Friend Greg Gross and I joined a bunch of Lone Star Randonneur riders on this 200K route that starts in Italy. It turned into a brutally hot day and Greg DNF’d 38 miles from the finish. This group had so many fast riders, it was just too easy for us to set too fast an early pace, and those of us who haven’t ridden much long distance stuff need to keep in mind that we should first concentrate on just riding a long distance, then later think about riding a long distance fast. For me, that’s easier said than done.

We heard at the control where Greg DNF’d that Jorge had a crash further up the road. It turned out the he actually didn’t crash. Three miles after the next to last control, Pam hit his rear wheel causing her and Dan, who was beside her, to go down. One of their bikes hit Jorge’s rear derailler, breaking it off. Jorge didn’t go down at all. Dan’s front wheel was tacoed, so they put Jorge’s front wheel on Dan’s bike, and that left only Jorge’s bike unable to continue. Pam got the worst of the crash. As she congratulated me on my finish, I could see blood on her knee and shin, and as she walked away, I noticed her elbow was really scraped badly.

Mark M hammered the first part of the ride, but then seemed to lose motivation. He slowed down, and rode a mile out of the way for an unscheduled ice cream stop. I think he is still tired from RAAM. After I left the last control, I rode the rest of the way with him. It was a fast group today. Mark and I were the last two finishers.

I ended up with 132.4 miles. On the bike time was 8:07, for a 16.3 mph average. Total time was 9:51. These were mostly very low traffic roads, in a part of the state I haven’t traveled much. Starting in Italy, we passed within sight of Lake Navarro, and rode all the way to Groesbeck. On a less trying day, the scenery would have been very enjoyable. The clouds that were around all day never were over us. Mark joked that a sunny spot was following us the whole ride. The heat was brutal, but just two miles down I-35E after I started home in my truck, I hit a major thunderstorm.

LaBellaRani Duecento 200K route