This was a fun and unique event. Saturday, Steve, Greg, Nelson, Ray, and I rode as a team in this event, and called our team Dart Vader. As opposed to a brevet, where you can ride pretty much any speed you want (as long as you maintain over a 9 and a half mile per hour average), and choose whether you ride with a group or not, on a dart, you ride the entire course with your team, and must use close to the entire designated time. Since the 12 hour time limit is more than we would ordinarily use to ride the 184k in the event, the main concern is just making sure the entire team can finish.

Nelson put together our course for the event. We, along with all the dart teams, started at the Lantana Lodge, which is east of Pilot Point, at Jordan Park at Lake Ray Roberts. Scheduled to start the ride at 7:00 am, we were late getting started, but we didn’t worry too much about that, since it was before daylight, in the lower 40’s temperature-wise, and we had plenty of hours to complete the ride.

We rode to Pilot Point, then north on US377, then turned east at Tioga. My fingers got pretty cold these first miles, in spite of the fact that I had on glove liners under my fingerless gloves. I guess it’s getting to be that time of year. There were a couple of rough spots, but these roads were mostly smooth, small, low traffic roads. At our first control in Howe, Shellene and Sharon and all from George’s dart team stopped and said hi. We also saw them at the next control in Tom Bean. They were headed north from there, though, while we turned south. I had never ridden the stretch from Howe to Tom Bean, and a couple of the hills were tougher than I would have thought could be found in this area.

The next stop was in Blue Ridge. Since it was looking like we’d be coming in way too early, we took time to eat lunch there. I downed a grilled chicken swiss sandwich that was very good. From there, we turned west. It had warmed, turning into a beautiful day without much wind by this time. When we turned south near Melissa, Nelson mentioned that these roads were the only part of the route he had never ridden before. We soon found out why, as we ended up on a three mile stretch of gravel road. I rode it slowly, keeping one foot unclipped half the time. Greg was looking like he enjoyed the stretch, though, especially when the truck and trailer passed, leaving a cloud of dust.

The remaining roads were mostly larger roads, but made of the new rough chipseal this part of the state is so known for. We made our last stop in Celina. Brenda’s team stopped there shortly after we did. It sounded like they were having a fun time just like us, although they had had a chain issue. We had no mechanicals on the ride. We rode back to Pilot Point, finally getting on smoother pavement again as we headed for Jordan Park. I ended up with just over 115 miles.

The dart riders, as well lots of LSR folks staying the night at Lantana Lodge for a permanent the next day, gathered for dinner at the lodge restaurant, and John Schiltter joined us. The food was very good, lots of stories were told, and it was a fitting end to a very fun day. Thanks, Nelson, for creating this route for us. And thanks to all my teammates for joining me on the ride. It was a different kind of ride, and great fun riding with these guys.