Flower Power Ride 2014

April 26, 2014;

Muskogee, OK.

The Flower Power Ride has become for me, a test of wills. Who is the strongest, Mother Nature, or me. She has so many weapons at her disposal. The last four years, it has rained every single time. I felt that sooner or later, the law of averages has to be in my favor. This year, as it was, the rain fell on the Oklahoma Marathon on Sunday morning instead. It had originally been predicted to rain on Saturday for the ride. We weren't let completely off the hook, however. No rain ........ how about a little wind instead? Like maybe 20mph winds with gusts of 30 or so? Ah me, it's still a pretty ride. This ride is held in conjunction with the Muskogee Azalea Festival every year, hence the name Flower Power. While there are azalea bushes growing around in the wild here, the festival is held in a park downtown Muskogee.

Azalea Bush;

Our little get-together is held at the Three Forks Harbor on the Arkansas River between Muskogee and Ft Gibson, OK. This is a first class place to host a bike ride, and this group puts it on wonderfully. Spacious clean rest rooms, a large meeting room for registrations, showers after the ride, and they always throw a bar-b-que and beer fest all included in your twenty dollar ride cost. Hey runners ...... try to find that kind of bargain on an organized run! This is the Three Forks Marina building.

Some of the group at the start. There was a "normal" group of about 350 riders for this ride.

Coming into downtown Fort Gibson. Fort Gibson was an important army fort and trading post when this was still called "Indian Territory", well before Oklahoma was a state. It's an old town.

The old bridge leading north past the restored fort and out of town. This was the scene of police crowd control at it's most  (in)efficient. Just past the bridge, there is a road that turns left and goes along the river for a ways. There was a local police cruiser set up there, blocking the group from going straight and sending everyone to the left. I got there, and thought, "why are we turning left here?" I pulled over a minute to check my map, and pretty soon, here come 100 riders in a group coming back, past the police car, and headed back into town. "Dead end" they yelled as they came by me. I went back a little ways and stopped and talked to a young lady who was also waiting to watch the outcome. She looked at me as I came up to her and exclaimed..... "Everybody'll get their 50 miles in riding back and forth here"...... We agreed that we needed to go straight, always did, and we should now too. So, we started out squeezing past the police car, who's officer objected, but we continued anyway, soon to be passed by the thundering herd of the original group of 100 riders who had gone back into town and back across the bridge again, past the police car and caught and passed us. We agreed that we hoped this would be the last of the confusion.  This is the bridge that goes across the Neosho River, just north of Fort Gibson. Neat old bridge.

We did make it to the first rest stop without further incident. Unlike the Choctaw ride from last week, this one had wonderfully stocked rest stops.

This little rest stop at Hulbert, Oklahoma had homemade sandwiches, lots of fresh fruit, and the usual cookies, Gatorade and water. Nice to have the sandwiches.

I was getting ahead of myself a bit just to show the rest stops together. Most of my pictures on this ride were taken "on the fly", at least going in this direction as right here we had the 20mph wind at our backs. This was to be a rare occurrence as it seemed that every time we made a turn, the wind would come at us from the front.

This is the dam that backs up the Neosho River forming Ft Gibson reservoir. Up until this point in the ride, most of the roads were fairly flat, with some gentle rollers. This is going to change, starting right across the dam.

As soon as we got across the dam, we got to take the "high road", as you can see by the sign on the roadway.

This grade continued on up and over the ridge and then on some more after that. A good mile and one half of grade before we finally topped out. Not the steepest of the ride, but for sure the longest.

After leaving the little town of Hulbert behind, the countryside changed into more of a "hill country" appearance. The roads changed into big long rollers, over and over again. This time the wind was right in our face all the way across the longest straight leg of the ride. I had made the acquaintance of a young man at the rest stop at Hulbert who was riding a single speed 'cross bike. Strong young man! He stayed with me across most of this north leg of the ride.

The horses had plenty to eat, and looked fat and happy.

The rest stop where we turned back south. We would again have the tough old wind into our faces for pretty much the rest of the ride. This is the young man with his single speed.

At the rest stop, I was talking to a young lady who was riding a beautiful bright green Trek, and complimented her on the bike. It was an older aluminum model, but I loved the color. This was her first Flower Power. So we chatted a bit. She was a Tri racer, and was with some of her Tri group. Into the wind, these young, strong riders were a blessing, as I let them pull me through the wind. Most of the time, we were riding 15mph or so into that 20mph wind. As long as I could hang on, it was cool. Hey .....my Mama didn't raise no dummy. I'm not so macho that I won't stay behind younger and stronger girls, and let them do the work. Besides, I was pretty sure that I had the best seat in the house.  The gal in the blue jersey, and the green bike rode with me for most of the ride afterward.



 

 

 

We travelled south on this small road before intersecting with state hwy 51 just north of Tahlequah, and then continued past the airport to Mud Valley road. Saw neither mud nor a valley, but it was a fun name to chat about. Just before we got to the turn off, the rest of the group had gotten away from the two of us for a while, and we were trading off pulling into the wind, trying to work together. We were coming up close to the turn and I was watching for the arrows when what sounded like a tornado siren started sounding ...... very loud! A high pitched siren sound, up, and down. We looked at each other and said almost in unison "What the heck is that?".... About that time as I was looking around, I spied a donkey in a corral next to the road ......neck stretched out, mouth wide open, and "singing" to the top of his voice. So loud ....... not so much Hee-Haw, as more of an undulating Heeeee,heee,HEEEE ..... Funny .... we had enough to laugh at for a couple more miles. After another ten miles, and 51 miles into the ride, we finally came up on the "famous" hill of the ride. "The Wormhole". This is the start, the steeper part is a bit above my photo and out of sight. We had the wind quartering behind us as we approached, but when we made the turn to the left, it hit us right from the front. My legs were already sore from riding into the wind for so long, all the hills, and trying to keep pace with a much younger crowd. I gave it a heck of a try, but two thirds of the way up, the legs just quit. I got off the bike and walked the rest of the way. Notice I didn't say I stopped and got off. No ...... the bike was already stopped, I just got off before it fell over. If you look close, you can see the rider just below the power pole partway up the first half.

 



 





 

There was a rest stop, very welcome, at the top of the hill. Where, low and behold, two young men were there with coolers behind their bikes filled with ice cold beer and sandwiches. I would have voted them for President right about then.



It was at this rest stop, where, if you notice in front of the empty chair, there is a water bottle ..... mine ..... I walked back to my bike to get my camera, then walked back to put the camera back in it's pouch on the bike and when I got back, my chair was taken. I was ready to leave, so I just got on my bike and left. When I got five miles down the road, I went to take a drink and ...... no water bottle. Fortunately, there is one more rest stop, and the lady there gave me a bottle of water which lasted me the rest of the ride. The rest of the ride back in was uneventful, which was a nice change of pace. They had a great lunch waiting for us with bar-b-que hamburgers, hot dogs, and beans, along with ice cold beer, and as much as you wanted. This is definitely a first class ride, and they always have a first class Tee to go along with it.

All of this great treatment is what brings me back year after year to do battle with Mother Nature. I was very, very tired after this one however, with very sore legs, and it left me wondering about my capabilities. I did complete the ride, with an average speed of 14.4, so, sore or not, I was happy I at least got-r-dun. The ride comes up a bit short of 70 miles, I got 68.2 and that includes the bit of back and forth at the start.