I took off from a private picnic area east of Burleson at 7:30 this morning to ride the Fort Worth Bicycling Association Picnic ride. I arrived just a few minutes before the ride start, and forgot to get a cue sheet when I hurredly signed in. I figured this could be a problem if I ended up by myself as I so often do.

And I did end up by myself quite a bit on this ride (chasing faster riders that I couldn’t catch, like I always seem to do), but it wasn’t a problem at all. I had downloaded the route into my Garmin 305, plus the club did a great job of marking every turn, so staying on the route wasn’t a problem at all.

The route starts east of Burleson and heads mostly south to Grandview, then back, on mostly different roads. I really liked this route. It looked a whole lot like the route of the upcoming Burleson Honey Tour ride. The fierce south wind made the first half of the ride pretty tough, but it was a great tailwind on the return. I haven’t done many FWBA rides lately, and it was great chatting with members during the ride and afterward at the picnic. This is a great club, and I always enjoy riding with this bunch.

After the ride, there was lots of food to be devoured. I had chicken fajitas, and they were great. Good food is especially appreciated after a hard ride. Everyone was supposed to bring a side dish. Don’t tell anyone, but I forgot about that and showed up empty handed.

I was slow today, just like I have been on all of my rides lately, but at least I had gotten in 75 miles on the bike during the week this week, so maybe I had a better excuse than usual. I ended up with 67.6 miles for the day.

FWBA Picnic ride route.

I joined 9 other LSR members and took off from Venus, Tx at 7:30 this morning to ride the Elm Mott Trot 200k route. This route goes south to Malone at mile 42 for its second control, then on to Elm Mott for the next control. It’s an out and back, so it returns to Malone for the next control, and then back to Venus.

The usual south wind wasn’t there this morning, A front came through last night, and we had a north wind, instead. We rode a very easy pace for the first 42 miles, and still made good time with the nice tailwind. Then the group picked up the pace considerably for the remaining 22 miles to Elm Mott. I stayed with the group, but probably shouldn’t have. My knees were really starting to hurt by the time we reached Elm Mott.

I fell off the back of the group fairly quickly when we turned back against the wind. Even pedaling an easier pace, my knee pain just kept getting worse. I really haven’t experienced that kind of knee pain before, during my years of riding. It may just be that I overdid it, trying to stay with the group too long. I’ve experienced a long list of maladies from doing that, over the years, but that list had never included knee pain before.

We regrouped just before the Malone control at mile 86, and made a long enough stop to eat a sandwich. The hole-in-the-wall store there has very good barbeque. Most riders had a chopped beef sandwich, but I had a hot link sandwich, which was very good. Beef tends to lay like a brick on my stomach if I eat it during a ride, so I usually opt for a sausage or hot link, if I’m having a sandwich.

When we left Malone, my knees were quickly shouting at me again. I eased up my pace a lot, and by just soft pedaling, I was able to get the pain down to a tolerable level. But soft pedaling against that strong of a north wind for that many miles makes for a long day on the bike. I finally finished the ride, 10 hours and 37 minutes after I started. I ended up with 128 miles even. I kept thinking I would recover and my knees would feel better, but that never happened. If it’s true that some days you’re the windshield and some days you’re the bug, I was definitely the bug today.

Elm Mott Trot 200k route.