Taking a ride off the bucket list — without checking it off
One of the rides on my bucket list is coming off – but not because I completed it. The ride is Delta Epic, a nearly 300-mile mostly gravel route from north Mississippi through the Delta to Bentonia, home of the Bentonia blues. It’s self-supported, and in prior years there has been a grand depart from Arkabutla Lake at midnight, usually near a full moon. Jason and Wendy Shearer, who own Ordinary Epics and put on the four-race Mississippi Gravel Cup each winter, are the force behind the ride.
It’s a race, because someone gets to Bentonia first, but there’s no entry fee, no T-shirts, no prizes, no age groups. It’s a labor of love that Jason and Wendy give to the gravel cycling community. This year, though, their non-cycling workload made it impossible to have a grand depart.
I attempted Delta Epic last fall and wrote about it here. The short version is that at about 245 miles, on the dark gravel roads of the Delta National Forest, I began to lose my balance. At one point when I stopped, I apparently fainted and found myself on the ground. I think that’s when it became a bucket list ride. By the time my friend Greg Caldwell and I were picked up by his daughter, we’d covered 261 miles. While that’s only about 32 miles less than the full distance, the final miles of the full course are through loose gravel and steep climbs. In the dark. Close doesn’t count.
So this year, the same group that attempted it last year – Merrill and Roxanne Smith, me, and Greg – along with Dan Dohmen and Gary Russell decided to attempt it again. The roads are all public and Jason said that he’d give credit for completing it to anyone who finished it and sent him their GPS file. Merrill, Rox and Greg have already completed it once and checked it off, but Dan and Gary had not attempted it before.
In addition to being a physical challenge – you’ll likely take 24 hours or more to complete it – it’s a logistical challenge. Which convenience stores in rural Mississippi will be open in the wee hours of the morning when you pass through? Where do you get water when there aren’t any towns?
In early October, we set out at about 10:30 p.m. from the Arkabutla dam near Tunica. After about 25 miles, we made it up onto the levee road along the Mississippi River. The gravel road runs above pastures for miles and is a beautiful way to traverse the state. If there was such a thing as a controlled-access gravel highway, the levee road would be it. And there’s no traffic. Usually.
At about 2:15 a.m. we saw a pickup truck stopped at the top of a ramp to the levee and we pulled up to them. The truck had two couples in their 20s or maybe 30s, and by their own admission they’d been drinking. Most people can’t get their minds around riding nearly 300 miles; I can’t imagine what it’s like to comprehend that after a few too many beers. They were friendly and told us they’d drive off slowly so they wouldn’t kick up a lot of dust. As he was leaving the driver yelled, “Coahoma County, Clarksdale Mississippi is the greatest!” Here’s to civic pride.
We stopped for water and to refuel in Clarksdale; had breakfast in Rosedale; and stopped for lunch at Jack’s in Indianola. I got an extra chicken sandwich and stuffed it in a jersey pocket for later. I think my problem last year was dehydration and lack of fuel.
After Indianola, the logistics get more complicated, as there really aren’t any towns along the route. Last year we stopped at the Sharkey Country Club, a 9-hole golf course in Sharkey County, just before you enter the Delta National Forest. Our support driver, Gary’s nephew Alan Wilson, had gone ahead to Sharkey’s to see if it was open, as Google said it was permanently closed. It was open, and when we arrived we saw the same gentleman who was there last year watching football in the bar. But this year he had bad news.
The bridge over the Little Sunflower River, which we needed to cross to get to the Delta National Forest was out. Greg, our default navigator, asked him if there was an alternate route and they discussed a variety of roads, all of which seemed to have “bayou” in the name. It was a complicated re-route, made even more difficult because it was now dark. And as we were leaving, the gentleman said, “I have been drinking, you know...”
We headed out and it became pretty clear that his route wasn’t going to take us where we needed to go. We stopped and Greg looked for an alternative to our alternative. Despite spotty cell service, hard-to-read screens and swarming mosquitoes, he found a route. But we discovered a few miles down the road that it also had a bridge out.
Greg hiked down to the water and found that there were concrete pads to let workers get from one side to the other, so we were able to cross. But at this point, it was getting even later, we’d been on the road for over 21 hours and without sleep for 35 to 40 hours. And we had the most difficult part of the ride ahead of us. We’d had enough of Delta Epic. We found a paved road to Satartia (which is the last town on the course before the climbing begins) and arranged for Alan to meet us there.
For the second year, I wasn’t going to finish Delta Epic. But unlike last year, in the last few miles I felt great. There are few opportunities to do hard efforts with 250 miles in your legs, so I decided to make the most of it. I fell back a hundred meters or so and did six or eight 500+ watt efforts. And I still felt good.
I think that was when I realized that as much as I want to finish Delta Epic, I’ve done enough to be satisfied. The scenery, day and night, is beautiful; and I’ve seen all but those final miles of climbing — twice.
The people we met – the levee drinkers this year and the retired rodeo clown in the Delta National Forest last year – are better than fiction. Sure, I’d have preferred to finish it all. But I don’t think I want to ride the 260 miles I’ve already done for the opportunity to ride the 30 or so I haven’t. And I don’t want to go over there just to do the last 33. The real challenge of those miles is doing them at the end of the full ride.
I haven’t done Delta Epic, so I can’t check it off my bucket list. But I am taking it off the list. There are other rides I have in mind, like the RockStar Challenge, a 250-mile gravel race in Virginia, from Harrisonburg (Rocktown) to Roanoke (the Star City) — with 25,000 feet of climbing in the Blue Ridge.
Maybe I’m just rationalizing failure, but I don’t think so. When you put something on a bucket list, you never fully know what the experience will be like. That mystery is probably a large part of why it’s on your list. Behind that mystery there might be a different, better reason for putting it on the list. One you can’t imagine.
Delta Epic went on my bucket list with a goal of finishing it. But it turns out that the time I spent with friends, and overcoming the physical failure of the first attempt, are enough to satisfy me. And isn’t satisfaction the ultimate reason something comes off a bucket list, regardless of why you put it there?
The rides: Last year https://www.strava.com/activities/9952852334
This year https://www.strava.com/activities/12586199355
Video:
A tale only Rick Swagler could tell. A Lyle Lovett song. And in there a sermon about mystery and redefining our bucket list.
great read. seems like you’re fully recovered