A bicycle tour called the Covington Century is planned soon. It’s a 100-mile bicycle tour through Newton, Walton and Morgan Counties but also features 30-mile and 60-mile routes.

It takes me back to a time when I wasn’t worried about getting run off the road or shot at as I attempted a 50-mile ride in my early teens through the backroads of Shelby County, Tennessee.

Most of those roads probably are developed with subdivisions and Walmarts and McDonald’s now as Memphis endured the same kind of urban sprawl Metro Atlanta continues to see. 

But, back then, you could ride for miles in the area around Memphis, Tennessee, and maybe be passed by a few cars who drove around you courteously.

There were a few, of course, who didn’t like they were sharing the road with a bicyclist and made sure to honk their horns at you because you were slowing them down. But they were few and far between. 

Now, apparently, you have to have a police escort.

Anyway, I remember having bought a 10-speed with money I saved from working one summer and thinking I could ride 50 miles simply because I rode a lot on some of the roads around my neighborhood. 

“I’ve ridden over to Quince and had no problem,” I told myself and my parents about visiting friends about 3 miles away in a neighborhood in southeast Memphis.

These days, I’m not sure I’d let my son ride a bicycle 100 yards unless he had a reflective vest and a full cadre of experienced bike riders surrounding him, with me following behind in my car.

But, in those more innocent days — before road rage became almost a norm and people didn’t wave guns, or worse, at other motorists — my parents would trust me to ride 5 miles at a time out of their sight and, then, trust me to get back home by dark by myself, which I did more than once.

So, armed with the knowledge I could successfully maneuver my bike, and pretty sure about my 15-year-old abilities, I was among a large group of bicyclists who began a 50-mile trek — without helmets — that would end in Audubon Park in east Memphis to benefit St. Jude’s Hospital. 

Of course, I was incredibly naive to think I could keep up with bicyclists who were much older and in much better shape. 

As I pedaled along as I always did, I began to realize I was nowhere near catching up with the rest of the pack I began with. I just couldn’t figure out why I ended up alone on this rural road somewhere in eastern Shelby County, huffing and puffing and only about 15 miles into a 50-mile course. 

Thankfully, as organizers of such events still do, they provided a flatbed truck large enough to pick up myself and other out-of-shape riders and our bikes to meet our parents at the finish line.

My much older body probably couldn’t ride a mile without quitting, as I haven’t ridden a bike in years.

Years later, when I was a Kiwanis Club member in Forsyth County in the mid-2000s, I helped provide water and fruit at a stopping point for a 50-mile ride the club sponsored in the county’s northern part which is the start of the foothills of the north Georgia mountains.

You could tell most of these folks, which included the likes of the former mayor of Roswell, were hardcore bikers. They were in shape and knew what to expect as many of them made the trek up and down Sawnee Mountain with little effort.

Anyone who attempts such a ride without being in shape is in for a rude awakening.

Which brings me back to the Covington Century ride, planned for July 30 at 7:30 a.m. with a course beginning and ending at Legion Field in Covington.

These folks are serious bicyclists. If you encounter them, give them some space. There will be a lot of them.

Tom Spigolon is news editor of The Covington News. Reach him at tspigolon@covnews.com.