I'jj be adding more text tomorrow. It was a long day n the road today - 9:30 AM to 6 PM and I was really tired. After my internet connection was broken, I lost an hours work because cycleblaze doesn't auto save anything. I know better from similar incidents here in the past, but I was wiped out from my hard day and forgot.
I'm only about 20 miles from the motel I like to stay at in Madison, IN so I figure I'll take it easy this morning then ride up there and check in. I had planned to ride on towards Columbus IN today, but now I may be looking into getting a rental car and driving home tomorrow.
I had noticed that my view of the front wheel on the bike was offset at the end of the day for several days. That meant my head position was no longer centered and I was riding with the bike tilted left and my upper body tilted right. At first I figured that I must have unbalanced the load in my bags but, when I corrected for that by shifting some stuff, it didn't help.
Yesterday, after too long on the road, I was having a hard time keeping the bike on the shoulder. When I finally stopped for supper, I had a hard time walking. I felt unbalanced and stumbled several times.. That got better, or really I got better at compensating for the problem, and I got a room for the night at a nearby Super 8. When I came out of the shower, I saw in a mirror how badly I was 'bent' to my right side.
Last night, I slept fairly normally but my back was sore. It is still sore this morning but it is back to being pretty straight. I've adjusted the bike seat to tilt a bit forward. The seat does not look or feel damaged. My back is unusually long. I sit with my back straight up and this bike offers it no sideways support at all. Somehow, it seems that,as I ride, my back starts bending to the right and there is a feedback mechanism that makes that bending get worse over time.
The Google bike routing was interesting since it included highways, city streets, and bike paths
Interesting routing shouldn't include water/mud traps like this section, close to where I got on that path that I was barely able to get through on my bike!
This is a telephoto shot of where the bike path starts on the bridge. Looking at it, I realized that that the path at the other end of the bridge almost certainly had similar stairs. I also saw that there was a straight forward route on the roads that would get me to back to the path on the other side of the river.
Lots of rock had to be blasted and removed to route 127 through many ridges like this. Even with all that rock removal, there was a LOT of climbing on 127 util it got out of Franklin County
16+ miles later, 355 was marked as the route I needed to take. It was great - except for having to leave the kitten in the following images - but it also had a LOT more steep climbing than the Google maps routing.
And, when I stopped to rest on one of the very few side roads this kitten showed up. She was really neat and not starving or at all unhealthy. I did pet her and she purred and rubbed against me. I dug out soem peanut butter an part of a tortilla which she nibbled on, but not like she was really hungry
After crossing the river it was following, 355 changed its nature and climbed a lot. I stopped for another break at a Marathon station on this part of the road. Then the worst climb of the day and one of worst of this tour started, This was a steep and long climb out of a river valley. The climb was so long that the nature of the vegetation changed.
Sorry to end with this image of me after my shower. Note that I am standing up as straight as I can. The strong bending of my upper body to its right side is the result of what I'm calling induced scoliosis. It was especially bad today because I kept riding long after it developed and it was really making it difficult for me to ride safely. But I've been noticing it on long days for most of this tour. I've never experienced it before and It may keep me from touring on my CF bike again.
Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km) Total: 271 miles (436 km)
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Kathleen JonesI’d never heard of that before. It doesn’t look comfortable. Funny what we can do to our bodies. Hope you can unkink soon. Reply to this comment 3 years ago
Mark BoydI hadn't heard of it either, I just made it up describe the what I saw. My back is straight again this morning, but quite sore on the right side. This will probably end my tour, but I'll take a short day today and experiment with the seat position to see if that helps Reply to this comment 3 years ago
