Since moving to North Carolina last summer, I have looked forward to my first Tar Heel Randonneur ride with anticipation and trepidation.  This past Saturday, the wait ended.  

    One way or another I find myself subscribed to the Yahoo rando list for this area and decided to join a group of them for a mid October ride that was to begin just east Durham, go up into Virginia, and return to the start.  I was told it would be a pleasant ride along rolling rural roads; not too fast; not too slow.  The weather forecast was for clear skies, light northeast winds, and temperatures in the mid 70’s so I loaded my bike into the car, set the alarm for five, laid out my cycling clothes, and went to bed.

    I was up a few minutes before the alarm was to go off, ate a decent breakfast, checked my e-mail and found there was an updated cue sheet to print out, and did the bathroom thing.  They never have to do that in novels, but a great patriarch once told me, “Never pass up a chance to pee and never trust a fart.”  So I did the bathroom thing, but after two cups of coffee and an 85 mile drive, I found I had more bathroom thing to do.  So when I arrived at the New Light Fire Station, where the ride was to start and end, I unloaded the Red Randonneuse and nicked off into the woods.

    I wouldn’t call what I found a path, but there was a way through the bushes and trees that looked easier than the other options so I took that one.  It definitely wasn’t well traveled, but forty or fifty feet into the woods, I found some grave stones.  They were old ones.  I moved on a respectful distance and finished what I’d started at home.  On the way back, I looked at the grave stones.  They were pretty well eroded, but I was able to read death dates of 1861 and 1864 on two of them.  They might have been Civil War dead, but I couldn’t read any more than that.

    When I returned to the parking lot, all the bikes and riders were there.  I mentioned the grave site and was told that they were riders who had been dropped on this permanent.  I marveled that with dates of 1861 and 1864, they had a longer randonneuring tradition than I’d imagined.  They all agreed that indeed they do.

    When I looked at the bikes, I realized I was in trouble.  There was a lot of carbon fiber and titanium.  I tried to check out some legs, but most were in leg or knee warmers so I didn’t have that to frighten me.  With the move, I was off my bikes for a solid six weeks while some of these guys were off completing Paris Brest Paris.  So at 8:00 I thought I’d get a head start and warm up my legs.  

    “We’ll be along in a minute,” I was assured.

    A minute turned into several minutes and I started feeling cocky.  “I’ll wait for them at the control,” I thought to myself.

    When I heard a car coming behind me, I looked over my shoulder and saw the rando train coming my way.  

    I have a great cycling movie called “A Sunday in Hell.”  It is a documentary about the 1976 Paris-Robaix race called The Hell of the North.  There is a scene in the movie where Francesco Moser bridges the gap between the peloton and the three man bread away lead by Roger DeVlaeminck.  When ever I watch that movie, I marvel at Moser’s ride.  For a solo rider to catch a strong breakaway like that all by himself is truly amazing.  

    Well, Francesco Moser and Fausto Coppi are both right hand front brake men like myself, but that’s about all we have in common.  The group catches me, I don’t catch the group.  They swallowed me up way before the first control, but I was able to stick with them once they did.

    After the first control, we found ourselves on some very pretty and very quiet roads that did roll up and down.  We kept a pretty brisk pace, but we were able to talk to each other and mostly rode in a pack.  

    After a while, Mike said to me, “We’re about to come into a nice little town, Chuck.”

    I gave an exaggerated look around us and asked, “Why am I not surprised there is a nice little town around here?”  

    Mike agreed that it is pretty country.  We were in an area of small farms and old buildings.  People have lived in these parts for a long time and many of them weren’t interested in carrying their dead very far because there are cemeteries all along the roads.  Some of them must be family plots, but many are attached to a church.  A pastor in Franklinville told me there is a church behind every bush in this part of the country.  Most of them seem to have cemetaries.  I saw one Methodist Church that claimed to have been founded in 1792.  That’s a long time ago.

    I saw a couple of good looking White Tail bucks along the side of the road and as Branson and I rode along talking, a doe bounded out of the woods at a full run.  She came down across the ditch and her belly almost dragged the pavement, while her right front hoof made a scraping sound, before she regained her stride and continued into the green on the other side.

    I looked at Branson and said, “We scared that one.”

    He said, “Not as bad as she scared me!”

    We probably didn’t miss her by nine feet.

    One of our controls was at an old general store.  The clapboard sides were rough and cracked and the wooden floor was well worn.  And upon it, in spindle backed chairs, sat three grey bearded old men, who, when they saw us, began to reminisce about someone they’d known long ago who owned a bicycle.  I made this a quick stop, and got a head start on the rest of the crowd.

    We stopped on the Kerr Lake dam for a photo opportunity and to allow everyone to regroup while we decided where to stop for lunch.  On one side of the dam, was a great blue lake and on the other was the wide, rocky Roanoke River.  Someone spotted a turtle and then we saw lots of them.  A kind walker took a group picture and we headed off for lunch in Boydton, Virginia.

    In the center of Boydton sits the old county courthouse.  It is a big brick affair and someone has painted the bricks white.  Painting bricks is a somewhat popular occupation that I don’t understand.  One of the great benefits of a brick building is not having to paint it.  The white paint of the county courthouse in Boydton was peeling in places and I wonder if anyone asks why it was ever painted in the first place.

    There is an informational control in Boydton.  It is the Civil War memorial that stands in front of the courthouse.  The memorial is the larger than life statue of a Confederate soldier standing with his rifle.  The artist kindly gave him a broad brimmed hat to wear and to keep the rain of thousands of storms off his brow.  He stands on top of a a base that must be twelve feet high and he is well dressed so must represent a soldier near the beginning of the war; before the uniforms of most of the Southern soldiers were reduced to rags and their shoes and boots long ago worn to nothing.

    On one side of the base of the statue there is an inscription that reads 1861-1865.  Those were the war years.  On the other side of the base is an inscription that reads, Bethel to Appomattox.

    Branson, one of the riders that day, enlightened us to the significance of the inscription.  On June 10, 1861, Federal troops, under the command of Brigadier General Pierce, were sent from Newport News, Virginia to confront Confederate outposts at Big and Little Bethel.  The Confederates abandoned Little Bethel, regrouped at Big Bethel, and sent the Union Troops back to Fort Monroe.  One Confederate soldier was killed and seven were wounded.  The battle was the first organized battle of the Civil War and it encouraged the Southern soldiers greatly.

    At the Courthouse of Appomattox, Virginia, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Virginia troops under his command to Union General Ulysses Grant on April 9, 1865.  This surrender effectively ended The Civil War.

    The Boydton Memorial remembers the Civil War from beginning to end.

    At Boydton, we ate a pleasant sit down lunch and I heard stories of the recent Paris Brest Paris Grand Randonnee.  The consensus seems to be that it was cold, wet, crowded, and hard.  I qualified for PBP, but did not go; mainly because of our move.  After hearing the stories, I’m not sure I’m sorry I missed it even though it is a great achievement.

    The restaurant was owner operated and our waitress was one of the owners.  The menu was long and crowded and I wondered what I would order.  Then someone ordered a tuna sub from the “Specials” board right next to our table.  I did the same.  It came with a drink and I’d already ordered sweet tea.  (If you are going to live in the South, you should cultivate a taste for sweet iced tea since it is served everywhere.)  I was asked whether I wanted french fries or onion rings with the sub.  I didn’t really want either, but since they obviously came with the special, I asked for french fries and ate way too much.  While paying for my lunch, I found that the french fries were not part of the lunch, they were extra.  That crafty lady sold me more than I wanted and I had to tote too much food down the road until I finally metabolized it a couple of hours later.

    About every third hill, I found myself slipping out of the back of the pack so I was trying to keep up with the cue sheet in case I found myself alone.  It’s hard to follow the cue sheet when you’re with a group that is riding fast on roads they know and after a while I didn’t know if I was still in Virginia or back in North Carolina.  We came to a cluster of houses and I checked license plates.  The consensus: North Carolina.  Not long after that, we turned onto a road we had begun on and I knew we were nearly finished.

    A couple of miles from the end of the ride, I pulled off the road to switch on my tail light.  It wasn’t nearly dark, but the trees were casting long shadows and the roads are not wide.  That was the last I saw of my riding partners.  I tried for a couple minutes to catch them, and then decided they would be horses pulling for the barn so I eased up and enjoyed the end of the ride.  

    All in all, it was a great day.  The weather was perfect.  The companionship was marvelous.  And the countryside was wonderful.  There was even some Pan au Chocolat left at the finish, but I had enough residual french fries to pass this time.

    I told the North Carolina Randonneurs that when I first saw them, I thought they looked fast.  At the end of the day I decided that’s because they are.  Our on the bike average speed for 130 miles was 17.5 miles per hour and that is very, very fast for me.  If it hadn’t been for the stops, I would have been cooked.  At least no one suggested burying me in the little graveyard behind the fire station.  The Red Randonneuse, of course, took the day in stride.