to be totally protected from precipitation and wind. Both situations generate far less body heat than trail running, bikepacking, or backpacking.

[4] I regret the inadvertent littering. In my defense, I picked up more trash in Arkansas than I left.

[5] I carried a tiny container of my favorite chain lube, Triflow, a great all-around lube but best for dry conditions. I think you should always carry or have access to chain lube on any gravel ride of greater than 100 miles.

Comments

  1. Love that Triflow! Speaking of lube, can you divulge to your reading public whether chamois cream is an essential component of your gear, or if you manage to do without?

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    Replies
    1. I use Chamois Butt'r and I needed to apply it liberally throughout this ride to deal with pretty bothersome chafing. I think I'll write about the chafing in a future post, as it was my biggest source of discomfort over the last few days.

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