I Saw A Peacock

Monday Morning Ride Report

The sun was just coming up over the Indian River as I swung a leg over the bike and shoved my feet into the clips. A great feature of the Whispering Pines Trailer Park is that it sits a few feet above the River so with just a couple pedal strokes I am coasting downhill to the River Road. It gives me time to adjust the toeclips and find my comfort zone on the saddle and polish the fog off my sunglasses.

When you first step outside into a Florida summer, it is moist. Even at 6:15 a.m.

I reach the bottom of the incline and lean down into the drops. The handlebar tape feels good in my hands in the early morning and I start pedaling in a middle gear to warm up my legs. The sun is a deep reddish orange and I think to myself that I should do this more often. My weekly mileage has been abysmally below my goal of two hundred miles a week. But I'm fixing that;  Today:  I'm Out Early and off for a Sunrise Ride.

This Is How It Goes

The first mile or so takes me along the River, headed South.  There are joggers and the occasional "comfort bike" rider,  but not many.  The wind seems to be a little out of the South,  but there is not enough of it to be sure.  On the return trip I will be heading straight North and a tail wind is always more fun than a header.  But I am learning to take headwinds in stride,  on the bike and in my life as well.  Sometimes there isn't much you can do about Which Way the Wind Is Blowing.  

Warmed Up and Rollin'

  I hook west and cross US One. There is hardly any traffic this morning. I pause at the red light (like a good citizen) and seeing no cars, I sprint across. This takes me into a little subdivision with lots of left and right sweeps and I always bear down here, feeling fast and skilled as I make the tight turns without falling off the bike.

Then comes a long straightaway that has zero traffic and on some days, this is where I put the hammer down to start my ride. It is only the first  five or six  miles of a 24 mile loop, but when I am strong I will crank through this part, and if I am really strong I can keep it up for an hour, all the way to the halfway point. This ride is lots of Florida country,  with very few  cars and usually no other cyclists.  The sun is higher now,  climbing fast and heating things up pretty good.

This morning I am not strong, but I push anyway. I don't know what's up. Last week I felt like I could Ride to the Moon, but the last few days I feel, well, old. Not real old, just like “dang, this is harder than it should be...”   I see a peacock on the side of the road,  not near a home or farm or anything...where did he come from?

Whatever.

Fred Buster

I'm stroking through the pre-mid-point of my ride, a neat stretch of old orange groves that I just know will be a housing development sooner or later. It has turns that put me at various wind angles and tiny changes in elevation that give me a reason to stand up out of the saddle and ease the pressure in my seat and get a little ventilation,  if you know what I mean.   I push hard on this stretch because with the little dips and rises and the sudden wind changes this is where I can practice and be ready to Bust a Move should any Stray Fred come through to challenge my peace and quiet. It has happened before. I once used this stretch of road as a Slow Place to rest and regroup after my initial push but not any more. 


 But the kick just ain't there and I know why.  I'm training;  not just out on my bike for fun like it used to be.  I'm trying to go fast and make it be a workout.  But all the same,  if I get in these short hard rides everyday or so for a few months,  they will get easier and I will get lighter and maybe the Wind Will Change and things in general will get better.

All My Life's A Circle

 I clear the fast part of the ride and cross back over US One, heading East once again towards the Mosquito Lagoon, then down along the water past Fish Camps and Historic Sites where the Timacuan Indians lived and harvested oysters and fished along shores that must have been bountiful indeed in those days before the White Guys came along. There is an old restaurant and a couple RV parks along here and it is really Old Florida,  but a little dilapidated just the same.  


A Famous Fishing Football Hero bought up most of the waterfront a few years ago with plans to build a big high-end fishing lodge and marina and that would have been nice,  but it never happened.  And the truth is,  it would have been nice for the local Carpenters like me that might have got to work on the project,  and it would have been nice for the Tourists who got to visit there and fish these pristine waters,  but it would not have been so nice for the Mosquito Lagoon Fishery,  which is more and more pressed as the years go by and more and more people come here to fish these waters.   But the Lagoon is beautiful this morning.    I'm past the halfway point,  the sun is high now and I Got Grinding To Do.   

The Highway

 The road loops me back up to US One and I turn right, headed North.  This is the ten miles of grinding on the side of the highway that I do to pay homage to the Touring Cyclists I follow on the Internet who spend days and weeks and months grinding out highway miles. Some days it is no fun at all, riding on the shoulder of an old highway; but other days Bang! and I'm done and I don't remember any of it: first I was here and then I was there and now here I am again.  The wind is nowhere,  fluking around trying to figure out what to do while I turn the cranks and wonder why my butt is hurting on this short ride.  Must be seat position,  I'm  thinking.  Time for a little tweaking.  I'm rocking a little in the saddle and I remember that a few days ago I raised the seat to see what happened.  It is amazing what a difference a few millimeters makes on a long ride. 

 Home Again Home Again...

I remember the first time I did this ride a little over a year ago.  I was riding my old Mongoose Alta that I have converted to a single speed.  This 24 mile loop was an hours-long day trip.  I would lollygag through the neighborhoods,  and stop at the fish camps to look into the crystal clear water of the Lagoon.  I would ride way out on the long fishing pier that juts out into the water.  What has become the Grind up US One was the Ten Miles of Many Stops, sometimes  including a mini-mart for beer,  or the Goodwill Store to see if there were any good new books added to the racks.  It was usually at least a three hour outing.  These days I  finish in about an hour and a half.  

But I haven't read any good books lately. Might be time to slow down.  Maybe... 

Whispering Pines Trailer Park Ride Report: Monday

#21

Sometimes I Ride, Sometimes I Sail

Sometimes, when I am not Up On Two Wheels, I am instead Up on Two Hulls.

Cromwell and Me

I sail the local waters on a Hobie Cat catamaran, sometimes alone, and sometimes with my Sailing Buddy, the Erstwhile Sam Cromwell, local Potter and area Bon Vivant. Here's a tale of One of Our Rides...

Shipyard Island

We cut in quick and hard across the north end of Shipyard Island. The starboard hull is leaping in and out of the water like a porpoise skipping in the sunshine. At this moment I feel more akin to anything happy and natural as I ever will. The wind is from the Southeast at 12 to 14  knots and this Hobie is damn well screaming across the Indian River on a day that started out with us looking suspiciously at the tops of palm trees in search of any Evidence of Wind; but it is blowing well enough now. Cromwell has a big stupid grin on his face, sitting there on the mainsail boom, steering with his left foot. I’m hiked out to windward, bottle of rum in one hand and the other hand hanging on tight to the port shroud as I sling as many of my 200 pounds as I can into the wind, for fear we might go over. This part of the lagoon has a bottom uncomfortably close to the top and we have been upside-down more than once.

The Lagoon

I let out a loud “Wee-hoo!” and listen for an echo, but when you are in the Mosquito Lagoon sound travels far over the water...and never comes back.


As we come abreast of the campground at the North End of the Island, Cromwell puts the rudder over hard and we sweep right up onto the sandy beach. I am always surprised at the gentle action of driving onto shore in a catamaran. She just sighs in, as though the land were as natural a place to be as the water. After beaching the boat we stand around for a minute getting accustomed to the lack of motion and the feel of solid ground. Cromwell digs into the cooler for a couple of beers.


“That was sweet,” he says, a huge grin still plastered on his face. He hands me a frosty, dripping cold can. I slip it into my day-glo-orange holder and take a sip. Damn. After a screaming beam reach across that thin, glistening open water, so flat and smooth you want to weep, then the frostiest of cold beer...


“Sweet indeed, my brother, we were truly haulin’ ass back there. And my compliments on your mastery of the Cap’n Dave Hang-Five sailin’ style. Pure barn stormin’.”


“Thank you, my brother. And Cap’n Dave thanks you. And wasn’t the rum just somewhere around here somewhere?”


“Just over there jammed in next to the life vests. I stashed it there at the precise moment you did that wonderfully executed little onshore jibe.” He rummages around in the Pile of Stuff we always have strapped all over the Cat.

What Next?

“Ah yes, here it is, stashed precisely as you said! Salut!” He raises his arm in a toast and I raise my beer to clink against the half-full bottle. Cromwell, looking out across the great expanse, the afternoon sun making brilliant sparkles on the surface of the crystalline water, says, “Now then, what next?”


And I don’t know what to do next. The day is so perfect, so clear, everything seems so clear, it could just end here. Just precisely here. “ I don’t know what to do next,” I say. “Let’s go look at The Stream.”

The Stream

What we refer to as ‘The Stream’ is actually some kind of man-made cut running right up the middle of Shipyard Island. Small finger cuts run at right angles to the main canal, which is about three miles long. These small finger cuts are about forty to sixty yards long and quite mysterious. We walk over from the camp area to where the stream enters the main body of the lagoon. The Mosquito Lagoon is so vast here, some ten miles wide, that the effect is quite that of being alone on a desolate island in some far away place. In fact, you are alone on a desolate island in some far away place.


Cromwell spoke first. “I think you’re right. The way the tide is running, we could just put her in here and drift straight down the middle of the Island to the South End.”


“Precisely. Then, when we get to the South End, we can cut North hard out of the Stream and catch this southeast breeze on a long broad reach, running with the current, one tack all the way to the landing with one hull in and one hull out!” We do a perfect high five. It really is a perfect day.


“How much beer do we have left?” Cromwell asks. The question is a ritualistic one, for we have long ago learned to bring Plenty Of Beer.


“Looks like enough for the journey,” I reply, glancing through the cooler. “Plus the Rum.”


“The Rum must be saved for medicinal use only,” he says. “So speaks the Captain.”


“Aye-Aye, Cap,” say I, carefully stowing the bottle in its snug nest among the child-sized life preservers.


“Captain’s Reserves stowed as ordered. Prepare to shove off?”


“Prepare to shove in is more like it, don’t you think, Watson?”


“Indeed, Holmes! Let us shove in, then, the game is afoot!”

This Is How Ya Do It

We gently ease the boat into the shallow stream in the middle of the island. The falling tide creates a kind of false current which we plan to ride three miles south to the far end of the Island. The high shell mounds on both sides of the stream, combined with the huge heaps of “diggings” made by the mysterious creators of the canal are effective at blocking the wind.


The sails slat lazily about. Caught in the current at about 3 knots, I steer by lying back on the trampoline and hanging one leg over the rudder crossbar. Cromwell hands me a fresh beer.

Pelicanus Goldentoponos

The day is preternaturally fine. In the middle of March it is still too cold for Ocean Sailing on a beach cat, and too rough, although we constantly talk of giving it a try. But here in the Indian River, a half mile west of the beach, the water is warm, the days are crisp and clear, and as I lay back and listen to the primitive sounds of the primordial island all about me, I thank God that whatever other trials and tribulations are laid before me, I at least get a day like this one once in awhile.


The little Hobie is handling like her reed-raft ancestors handled centuries before, responding lightly to the helm and skimming swiftly across water that is little more than ankle deep. One huge old Gold-Cap Pelican finds his deep thoughts suddenly disturbed by this brightly-colored intrusion ghosting slowly by. Rising grumpily from his perch he slouches away, his great, ponderous flapping producing just enough lift to carry him slowly away from this rude apparition. He cruises, graceful now, in a long, slow, gliding arc that carries him ultimately back to his original resting place. The Sun is a Lazy Friend, smiling and burning and warming our skin and warming the trampoline beneath our bodies.

Typhoid !

“Feeling a bit feverish, Cap.” A dragonfly buzzes over the tip of my nose.
“What’s that?” cries Cromwell, “Typhoid on my vessel? It shall not be! Break out the medicine!” He reaches over to the rum-nest and pulls forth the bottle. Taking a hearty draw, he coughs and chokes and passes the bottle to me. “Har! Strong medicine,” he says, gasping a little.
“Aye, Cap,” I say, “Just the thing for a touch of the ol’ typhoid, though, just the thing.” I take my own hearty pull and pass the bottle back. The dragonfly hovers daintily over the life vests. If we time everything precisely the medicine will last just long enough to get us to the South End. From there we will not need any more medicine, for our hands will be full enough, full of wind and wire and screaming; screaming across that sweet, smooth, glistening lagoon, the glorious burning sun easing into the horizon, settling gently into our thousand-hued wake.

This One's For the Cap

But just now there is no indication of the excitement ahead. Just now is all Warm Sun and Dragonfly; all subdued comments about nothing;  it is occasional rustlings in the ice chest;  it is Pelican and Dragonfly and Quiet Stream.


“Here’s to Cap’n Dave,” I say.
“Here’s to Cap’n Dave,” said Cromwell.


Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Old Sailor's Home
#12