That’s a scary picture!  I’m glad I only have to look at that face while I’m shaving.  This was a rainy brevet so my camera spent most of the time in a plastic bag.  I pulled it out for a couple of on the road shots between showers and snapped this self portrait.  You might note that my jersey is wet and there are water droplets on my helmet.  The big grin, however, proves I’m having fun and the lack of jacket or vest, shows I am warm.

    A baker’s dozen of us showed up for the seven o'clock start of a brevet that would take us through the green fields and greening woods of the eastern piedmont in North Carolina.  I’m told that there is usually a much bigger crowd for this ride, but a competing brevet to the south of us and dire warnings from the weather people that we would likely find ourselves riding through severe thunder storms and high winds probably dissuaded some of the more reflective randonneurs from joining us.  One of the great things about the start of this brevet is that we found that about half of us were riding a first brevet.  Every randonneur likes to see the sport grow.

    Not so long after leaving, the big group was split into two smaller groups by a traffic light that decided it would only let the early riders through.  When a big pick-up pulled in behind us, we waved it over the switch for the light, but the recalcitrant light still refused to change.  When the truck had enough, we followed it under the three red lights that had taunted us and demolished our camaraderie.  We were almost to the half-way point, and only control, when we regrouped, but by then, one fellow was making the point that  we weren’t all as evenly matched as he was.  We saw him coming back while we were still going out.

    Not too far into the ride, we crossed B. Everett Jordan Lake which, like almost all the “lakes” in North Carolina, is really a reservoir.  In fact, there are only about a dozen lakes in the whole state and they are all in the coastal plain.  Most of them are shallow little affairs in the middle of swamps.  Anyway, Jordan Lake was quite full and that is a big deal because just a few months back water was becoming very scarce in North Carolina.  Most everyone blames the lack of water on the terrible drought and in most churches throughout the state you could hear prayers for rain to end the drought on any Sunday for months.  I don’t think many people prayed for conviction that we are simply using way too much water.  

    Water conservation would be a hard sell this weekend because the Haw River and all the creeks, including the famous Mud Lick Creek, were full, full, full.  It was green and wet everywhere.  Temperance is not a easy sell in America at any time let alone when it appears there is so much abundance.  And, as a randonneur, I might not be the best spokesman for temperance anyway, especially while riding 200 kilometers in the rain.  Shouldn’t a ride through the park on a pleasant afternoon suffice?

    When we came through Snow Camp, we were in my riding country.  In fact, I rode over to Snow Camp last Wednesday.  Snow Camp is kind of hard to pin down now.  It’s not really a town, but at one time it was an active community of Quakers who established a meeting house in the area before the Revolutionary War.  Later, they became involved in the Underground Railroad by helping escaped slave work their way north.  Today, there is an outdoor theater that is active in the summer and the Cane Creek Friends Meeting House is still an active Quaker church with an interesting cemetery to one side and behind it.  There is also a touristy little area where you can walk around and see that, in the old days, people lived in much more reasonably sized houses and probably didn’t suffer the droughts we suffer today.

    Down the Siler City - Snow Camp Road, we crossed Silk Hope - Liberty Road.  That is a very nice road that runs between Liberty and Silk Hope.  It was here that I realized I could turn right and be home in well under two hours.  I’d have the problem of collecting my car in Morrisville, though.

    Then we came into the outskirts of Siler City and found the Kangaroo Gas Station that was our turn around point and only control.  The worst of the weather was supposed to assault us during the morning hours and we’d done very well so far with rain, but no thunder and lightening, or strong winds.  So John took the saddle cover off his Brooks and announced that it would certainly turn ugly now, but it never did.  We found some very wet roads and very big puddles, so there must have been some showers out and about, but none of them dumped on us.  Light, warm rain was all we suffered and that’s not hard to take.

    The fellow in front of me at the store’s checkout had some very wet money.  The clerk took it, but she thought is was kind of ridiculous.  She laid the four bills out on the counter to dry.  When I slid my can of beans and bottle of V-8 toward her, she looked up and asked if I had wet money too.  I told her that I carried mine in a plastic bag so she asked the other fellow why he didn’t do the same.  “This is my first brevet,” was his only excuse.  

    Byron had $9.56 worth of stuff and the clerk asked if he needed a bag.  He said, “No ma'am, I have more pockets than a kangaroo.”  She laughed and reminded us that this was the Kangaroo Gas Station.  We didn’t need gas, but $9.56 worth of gee-dunk was probably worth ringing up.

    While we ate our lunches out front, and under the shelter of the roof overhang, I spoke with the wet money fellow.  His name is Victor and he was on his first brevet.  I told him he was doing well and asked if he intended to ride any more.  “Oh, yes.”  He’s registered for the Cascade 1200 this summer and his intention is to be the first Chinese randonneur to complete Paris - Brest - Paris in 2011.  I asked if he is a Chinese national and he said he is.  I remarked that he speaks English perfectly and he said he started very young.

    Anyway, Victor is from Beijing and he is in North Carolina going to college.  He said cycling is not very popular in China and I laughed and I laughed out loud.  “More people ride bicycles in China than the rest of the world put together; with, maybe, the exception of India,” was my retort.

    Victor clarified himself by pointing out that bicycles are not ridden for recreation in China and I hadn’t thought of that.  Anyway, since I am not a goal oriented person and not very ambitious, I was terribly impressed by this college student on his first brevet who already has a plan formulated that will result in his becoming the first person from China to finish Paris - Brest - Paris.  Maybe I should think about trying to be the first from Randolph County, or at least Franklinville, maybe the first one in my family.  Aw shucks, 2011 is a long way off for me to be thinking about.

    On the way back, we ended up as a group that included Byron, Todd, Brian, and myself.  There were four riders ahead of us and four behind.  I was up front when Byron shouted that I was about to miss our turn, and I was too far past the turn to just swerve without hitting one of the other riders so I braked, waited for them to pass, then looped around.  There was a little up at the turn and I was now in too high a gear for it.  By the time I got sorted out, they were 150 yards down the road and all of a sudden, I didn’t have it in me to catch up.  For the next two and a half miles, I wondered if I’d close the gap or let them go.  Then I dug an apple out of my handlebar bag and ate half of that.  I started feeling better imediately and slowly closed in on them.  That was the only low point of the ride for me and I felt great as we rode past Lystra, where Saints Barnabus and Paul were mistaken for Jupiter and Mercury.  I was glad to get by that town without being mistaken for a centaur.

    We passed a historical marker for a man whose name I missed, a man who’d lived in the area.  The marker said he survived many battles during the War of 1812 and then drown while sailing, when his sloop sank.  I guess that’s something to think about.