The Cold Road Back… On the Tandem

I woke up Sunday morning and my jaw hit the floor before my feet. I felt pretty good. I checked my phone’s clock: 5:38. And I slept in. I was sure once I got moving the pain and shivers would wash over me and I’d feel gnarly again.

Let me back up a minute. When I crawled into bed still smarting from the vaccine flu, I knew for a fact there was no way I would be riding in the morning. It would take a miracle recovery. I was sweating like a wh… well, profusely and I felt rough.

I made some coffee and waited for the inevitable feverish symptoms to commence. I wrote my post for the morning and waited… and nothing. I looked at the clock. My Dual Action Advil wore off at 6. I should have been shivering for an hour already. Nothing.

My morning coffee was glorious. It was one of those cups of coffee that makes you glad you drink coffee. The second cup was just as delicious. My morning coffee was made more glorious because I was beyond hoping… I was riding.

I texted my buddy, Mike at 6:30, who’d planned on riding gravel because it was going to be chilly and windy, that I’d be riding.

My wife woke up shortly after and she said she was feeling a lot better as well. She asked if we could ride the tandem, though. She loves the back of the tandem when she’s not a hundred percent, being able to just pedal, talk and look around. She likes not having to worry about holding wheels in the group, etc.. I won’t lie, I was hoping for the single bikes because the tandem is a lot more work and I was unsure of how I was going to feel, but husbands have to do what’s right in that situation. And I did.

Mike called a little after 7 and plans were made. I sent out a text to everyone and readied the tandem, took a shower and got dressed.

The plan was for an easy ride – all headwind for the first 17-ish miles, tailwind all the way home.

And so it was, and we had a great group.

We rolled out at a decent pace into a gnarly, cold headwind out of the northwest. Mike took the first three miles then we took the next four. McMike took the next bunch. We were barely at a 16-mph average… and I felt surprisingly good. Jess was in rougher shape. She was fighting short, sparse fits of nausea. Big Joe spent some time up front, as did Mike and Diane and I was grateful in our diminished condition. Normally, Jess and I will take big chunks of the headwind when we’re on the tandem, but we simply couldn’t. Our friends really stepped up.

17-1/2 miles out, we finally hit tailwind. The ride home was as easy going as the ride out… just with some help from the wind. My wife and I were synched up excellently as pedaling efficiency was concerned. I love it when we ride like that on the tandem (it’s becoming the norm, actually). On the long home stretch, heading up a slight hill, I could feel my wife decrease her effort (which happens from time to time) and almost immediately she started chuckling and simply said, “Oh! I forgot to pedal for a second.” I busted out laughing and added, “Yep.” She kicked in again and we rolled on.

Unfortunately, there was a lot more north than there was west to the wind so the return trip wasn’t quite as fast as I thought it might be, but neither my wife nor I really cared. The clouds started to break up about six miles from home and the sun started poking through, raising the temperature a few needed degrees. I’d overdressed a little, in case I took a turn for the worse, but it was a meager 36° (2 C) at the start – a few degrees made a big difference.

We finished with 35-1/2 miles at 16-1/2-mph (26.5 km/h). I was more than a little thankful that’s all we did. Having missed riding on Saturday, I was greedy thinking about how many miles I wanted to ride. When Jess said she didn’t want more than 35 miles I readied my Trek so I could ride with Mike to his house then come back the long way (it would have added ten miles). That last mile, though, while I still felt quite excellent, I knew I didn’t need to push it. I made my apologies to Mike (who agreed I shouldn’t be stupid and push it) and called it good.

And just like that, it’s all over but the waiting. Covid poke #2 is in the books and we’re less than two weeks to normal. What a relief.