Today’s Date: July 18, 2024

Today’s Start Point: Jeffersonville, Indiana

Today’s End Point: Sparta, Kentucky

Today’s Miles: 86.37 Miles

Cumulative Miles: 3,559.64 Miles

A lot has happened since my last post, all of it good. As you can tell from my last couple of posts, even with Tim Radcliff’s encouragement, my morale was low. After I settled into my hotel room in Jeffersonville, Indiana (which is across the river from Louisville, Kentucky), I texted back and forth with my friend from law school, Paul Kirsch, who now lives in Berkeley, California.

During law school, Paul was my constant companion, and we went through the three years together and he always had my back. An example is that when I was in the hospital for a couple of months during law school, instead of taking the term off, I decided to listen to taped lectures in order to keep up. To tape the lectures, you would have to sit in the front row, something no one wanted to do-but Paul did. He would tape my classes and send them to me at the hospital in Minnesota every night.

Paul could tell that I was feeling low when we spoke at 3:00 pm on Tuesday. Before I knew it , he had booked an 11:00 pm red eye flight from San Francisco to Columbus, Ohio, rented an SUV and drove down to my hotel outside of Louisville by 1:00 pm Wednesday, with little to no sleep. He said he was going to drive the SUV as my SAG wagon until Saturday night, when he has to fly back home Sunday morning.

As I have said numerous times, the kindness and support that I have received from my friends is overwhelming. With Paul, it is one of many times he has been there to support me. If you knew Paul, his actions would not surprise you, he is that good of a person.

When Paul showed up I was still a little out of it, but he had a plan for the next few days. First, we needed to shop for better food than what I have been eating so we stocked up on grocery supplies, including a stop at Whole Foods. Since he had the SUV, we took my bike to a bike shop and had the hubs tightened and a squeak on my back brake corrected (you may remember my disastrous attempt at fixing my back brake in Idaho).

I also bought a couple of pairs of bike shorts since my old ones were starting to disintegrate. I was looking for high quality shorts, but they only had them in women’s. I tried them on and they seemed to work. The fact that the chamois on the shorts works for me is probably a sad commentary.

With our larders stocked, Paul’s next act was to take me out for a nice steak dinner. The restaurant was good with a piano player and the feel of an old school steakhouse (and made a fine old fashioned). It was so nice to eat at a place where I was not ordering from a counter or at a convenience store.

We made our plan for the next day, with Paul making bagel and peanut butter sandwiches for me and driving the now well stocked SUV. The plan was to try to accomplish an ambitious 85 miles.

This morning the humidity had dropped to 50% and the temperature was about 79 degrees, a huge departure from the last couple of weeks of hellish conditions. Paul had already been up for a couple of hours readying the car when I came down for the ride (even more impressive when you think he was still on West Coast time).

Since we were now on Eastern Time, we set off at 6:00 am. The route would hug the Ohio River for the first ten miles and then climb away from the river atop a bluff for the next 40 miles. At the town of Madison, Indiana, the road would drop back down to the Ohio River’s edge for 20 miles, cross the Ohio River into Kentucky, and then climb up from the river to our final destination of Sparta, Kentucky.

The first ten miles along the Ohio River leaving Jeffersonville, Indiana was relatively flat with either tree covered roadway or glimpses of the river to my right. Throughout the day Paul would either hang back about a quarter mile behind me or go ahead and wait for me to arrive. With the weather the best it had been for weeks, all I had to do was pedal.

After the ten mile riverside route, I climbed up onto the bluff and faced a rolling section for 40 miles much like what I had seen over the last few days. With nicer weather, however, I was amazed at the difference in the effort. We travelled through pretty countryside, with beautiful homes and farm country. Paul even stopped to talk to some of the farmers along the way.

As I was riding I saw something dark in the road, maybe some roadkill. For a moment I was worried that it was a dog that had been hit by a car. It was a dog, but it was not dead and had not been hit by a car, and as I approached it jumped up and started barking at me in the middle of the road. I got off my bike and yelled for it, a German Shepard mix, to go home, but it was holding its ground. I tried using my airhorn to no avail. Just then Paul caught up with me and put the car between the dog and me so that I could proceed. As I rode away the dog continued to bark at Paul.

Not 20 minutes later, I climbed one of the short hills and at the top I was confronted with about six or seven dogs, the leader appearing to be a Great Dane mix. They sounded ferocious and the big Great Dane came right up to my handlebars but I had a feeling he was just all bark. I yelled at him to go home, and in a moment the owner came out of her house and got the menagerie under control, apologizing profusely. I told her I loved dogs but there are other riders that are carrying guns and will shoot her dogs if they run at a biker.

Ten minutes later, I could see another dog running through some crops running towards me and Paul, who was hanging close now, scared it off with the car horn. In a matter of a few miles, this was all of the canine action we were going to see today.

At the 50 mile mark we hit the descent to the river, and as the road returned riverside we passed through the town of Madison, Indiana, a charming riverfront town with well maintained buildings from the late 1800’s. The Main Street went for a few blocks with nice shops and restaurants. It looks like a quaint little tourist town.

Now off the bluff the road was relatively flat but with a lot of traffic. It wound along the river until we got to the town of Vevay, Indiana, another well preserved old river town. According to the signs welcoming us to town, Vevay was home to the first commercial winery in the U.S.

After Vevay we continued along the Indiana side of the Ohio River for a couple of miles and then crossed over a bridge into Kentucky. Once over the river, there was a one and a half mile climb up to our hotel in Sparta, Kentucky.

85 miles by 1:30 pm with some climbs, not bad at all. Not only was Paul pulling dog duty in the car, but I would stop every once in a while for a bagel sandwich or some Gatorade. With the nicer weather than when Tim was here, it was easier to recharge.

All in all, a productive and fun day, at least for me. Paul of course was stuck driving a car for seven hours being my domestique. Thanks Paul, your efforts over the last couple of days our unbelievable, and as always thank you for our friendship.

Tonight we are off to a diner in the town of Warsaw to refuel for tomorrow and try to get to the town of Milford, Ohio, which is on the other side of Cincinnati. Paul has arranged for me to get a two hour massage in Milford (luckily not by Paul but by a professional masseuse). Did I say Paul was my domestique, I should have said super domestique.