Arkansaw High Country Race Day 7 / Little Rock to Mountain View / 134 miles
You might think I came out of my ¾ day rest in Little Rock
with rompin’, stompin’, leg-ripping energy and power, but I did not. I didn’t
panic, though, because I had come to expect to ride the first couple of hours of
every day with legs of sand and that’s what I had[1].
The going was easy up through Maumelle, though, and I stopped at the first open
place I could see that had breakfast, a Starbucks. I caught my breath when I
walked in and all I saw in the display case were pastries. “I thought you guys
had breakfast sandwiches with eggs in them,” I said. “We do, but they’re hard
to come by so we don’t put them out on display,” replied the barista. “Could
you describe the sandwiches you have?” I asked. I stopped her when she got to
the one with sausage, egg and cheese on a muffin. “I’ll have three of those,
please,” I said. “We may not have three,” she said, walking to wherever
they had those things squirrelled away, presumably under lock and key. It was
starting to feel like I was negotiating to free a hostage, but it turned out she
did have three and I paid for them along with a tall coffee. I’d have many more
opportunities to buy food than when I was on the southwest half of the course,
but I wanted to start with as many calories and as much caffeine as I could.
It rained intermittently throughout the day’s ride, but what
was constant was wet roads that caused my rear tire to fling water up on my
rear end. Staying wet contributed to two problems during this race. The first problem
of saddle sores is well known to just about every cyclist, and I think my case had
more to do with chafe than the classic saddle sores. My chafe points were just
inside the crease of my upper, inner leg where the leg ceases to be leg and
starts to be . . . not leg. I chafe in the same spots every super-long or
multi-day ride. I suspect the padding of the bike shorts is more to blame than
the bike seat itself. The best remedy for me was to apply copious amounts of a
product called chamois butt’r. The further we got into the ride the more these
places hurt, and I don’t know if this is really a solvable problem given the
distance, time, and roughness of the roads. There are five places where your
body is in contact with the bike. There is going to be friction at those points,
especially on gravel. The second problem was prickly heat across my upper rear
end and on my back where I carried my camelback. Prickly heat is caused by the
narrowing or clogging of sweat ducts due to heat and wetness. I first had this
condition as a Marine deployed to the Philippines in the late ‘80’s and I
learned that the best cure was to apply baby powder with corn starch[2].
I had the presence of mind to bring a small container with me and the
application of it at night made all the difference.
I took the obligatory selfie at Toad Suck Park at the 45-mile point
and ten miles later arrived at Eric Leamon’s The Ride bike shop in Conway where they tuned up my bike and treated me like a celebrity. Mike Brown was able to get the bike on the stand without taking the bags off. I had replaced my brake pads with new ones in Little Rock, so there was little to be done other than putting on a new chain. Mike warned me that I may come across other creek crossing challenges. I drank a cup of the shop’s coffee while he called people for more detailed information on the creeks. Parallel to Mike calling people, I got a text from Keith Jordan, an Arkansaw High Country Race veteran and mountain bike club teammate, warning me that I would encounter high water at Turkey Creek north of Prim. He described the crossing there in minute detail and told me to be careful[3].
I left Conway pedaling north and passed through the town of Greer’s Ferry that sits on a lovely
lake of the same name. I was taken aback by the number of empty buildings
occupying what would normally be the most desirable real estate in town.
Restaurants, condos, and businesses were among the properties that appeared to
have been vacant for years, with weeds, shrubbery, and trees in the process of consuming
the faded, crumbling structures. This had been a place where people had
timeshares, took their families to spend a week on the lake, and spent money
that supported a thriving community. There’s no doubt that the COVID pandemic
was the last kick to a town already struggling to make a living from tourism. The
economic malaise was a trend of heartbreaking ugliness and loss in places like
Fountain Lake and Eureka Springs amid stunningly beautiful nature. I think we need some kind of Marshall Plan for rural America, but that's beyond the scope of this race report.
The long, steep climb up to the little town of Prim constituted my “Welcome back to the Ozarks” and my happiness at getting up and over that first summit was diminished by the knowledge that I would soon cross Turkey Creek. After summiting and descending another challenging hill, I reached it. Keith Jordan’s description was perfect: the southern half of the crossing was over a rocky bottom leading to a long section with a paved base.
The crossing seemed to be the confluence of two creeks, and the water flowed strongly from the west to the east. These paved sections of creek crossings are generally more treacherous than the rocky ones[4]. Algae tends to build up on them, especially if they are tree shaded. I think the fact that so much water was flowing here made the paved section cleaner and safer. The best solution would have been to throw my bike in the back of a truck and be driven across (if a driver had been willing to try it) or catch a ride around it, but I had not been passed by a vehicle for hours. I decided to give it a go, possibly driven by the fact that I had already covered 125 miles and was only 9 easy miles from where I would spend the night. I suitcase-carried the bike at such an angle as to keep the bottom bracket out of the water. The rough hiking-shoe sole of my bike shoes[5] adhered well to both the rocky parts and the paved parts of the creek bottom. I took my time and ensured that each step had solid footing before taking another. The deepest part of the creek seemed to be consistent at my mid-thigh. I resolved turn back if I felt a foot starting to slide or started to experience a sensation of flotation. Thankfully, there seemed to be no place where the current was unsafe, and
In Mountain View I had a reservation at the Dogwood Motel, another classic that had adopted a folk-music theme consistent with the Ozark folk music scene in town.
 |
| This is a dulcimer, a guitar-like instrument you lay across your lap. I'm not sure what led the hotel owners or decorators to say, "We really need to mount a dulcimer on the wall here." |
My family and I vacationed in Mountain View when I was a
kid and I fondly remember touring the Ozark Folk Center State Park and going to
folk music concerts. I cannot fathom a more wholesome place to take your family
on vacation. No tourism for me this time, though. At the Dogwood I would rest,
eat, and plan the next phase of the ride. I had a large pizza delivered with the mission to eat it all before I had to leave early the next morning. As Stevil Kinevil tweeted today, any pizza is a personal pizza if you believe in yourself.
Like I did most nights, I got out my paper maps and pored
over them, identifying recognizable points and phasing the next day’s
effort. To be in the throes of the race made the map very real to me. It was as if I could feel the rounded green hills and steep, chunky gravel under my fingertips. At this point, though, I was struggling mightily to read the small
print on the map. A few years ago, I had surgery on my left eye. When
I was a Marine Lieutenant I got a corneal abrasion from being stuck in the left
eye (my dominant eye) with a tree branch and over the decades that lens got progressively
worse until I had it replaced in 2016. When you do the basic cataract surgery,
they offer the option of a “near” or “far” synthetic lens. I chose a far lens
and wound up with near 20/20 uncorrected vision by being able to see long
distance with my left (artificial lens) eye and using my natural eye to read
things close-up. A lot of people achieve this effect (monovision) by using a
single contact lens. The process of seeing and looking for things at a distance
all day on the bike was recruiting my “near” eye to look at things far away. Consequently,
it couldn’t adjust to read the small print on the maps or on my phone at night.
I resolved to buy a pair of cheap readers at Walmart on my way out of town the
next day.
Familiarizing myself with the terrain of the next day’s ride
was the best way for me to settle my dread for what I knew would be a brutal
13 – 16 hours on the bike, the hundred miles of the course where the Ozarks is shot through with the network of rivers and creeks that comprise the Buffalo River Canyon.
[1] I
learned long ago to avoid the temptation of doing “misery algebra” in an event
like this ("If I’m this tired and sluggish at X miles, just imagine how bad I’ll
feel at 2X miles! I’ll never make it!")
[2] Baby powder with corn starch is hard to find, and seemingly impossible to find in small bike-packer
friendly sized containers. I took a travel-sized plastic container of another
kind of medicated powder, pried the lid off, emptied it out, and replaced the
contents with Johnson and Johnson baby powder with corn starch.
[3] Anyone
tackling the AHCR would be smart to avail herself or himself of the knowledge
of local riders and people who have done the race before. My infinite thanks to
Tracy Wilkins, Kate Geisen, Keith Jordan, Dirk Merle, Mike Brown, Jeff Gannon,
Judy Barclay, Wes Pruitt, and Greg Jeffers for sharing their information about
the course. One of the great things about this sport is that riders see other riders more as fellow travelers than as competitors. That support was a big boost for
me.
[4] In
2020 I crashed badly trying to ride across one of these on the course in the Pea
Ridge Military Park. It only had about an inch of water on it and was slick
with algae.
[5]
Pearl Izumi X-Alp mountain bike shoes
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