I, along with a nice turnout of rbenters, rolled out of Cleburne with the masses at 7:32 this morning. I resisted the temptation of having so many rabbits to chase, and kept my pace pretty moderate on the first part of this ride. That’s always the most crowded and dangerous part of a ride like this, plus I knew there were some tough hills later in the ride (and my struggles with hills this year are well documented), and I’m planning on doing a club ride tomorrow. So, a sane pace for this ride seemed to be the way to go.

There were no real problems with the mass rollout, and we were soon in the rolling hills. I had forgotten how difficult riding with huge numbers of upright bikes in rolling hills can be. They’d pass me on uphills, then surround and roadblock me when I’m ready to pass them all on the downhills.

I only made two stops during the ride, both at the same rest stop, at an intersection we went through at miles 13.5 and 47. I can’t testify how the other rest stops were manned, but this one was well stocked and had lots of friendly folks. When I carried my Camelbak in to refill it at mile 47, I immediately met a guy with a pitcher of ice water who promptly filled it. Now, that’s service!

Twice, early in the ride, Steve had pulled over and waited for me to see how I was holding up against the hills. I repaid his kindness and concern by passing him while he was in a rest stop, and never letting him catch me again.

There were a couple of rough stretches of road on this ride (that short stretch of new chipseal was awful), but most of the roads seemed pretty good to me. Traffic control was outstanding. I never had to stop at all. The route was well marked, and every turn well staffed, too. The Paluxy and Brazos rivers, along with all the surrounding hills, make some great scenery on this route.

I was slow up several of the hills, but really didn’t have any problems at all. Near the end of the ride, I was reminded that a good many riders aren’t really prepared for a ride like this, as there seemed to be a bike under every shade tree, along with a rider either sitting down, or laid out. After riding up Goatneck Hill, at mile 50, I had an average speed of a little over 16 mph, but I felt good enough at that point, I put the hammer down a bit the rest of the way, reached 35 mph on several of the remaining downhills and held good speed on the next uphills, passed a lot of riders, and ended up with a 17.1 mph average.

I enjoyed this ride a lot, and will definitely do it again. I finished with 69.5 miles, a 17.1 mph average, and 4:03 of riding time. I finished at 11:50, so both of my stops were pretty short. My gps showed 2800 feet of climbing.