Red Clay Rebirth

Never have I ever had as much fun on a bicycle.

I have been a confirmed roadie, committed to skinny tires and paved surfaces. But I am here today to renounce the macadam and deny the tarmac. I’ve got red clay in my veins – and caked on my legs, and stuck in my teeth, and coating my hair.

I’ve got a new bike, as hard as that may be to believe for those aware of the surfeit of bicycles now filling my home.

For those following along at home, recall how I was literally run off the road back in March. Catch up here. As I determined then, I survived what I had always figured would be the death of me, and happily so. No need to push that winning ticket. Instead, I would stop flirting with bad physics formulas and embrace a saner solution, even as it chapped my tender sensibilities to give in to the automobile.

But I did. I returned to pedaling two wheels back in June, but I have limited myself to the segregated trail, paved but away from motorized vehicles. As thrilling as it was to return to the bicycle, the trail has charms of limited variety. I began to gather the makings of an off-road bicycle;  a gravel bike in the vernacular of both the marketers and the people.

My own proclivities in combination with the circumstances of the market in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, and the havoc it has wreaked in supply chains across industries, meant I had certain choices already made for me. I got a titanium frame made in Tennessee and Italian components made mostly in Vicenza, and added a few bespoke British bits just to be snooty. It all came together with a great deal of planning and adapting.

Enough with the bicycle parts. There will be time for that. Let’s talk about the ride.

I started out in Thomasville and headed south on Millpond Road with red clay below, blue sky above, and sun dappling through the shaded embrace of an oak canopy. To ride this bike on these roads through a tunnel of arching branches was a delicious treat. Pedaling the bike is a cross between downhill skiing and whitewater kayaking:  You’ve got to read the way ahead, both downstream/downhill as well as immediately in front of you looking for hazards and challenges, pick a line, remember to relax, and keep pedaling, paddling, and descending. My ride this morning ranged from fast slaloming downhills and gentle two-wheeled walks in the woods.

The latter half of the route was a thrill ride, up and down on Hicks Road, a cutoff in the return portion of this out-and-back route. Following heavy Ida rains throughout the week before the roads were ditch-full of water and along the bottoms of this section the road gave way to what is best described as a ford — large rocks along a creek bed were mossed-over and algae-covered — and I ventured forth through the 8-inch moving water. I encouraged myself out loud, speaking into being my successful traverse: Keep pedaling, Paul. I did and I stayed upright even as my pedals splashed into the water up over my shoe tops.

This bike is an apex predator, the top of my bicycle food chain. I can ride it anywhere. I can outfit it with racks aplenty and travel the world over. I can pedal this post-apocalypse, the final fallback position. To paraphrase Dylan, “On a Lynskey. Good bike to ride after a war.” Life is not that dire, of course. Quite the contrary. But the personal insurance policy it represents brings peace of mind with it. Until such contingency as necessitates its deployment as a Mad Max world — lord, preserve us — it will supply fun and adventure in equal measure. Perhaps it brings a reckoning about mileage and speed in context, perhaps not. That is to say, I know it’s a good ride, I know I’m getting a workout, but my average speed and the miles I will pile up will both be forever lower than my baseball-card stats from 2020.

I dialed this dude in when I built it. This bike reaches cruising altitude in silence and solidity. It holds its own — along with my center of gravity — with tires broad and handlebars wide. The 1x13 drivetrain means no more derailleur rub, positive gear engagement, smooth and useful increments readily reached in common-sense steps suitable for hammering down hill or muscling upward. It’s a bike built for the worst of the elements and the best of conditions.

The death-weather combo of high temps and energy-sapping humidity broke on the morning of my inaugural ride, providing welcome temps in the 70s and humidity somewhere below sopping. It was delightful.

Downhill, over bumps, along hardwood stands and long runs of mature pine, graced by wildflowers and delighted by Gulf fritillaries, monarchs, zebra longwings, cloudless sulphurs flapping away in butterfly wonder and keeping cadence with the thrum of cicadas and frogs, it was a beautiful day in South Georgia and dipping into North Florida’s most northerly tier.

Not once did I fear for my life. It was a revelation. The fellow cyclists I met on the road were friendly and happy. I’ve long been a denizen of the road, so I am hesitant to criticize the taciturn riding style (often in pace lines that are the opposite of social), gaudy kit, and snooty attitude. But early returns indicate a kinship of clay along the dirt roads of the Deep South, where pines grow tall and oaks spread branches wide.

The ride was wonderful. The bicycle was perfect. The future is bright, tight, and out of sight.