Greg and I joined Steve on this ride this morning, leaving Italy at 7:30 am. This is a simple out and back route that goes southwest down US77, turns south on FM308 at Mertens, then east on FM339 to Dixie’s at Mount Calm, then back.

The wind was already howling when I arrived in Italy, and the roads were so wet, you could swear that it had been raining. After mine and Greg’s ride of a few weeks ago, I swore I wasn’t going to ride in 40 mph winds again, but in spite of the forecast for 17 mph winds in the morning and 20 mph winds in the afternoon, there were 40 mph gusts long before we reached Mount Calm, making the first half of the ride brutal. There were several hills that would normally be fairly easy for me, but today I was in granny gear pedaling at 4 mph up them. Some of the crosswinds were very scary, too, on stretches going to as well as coming back from Mount Calm. And the fact that I picked up a bad cold this week didn’t make any of it any easier.

On top of everything else, Steve had the flat from hell at around mile 25, that ended up taking us three tubes, two co2 cartridges, and way too much time to fix. This, plus the less than 12 mph average we were having against the wind, and the fact that we didn’t get started for several minutes after 7:30, put us in time trouble, and we didn’t arrive at Dixie’s until 11:37, one minute before the time limit!

Coming back from Dixie’s was a whole other story, with an on the bike average of over 20 mph. I hit 41 mph coming down one hill, and there are no hills on this route that deserve that kind of speed, on a normal day.

We survived another adventure, finishing without further disasters. I ended up finishing in 6 hours and 37 minutes, with 77.0 total miles, and an on the bike average of 14.9 mph. A Subway sandwich definitely hit the spot after the ride. Thanks, Steve and Greg.