Fall Adventure Ride #2

Yeah, so this happened last week, but I’ve had enough other stuff to post about (along with doing a bunch of traveling & whatnot Thursday-Sunday) that I never had a chance to write about it.

Right now, as I am working to maintain my CX fitness for the State Championship race in about a month (notice I said “maintain” and not “build”), my coach is trying to keep training fun so that I’m less burnt out by the time the race is over and I take a real, extended break. So, I’ve got the following ride description on my Training Peaks calendar: “Go have fun and ride crazy fun shit.. single track/dirt road/pavement/grass/jeep road mostly in Z2,” some of the days include the pre-ride instruction, “It is ok to start hungover today.”

In theory, sounds like a good time. However, this is Memphis. There’s not an obvious 5 hours worth of gravel and adventure right out the front door. What we do have is a large dose of ghetto, a lot of nearby private farmland, and one State Park (Shelby Forest) on the west side of the county. Deer season just opened, also, and large portions of that park are WMA where hunting is allowed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. My first ride to Mud Island was nice, but, at 3.5 hours, it was easy to plan. I was stressing on where I was going to go for 5 hours, and I started to curse the City of Memphis. Unlike all of my friends in far off places Out West (or even closer places like Central and NW Arkansas), I wanted to blame my city for my inability to plan 5 hours of adventure ride.

This is going to sound crazy at first, but I reminded myself of something Justin Timberlake (who grew up in Millington, a suburb on the north side of the city) say in an interview a few months ago, and it’s something that I channel every time I start to feel like my location is a holdup to my progress towards cycling greatness:

On Memphis, Timberlake said, “I grew up in a small town, and I definitely felt like I was an individual, always.” He continued, “But the way that you’re brought up in small-ville Mid-South, USA, you’re taught more about how you’re similar to your neighbor.”

“There’s a lot of pride, but there’s also – but don’t take this the wrong way, Memphis – but there’s also a little bit of a defeatist attitude like you feel like you’re not good enough for the big lights, per se.” He added, “The world is becoming more connected, now.”

That interview was on TV in Memphis news at one of the times when I was lusting over how “easy” it’d be to pursue a pro cycling career if I lived someplace “nice.” We don’t have the landscape, the huge community of riders, the Big Name Races and riders… it’s easy to say, “If I didn’t live in Memphis, I’d make it.” When I’m feeling down about it, I play that interview back in my head.

Your city isn’t a excuse, so shut up and make it work.

I devised a creative way to get to the south Shelby Forest WMA (being Tuesday, it wasn’t open to hunting) utilizing Google Maps “Bicycling” function. Turns out, a lot of the bike lanes that have recently been marked in the city go through rough areas. I figured I’d feel them out, and, if it seemed like too much risk, I’d turn around and stick to a more familiar route. I also saw that, in one of said areas, there was a path marked as the Cypress Creek Greenline (I’d later find it to be defunct, grown over, and covered in old tires/trash). I set out with a rough plan and ended up having a good time (as seen on Strava), despite not having the luxury of an expansive wilderness…

Riding through Overton Park: