TOSRV - an overview
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The Tour of the Scioto River Valley is a huge bike tour that occurs every second weekend in May. It is a 210 mile tour that begins in Columbus, OH and goes 105 miles south to Portsmouth, OH, where we stay the night, sharing a wooden gym floor with a few hundred other cyclists, and return the following day to Columbus. The main difficulty in TOSRV is always the weather, which can range anywhere from 70's and sunny to low 40's with cold rain, not to mention the winds. Those damned winds, they can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
I started doing this tour when Blaze Birinyi introduced me to it in 1995. His family has been riding it since 1977. I was recruited to be part of this "Hungarian cycling team" and have cycled the tour with them every year since then. Occasionally, we hook up with other riders along the way. Some of them kindly let us draft off them, while others draft off us.
The ritual begins when we arrive in Columbus Friday evening, register, and then look for a nice watering hole to carbo-load and get a bit loosened up for Saturday. Upon return to Columbus, we fight the mother's day crowd at Spaghetti Warehouse for some painkilling and unwinding with a few pitchers of beer. The following is a break down of the TOSRV's I have ridden.
- 1995 - NeatoMan, Jackie Linn, and the Birinyi's, consisting of Bill Sr,
Blaze, Bruce, Bill Jr, and his two girls.
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I rode my first TOSRV on my trusty workhorse, a black Schwinn World Sport. We were among the last half dozen of the 6000+ cyclists to pull into Portsmouth on that Saturday. We traveled at a slower than usual pace since we were accompanied at times by Bill Jr's little girls - their little legs chugging along on their tiny bikes right beside us. They rode about 20 miles during the tour. The rest of their time was spent with Bill Sr, Bruce or Bill Jr., who were taking turns driving the sag wagon. There were slight headwinds both days, but I fared a little better on Sunday only because Jackie and I drafted off the Hungarian cycling team the entire day. The weather cooperated with only a little cold rain on Saturday. Luckily, we avoided the gymnasium camping when one of Bill Sr's friends got us a carpeted floor in an empty rec room at the senior center in Portsmouth.
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- 1996 - NeatoMan, Blaze, Bruce, and Bill Jr.
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One of the worst TOSRV's ever. On Saturday we pedaled through COLD, COLD, needle-like rain almost the entire day. We had to stop in Waverly (~3/4 of the way done) to dry our cold, wet clothes at the local laundromat. A few hot drinks from the fast food place next door, and dry clothes was just enough to see us to the end. The only good thing on Saturday was the slight tailwind.
We woke Sunday to clear skies, only to be greeted by 15 mph headwinds that decimated the tour the last 60 miles to Columbus. Each time we would spread ourselves across the road like a flock of geese to maximize wind protection, a patrolman would drive up and admonish us to get back into single file. Inching along sometimes at only 8 mph we eventually arrived in Columbus, legs burning, and barely able to walk. My legs hurt for three days after that, and I felt it every time I ascended or descended a set of stairs.
Saturday night in Portsmouth was my introduction to camping gymnasium style. I awoke in the middle of the night to the continuous sound of a few hundred snores converging in the rafters and settling back down like a heavy fog with a low, droning AHHGHHHGHHHGHHH. Through it all I could hear the extraordinarily loud snore of one fellow, who pitched himself up in the corner of the stands, piercing through the noise like the Eye of Sauron zooming in across Middle Earth. It took me a long time to get back to sleep that night.
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- 1997 - 1999 - NeatoMan, Blaze, Bruce, and Bill Jr.
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These years are a bit unclear to me as far as chronology. It was always the same team, Me, Blaze, Bruce, and Bill Jr. The weather for these years was pretty low key - not too severe, some rain, sometimes sunny with no major headwinds, and occasionally a good tailwind. For the most part we would stick together until the lunch break on Saturday, after which time we would gradually lose Bill. Blaze, Bruce and I would finish the ride into Portsmouth, taking our usual inspirational breaks along the way. At every rest stop, Bruce would sit there puffing away at his cigarettes, drawing bewildered looks from every rider who passed him by (except for the occasional rider who, trembling from withdrawal, would step up and desperately bum a cigarette). Bill would usually rejoin us by the final rest stop on Sunday, and we would pull ourselves into Columbus, crunching along to a marine corps cadence courtesy of Sgt. Bruce Birinyi, U.S.M.C. . Some of the highlights I remember are as follows:
1997 - This year was as good as 1996 was bad. Sunny skies and a tailwind both days! The only mishap was after one of our inspirational breaks, when I managed to ride off the road while traveling uphill at a speed of only 5 mph.
1998 - This year began with a rainy morning on Saturday. Bill Jr. managed to get two flat tires before the first rest stop. Other than an abnormal number of flat tires I think the rest of the tour went fairly well.
1999 - It was either this year or the previous one - As I was leading the group towards the lunch stop on Sunday, I became temporarily distracted by some "passing scenery" and failed to see an approaching pothole. I managed to dodge it by inches, but Blaze and Bruce, drafting right behind me, couldn't react in time and plowed right over it. Both got flat tires and Bruce's rear derailleur got mangled in the crash. Far behind as usual, with no sag wagon, and two busted bikes, we were about to give up hope when a repair van drove by and patched us all up. We were soon on our way, and finished in fine form.
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- 2000 - NeatoMan, Blaze, Bruce, Bill Jr, first timer Dave Broer, and Bill
Sr. on sag duty.
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"IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE"
This TOSRV began the night before with Bill Sr. questioning the readiness of Dave's and my equipment. My bike was covered in crud from springtime commutes, and Dave brought his bike messenger special - a black schwinn identical to mine - which had endured many months of pounding during the harsh Cleveland winter. On top of having identical bikes, Blaze had lent Dave a cycling jersey which turned out to be identical to the one I was wearing. We looked like quite the pair in our matching gear. We pretended to be a super racing pair, but we really looked like two dorks. I got my bike cleaned up, and we worked as best we could on Dave's bike before falling asleep.
Saturday morning began well until we noticed a severe clicking noise emanating from Dave's rear wheel. At lunch time we went to get it checked out at one of the many bike shop repair vans. Upon inspection of Dave's bike, the guy on duty said "I'm not touching this thing" and mumbled something or other about liability and what-not. Also at this time, the rest of us were beginning to hurt due to our usual lack of preparedness for this event, and Dave started to develop a little knee pain. It was inspirational words from Bill Sr. (some of which became the title for this years report), and an extra inspirational break after the third rest stop that gave us the much needed boost to continue. In addition, Blaze's acute olfactory attraction to felines kept our spirits up and helped propel us into Portsmouth.
Dave, suffering from knee pain had to bail out early Sunday morning. Blaze and I managed to finish the remainder under sunny skies and good weather. As in previous years, Bill Jr. fell back early Saturday, only to catch up for the final leg into Columbus (with a little help from Bill Sr).
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- 2001 - NeatoMan, Blaze, and first timer Hong Chen.
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A good year for us even with fewer team members. Hong and Blaze were expecting me to miss out on this years TOSRV, but I found a cheap flight from Texas into Columbus two weeks prior to the tour. During those two weeks I had to prepare, I rode the fewest miles I have ever ridden in preparation for TOSRV. This was Hong's first TOSRV, and he came well prepared - or at least according to him, his gear was well prepared. Rounding out the trio was Blaze, who laughed as he informed me that I was the most prepared out of the three of us. We were also accompanied by Blaze's friend (name???) from Holland, and her little dog (who looked just like Toto from the Wizard of Oz).
Things went smoothly with Blaze's friend helping out with the sag wagon. She joined us for one leg on Sunday, while Blaze rested. Hong, despite his self proclaimed lack of experience, pulled us thru a good many miles of the tour. I think it was all the self-administered acupuncture that did the trick for him. The weather cooperated throughout the weekend (neither good nor bad), however, we still have yet to reach a rest stop before everyone else leaves.
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- 2002 - NeatoMan, Blaze, and Bruce.
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After 14 years on my trusty Schwinn (seven of which I rode TOSRV), I got a new bike, a black Trek 1200, With minimal training this year we still managed to finish, bringing up the rear as usual. But, this time it served us well. While everyone ahead of us ran into 80mph wind gusts and hail, we just watched it pass in front of us, completely missing us.
We also teamed up with Barb and Cathy for portions of the ride. Blaze (or maybe it was his dad, Bill Sr?) met them one TOSRV years back, and we have since bumped into them somewhere along the tour almost very year.
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- 2003 -
NeatoMan, Blaze, Hong, and first timer NeatoWoman (Kim).
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NEATOWOMAN RIDES TOSRV or KIM BRAVES THE MONSOON
NeatoWoman was well prepared for her first TOSRV, riding more miles before the event than I did. She rode a half TOSRV, two 25 mile sections each day (#2 Circleville - Chillicothe and #4 Waverly - Portsmouth). This TOSRV provided many memorable moments. Even before TOSRV weekend things bode well. My picture on the cover of the registration packet was a good indication that things were going to be interesting.
Memorable highlight #1 - Monsoon season in Ohio. Saturday was in the 80's with plenty of rain. It started about 10 minutes into the ride and never let up. Halfway into the tour the signs on the volunteer vehicles, stationed on the sides of the road, warned of a statewide tornado watch. Kim, Hong and Blaze were caught in the nastiest downpour during the final leg into Portsmouth; buckets of rain accompanied by some very close lightning strikes (I had sag duty for that leg). Kim kept quiet and pedaled thru the ordeal, but secretly wondered how often do cyclists get hit by lightning.
Memorable highlight #2 - The E. coli rest stop. Since the original breakfast stop, Fox school, had burnt down, Saturday's first rest stop was moved to a nearby dairy farm. Getting to the food required a 1/4 mile walk over a muddy gravel road. Upon arriving at the food area we were greeted by the aroma of fresh farm animal. The rain had kicked up the odor and the wind carried it till it hung over us like a biological weapons attack.
Memorable highlight #3 - Domino's delivers. After staking out our spot in the gymnasium, we head off to the fine dining establishment known as the Portsmouth Brewery. They were obviously under-prepared for the invasion of cyclists. We sat down and ordered from their selection of beer. Apparently you get whatever beer the waitress wants to give you. It was still good beer, although not even close to what we ordered. That was the easy part. We ordered our food. So far so good. A few minutes later "we are out of that". OK order something else. 10 minutes later "we are out of that too". Fine, give me something you got. 20 minutes later no one in the restaurant seemed to be getting any food. People were getting restless. Ten more minutes went by when we finally managed to grab our waitress, who informed us "our chef just quit, we have only one cook". She offered us a free pitcher of beer to appease us (still don't know what kind of beer she's been giving us). Although we appreciated the free beer, you have to remember we just cycled for almost 8 hours - we needed food. We asked the staff for the phone number for Domino's and soon had a large supreme pizza with breadsticks delivered to our table.
Memorable highlight #4 - Tailwinds are our friend. Sunday was 70's and sunny, with 15-30 mph winds from the SW. We were coasting along at 20 mph. The only annoying part were the occasional, sudden shifts to a westerly wind that almost knocked us off our bikes.
Memorable highlight #5 - An outhouse takes Blaze out. Remember how I said those winds can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Blaze found out the latter at the E. coli stop on Sunday. Blaze and Hong decided to test the wind resistance of fully laden outhouses during some of the worst wind gusts of the day. They both survived, however upon exiting his particular commode, Blaze was attacked by a wind propelled outhouse door that flattened him to the ground, causing injuries that would end his day early.
Memorable highlight #6 - NeatoMan Rules. After arriving in Columbus on sunday, we picked up our certificates. And what do we find on the certificates?... none other than yours truly in full cycling regalia gracing each and every certificate passed out to the 3000+ riders that participated in this years event. It doesn't get any better than that.
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- 2004 - NeatoMan, NeatoWoman, Blaze, and
Hong.
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THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR BLAZE or PETER'S ASS ON STEROIDS
NeatoWoman and I trained very well for this year's TOSRV. Kim, as in last year, ended up with more miles than me, but I practiced more on the hills this time. Cell phones really helped coordinate the meeting of all four of us in Columbus, and we soon were at a nearby watering hole Friday night for our ritualistic carbo-loading. Blaze had undergone reconstruction not too long before this ride, and looking like a new man, was eager to test out his new feet.
Saturday morning was sunny, and chilly (as expected for Ohio in early May) as Hong Blaze and I set out for the first rest stop. We were all creaky during that first leg, but finally got loosened up by the first break, where Kim met us to start her day. Blaze took over sag duty, resting up for the hilly section, while Kim, Hong and I took turns leading into Chillicothe. Blaze, Hong and I got back together for the hilly third section, which for some reason really killed us this time. It seemed we were huffing and puffing our way up every hill. Maybe it was because I passed on the traditional inspirational breaks, or it could have been that the Friday night carbo-load was not agreeing with me at all, and was taking it's toll on my rear end. We limped into Waverly, grateful for the break. Kim, having waited for us for a while, was ready to go right away. Blaze and Hong didn't put up a fight when it was decided that they sag the last leg. I let Kim take the lead as much as possible into Portsmouth. By the time I made it to Portsmouth my ass felt like it had been sandpapered with pumice. I thought I wouldn't be able to ride the next day, but NeatoWoman came to the rescue with some heavy duty steroid cream to put out the fire.
Kim, Blaze and I started a sunny Sunday with a slight tailwind, which stayed with us all day. I don't know exactly what Kim gave me, but whatever it was it kicked ass (pun intended) - I felt unstoppable. It wasn't so good for Hong who joined me for the hilly section, while Kim and Blaze sagged. I roared up every hill, barely slowing down on each ascent, propelled by my anus on steroids. Hong let me pull the whole way, and I didn't go easy on him. It was the best I have ridden in all my TOSRVs, and Hong kept right up with me the entire time. By the time we rolled into lunch I had picked up a train of about a dozen cyclists behind me. We averaged 18mph through 23 miles of rolling hills, with me pulling the entire time. Not bad for a couple of amateurs like us. Hong gladly accepted sag duty after that, but recovered enough to join Blaze and I for one more fast ride into Columbus.
We again bumped into Cathy this year, and she invited us over for dinner and relaxation in her hot tub after the tour. It was the perfect way to unwind. The aches left my legs and my sphincter finally relaxed.
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- 2005 - NeatoMan, NeatoWoman, Blaze, and
Hong.
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THE TOSRV THAT ALMOST WASN'T
This year almost didn't come together for us. Reproducing and wedding plans conspired to keep us away, but last minute changes allowed this tour to procede with the participation of our usual crew.
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- 2006 - NeatoMan, NeatoWoman, Blaze, and
Hong.
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THE YEAR OF THE SLACKER
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