FLCC> Taylor Valley Ride Notes

[John Dennis]

Yesterday's FLCC Sunday ride left from Friendly's on the east side of
Cortland about 9:15am.  Weather was pleasantly warm and over-cast.think of
Ireland in August. It was delightful landscape and I think a good time was
had by all. 

 

Several gungho riders like Sam Kolins had ridden from Ithaca.  As David Sahn
and I arrived at 9am I only managed to get about half of the names of the
riders.  One rider-who with spouse and daughter looking on
impatiently--tarried at the start to reset his cyclo-computer--and they
never did catch up with the lead group.  (Or as Andrejs would put it, we
never waited long enough for them!) 

 

David and I and Jim McGarry seemed to form the "older contingent" and for
better or for worse we hung with the lead group though David and I dropped
back by the time we got through the first 40 miles.  David reported his
average speed to be 16.6 at the finish and Ruth Sherman-apparently the only
rider with a GPS--mentioned only 1700 feet of climb when we reached
Marathon.   From Marathon the lead group took the scenic route that involves
Muckey Road. 

 

Making her debut on this ride was Eileen Penner, a Cornell vet student who
said that she had never had time to ride 55 miles until now.  She isn't a
Jenn Stuczynski yet, but she hails from the same part of New York and many
of us were impressed by her indefatiguable energy levels.  As Ben Gray led
up a hill, Eileen would often be the next rider making the ascent.  Sam
Collins, Sean McIlroy and Eric Lee were also part of the lead group in the
second half of the ride.   The next group included Jason Stilwell, Eva
Tarscia (sp?), Clif Hood and others.  

 

We over-lapped with the second group at Cincinnatus, our first and
easternmost refueling stop, and explained to them that the toilet was the
creek bank out back.  This gas station was the site of our interviews last
year with Mr. and Mrs. Paul Teutal, Sr. standing in front of their blood red
hummer with its extra large chrome wheels.  Teutal, in case you are
forgetting, is the maestro of the Discovery Channel program, American
Chopper.  He builds and sells bikes under the Orange County Chopper brand
and owns a cabin near Cincinnatus.  

 

Last year David plied Paul Sr, with all sorts of slavish questions about the
in-your-face (42"?) mag wheels.  On reflection and with oil hitting $143 a
barrel, I've allowed myself to rescript that encounter with David turning up
his austro-rasto-cockney persona: 

 

"Krykie, mon, 'is 'ere dingbat right outta 'ell blud-red 'ummer is over the
top.  H'aint yous 'eard d'about frickin global warmin' mon?  Pitch the
frickin thaing before aye's gotta certify yous a frickin moron." 

 

Yes, I've already made a note to speak to David about his language; clearly
we will not be nominating David as our FLCC global ambassador at large, or
will we? 

 

I asked the cashier at our Cincinnatus refueling stop if any of the Teutals
had been in lately. 

 

"Yesterday."  

 

"Are they still driving that blood-red jacked up hummer?" 

 

"No, they've switched to the F-150 pickup."  

 

So, apparently Big Paul took Rasto-David's advice to heart.  

 

Most of the 4-wheeled clients at this gas station were driving huge pickups
and more than one man was wearing cowboy boots and 10-gallon hat.  We could
have been in Wyoming, but with corn fields instead of oil wells.  In South
Cincinnatus we rode past the charred remains of a building that had burned
to the ground.  We noted  that it was directly across the street from the
South Cincinnatus Volunteer Fire Dept.  We left town pondering whether it
was a controlled burn that was left in place as some sort of urban memorial
to the failed Bush economy or was it just one of those ironic catastrophes
that can strike on the coldest night of a winter?  

 

During the ride, Ruth happened to mention that Vestal cyclist, Todd
Kapeghian, http://www.myspace.com/steeltodd had died at age 50 from a sudden
heart attack early in June.  This comes after the death of Cornell
geographic scientist Roger Slothower on May 19th at the age of 53 from an
apparent heart attack.  Roger and I led a kayaking trip to Cranberry Lake
last August and he was by far the stronger kayaker than I was.  I will miss
his breaking into song while paddling out into a large body of water.  Roger
had one of those wonderful personalities along the lines of "the world is my
amphitheatre."  

 

And now with two veteran journalists Tim Russert and Peter Mackler, both 58,
and both dying of heart attacks this month, I-alas, also 58--am more
concerned than ever about those sudden fatal heart attacks that seem able to
strike without warning.  Dan Barbasch has a theory that athletic people are
more prone to fatal heart attacks that are not preceded by symptoms, whereas
sedentary people are more apt to suffer from angina and gentler non-fatal
heart attacks.  When I recently completed a 400 Km ride at about 2am down in
Quakerstown, PA, I was met by an avid cyclist named Len Zawodniak who then
chatted with me for the better part of an hour about soft plaque and hard
plaque and how the former is far more dangerous.  Apparently, according to
Len, soft plaque can calcify into hard plaque.  So should we all drink more
milk?  Not according to The China Study, a nutrition book by Colin Campbell
et al. that I've ordered. It  apparently describes consuming more vegetable
protein and less animal protein as the logical centuries-tested way to be
healthy.   

 

Live and learn and ride safe, 

 

John

 

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