I don’t know what others thought of the Lamar Church facility, at which several of us slept, but it worked out very well for me; I enjoyed it. I had a feeling that doing a 100 mile ride with bronchitis wasn’t going to be easy, and I was right. I figured I would hit the wall sooner than usual, and that’s exactly what happened.

I felt great at the start, and Paul and I kept a pretty fast pace to mile 30, where we stopped. I had loaded up two Camelbaks, and two bottles of mix, figuring to keep my stops brief, few, and far between, and when Paul seemed like he was staying at mile 30 for a while, I went on and left, figuring he would catch me soon enough. I fell in with a fast group, until they all stopped just before Hell’s Gate, and I kept going.

I passed Hell’s Gate before 10:00 am, still having over a 21 mph average, but almost as soon as I turned against the wind there, I hit the wall, and by mile 60, I was just turning pedals the rest of the ride, nothing more. At mile 63, Greg passed me, and this started a trend that lasted the rest of the ride: Paul and Greg kept passing me, again and again. They were the hares, I was the tortoise. They would zoom by, but stop at the rest stops. I just kept going.

I made my only other stop at mile 80, and stayed longer than I had wanted to. I was pretty cratered, needed to fill a Camelbak, needed to mix another bottle, and needed a bit of solid food to keep my stomach settled. I ate half a granola bar. Greg pulled into the stop right after me, and laid down on one of the cots. I stepped up and gave him my best Mark Metcalfe motivational speech to keep going, but I don’t think he appreciated it.

I fought leg cramps on and off the last 40 miles of the ride. Stopping pedaling made them really bad; I had to find the right pedaling stroke to keep going, and I could not let my heart rate stay up in the 160’s for long, without cramping. I’m not sure what caused the leg cramps. I was well hydrated, and had downed plenty of calories and electrolytes. It may have been plain old muscle exhaustion, helped along by the fast early pace, and my bronchitis.

My total miles were 101.8. Total time was 5:34. On the bike time was 5:16 with a 19.3 mph average. Not as good as I had hoped for, but under the circumstances, I won’t complain. This ride is one of those that is a grand adventure; it has to be done to be appreciated. I’ll be back.

Margaritaville.

Hell’s Gate.

The spaghetti dinner.

Behind Paul in the morning sun.

Drafting the tandems.

Paul at the end.

As tall as the Nimbus is, it will never be the fastest bike around, but I wanted to make it more aerodynamic, and I’m planning on making a bodysock for it for winter riding. The first step in improving its aerodynamics was the used Windwrap fairing I picked up last month. Next, here’s the tailbox I finished for it, today. It’s fabric covered coroplast. (Does that handlebar look familiar, Nelson?)

I had bought a closeout tailsock from Terracycle, to use in the summer, and for a pattern for the back half of the bodysock I plan on making. I decided to make the tailbox to go under the tailsock (and later, the bodysock), rather than making a frame for that. Here’s the tailsock over the tailbox.

Just for a “before and after” comparison, here’s the bike the day I brought it home last year.

It was a good turnout for this permanent. A group of 25 or so rolled out of Lynn Creek Marina this morning at 7:00 am. This route first runs south from Joe Pool Lake to Venus. I was surprised at how bad these roads have become. I rode these roads quite a bit last year, and they did not have as many gravel spots, and holes as they do now.

From Venus, the route turns west, going through Rio Vista, then turning south through Blum, and taking a more southerly route back through Maypearl and Midlothian. I ended up with a group of five strong riders, which included Val and Robin, Shellene, Clay, and Sharon. As expected, it was hot and humid, with a pretty stiff southwest wind that we fought until we made the turn at Blum.

I felt great most of the way, but the pace of this group took its toll, and I seemed to hit the wall between Maypearl and Midlothian, at about mile 105. About this same time, Sharon, seeing that she was going to have her best 200k time, by quite a bit, picked up the pace. This strung out the group a bit, and I could no longer match the pace, and was dropped. I kept the group in sight most of the time, and on one downhill just south of Midlothian, actually made brief contact with the group again. But, I could not stay with the group, and by the time the group turned from the Hwy 67 service road onto Lake Ridge Parkway, I was a good half mile behind.

I just typed the magic phrase: “Lake Ridge Parkway”. Going down these big hills, I blasted past the entire group. The gas tank was pretty much still empty, so predictably, the group caught me on the flat part of Lake Ridge. Val proceded to lecture me on how uncool it was to drop the group. I was like “HUH???” I never did manage to understand why it was ok for a rider to pick up the pace at mile 105 and drop me, but not ok for me to pass the group at mile 120, knowing they would catch me shortly afterward, so I wasn’t a happy camper at the end.

I ended up with 125.6 miles and 3600 feet of climbing. My on the bike average was 17.0 mph. Official ride time was 8:06.

Rio Vista Rumble route

I decided to spend the day after being beat up on by the TTTT course doing this nice, easy 100K LSR Populaire. So much for that thought. I ended up with 63.6 miles with an on bike time of 3:22 for an 18.7 mph average. Checking my journal, that’s the fastest average I’ve had for a ride of over 60 miles. I actually spent most of my time cruising at 20+ mph. Only the dozens (well, it seemed like dozens) of traffic lights and stop signs on Danieldale and Pleasant Run roads brought the average down to 18.7. This came, surprisingly, on a day when my legs were already feeling like toast from yesterday’s TTTT lap.

Only 4 of us showed up for the ride, which starts in Duncanville, and is an out and back to Combine. The pace was slow at the beginning, but when Richard took off ahead, I joined him, and we ended up hammering the whole way to Combine and back. Actual time was only 12 minutes more than bike time; the one control stop was our only stop. The ride started at 6:05 am. We finished at 9:39 am, and I was home by just after 10:00 am. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten home that early from a 60+ mile ride.

Now, I think I’ll enjoy some TDF coverage between snores…

A bunch of rbent riders did a ride out of Celina yesterday, 7/7/07. Foorider (Mike Schwitzgebel) did a very nice report on this ride on his blog. Read it here.

I still don’t think my breathing is quite back to normal, but it was much better on this ride.

Leaving Celina.

Peggy and company.

Me on my Corsa.

Well, I guess it was my turn in the barrel. Greg and I joined 6 others in Italy to ride the same route we had tackled Sunday, and this time it was me who cratered early. Almost as soon as we started riding, I felt short of breath. I figured it was allergies acting up, and I’d be fine after a few miles, but that’s not what happened. I simply could not take a deep breath the entire ride. If I tried to exhale deeply, I sounded like the worst smoker’s wheeze you’ve ever heard.

And it didn’t get better. I’m here to tell you it’s pretty tough getting up hills if you can’t take a deep breath. And it seemed to sap my strength more, the further we went. I didn’t feel too bad at the first control stop at 28 miles, just a bit puzzled why I couldn’t keep up on the same hills I had been fine on Sunday. But the bigger hills just after the first control let me know this was going to be an extremely tough day. Greg stayed with me as I slowed. By the second control at 64 miles, I had doubts that I was going to be able to finish, and by the last control at 94 miles, I was sure I wasn’t going to finish.

But I did finish. My total was 132.5 miles. On the bike average was 15.4 mph. I forgot to check total time, but it had to be around 10 and a half hours, with many more stops than usual. My mysterious illness was only one of the indignities I endured on this ride. I ended up with body aches, much like you get when you have a fever. Every joint I have which has arthritis issues, was screaming. My Garmin Edge 305 wouldn’t power on. Even now, plugged in to power, it still won’t come on. It appears to be dead, pending repair. I really would have liked to have that heart rate monitor today. On this day when I felt so bad, it would have been nice to watch that window into my engine.

I also had two flats. With only one working co2 cartridge and a bad pump, I finished the ride with less than optimum pressure in my rear tire. When we stopped at mile 110 to water a roadside tree, I found out the hard way that I was doing my business while standing in a fire ant bed. I also had a wasp fly inside my sunglasses, but escaped being stung.

By the end, I was barely able to turn the pedals, and when we stopped in front of a Milford store with just six miles to go, I was certain that I was done. Greg bought a Dr Pepper from a machine. At first I decided against a soda (I don’t drink carbonated beverages at all), but then remembered all the times I’d seen a pro peloton racer down a Coke, so I bought an RC. That old racer’s sugar and caffeine trick does seem to work. I still had no leg strength left, and was still wheezing like a terminal smoker, but I felt a lot better, and kept the pedals turning for the final 6 miles.

I still don’t know what to make of my strange symptoms. I never coughed up much, so I was left to believe that it was just constricted bronchial tubes or such. Sure enough, when I chased down and took an ephedrine pill at home, I was able to breathe better. We’re talking classic asthma symptoms here. I don’t know what to make of it, but I’m going to discuss it with my doctor.

As I break out my dictionary now, and look up the definition of the word, “fun”, I wonder if it will match today’s story. Somehow, I don’t think so. Thanks for dragging me in, Greg.

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

I was so excited about actually getting in a ride this week, I figured I’d better do a report.

As I sat at home this evening, I noticed that storms were moving northward, both east and west of me, but it looked like a couple of hours without rain here, so I decided to ride. The Joe Pool dam dries out more quickly than anything else around here, so I loaded up the Nimbus and headed for Lynn Creek Marina.

Before I even got there, a light rain started. It was still coming down as I took off on my bike. Heading east across the dam, I hadn’t even gotten a mile before I saw really heavy rain a short distance in front of me. So, I turned around, rode back to the west end of the dam, then turned around to try again. I saw really heavy rain at nearly the same place, and this time I could see heavy rain coming across the lake toward me, too. The storm that had been east of me wasn’t going to stay east of me. I made a high speed run (at least, as close to a high speed run as I get on the Nimbus) back to the truck. Of course, before I got there, the downpour hit, lightning and all.

I waited out the worst of it in the truck, then got back on the bike and tried again. There was a light rain for several minutes after I started riding again, then it quit for the rest of the ride. I saw one other idiot……..err, I mean rider……. and one man walking a dog. A coyote also crossed the dam just in front of me. From the sounds coming from all around, the frogs were having a great day, too.

I ended up with 21.8 miles, at a 14.6 mph average. That Nimbus handles so solidly on wet pavement, it really is a great rainy day bike. It was my most exciting (read that: ONLY) ride of the week.

Since no one wanted to do the Cow Creek ride, I decided to ride the FWBA Peaster Pedal Backwards ride today. The FWBA tends to do hillier rides west of Fort Worth on Saturdays, then flatter, closer to home routes on Sundays. I ride more of the recumbent friendly Sunday rides. These rides are usually slower, since many of the riders are doing recovery after hammering in the hills the day before, and I’m usually in the lead group. I do like to do a Saturday FWBA ride now and then, just as a check of my progress against the club’s real hammerheads, on a hilly route.

This ride started at the Peaster School in Peaster, Texas, which is about 10 miles north of Weatherford. Sure enough, the ride had lots of hills. The 64.6 mile route which I rode had 2700 feet of climbing, but it honestly didn’t feel like that much. I think that’s partly because my weekly trips up Texas Plume are helping my climbing, and partly because the hills on this route just aren’t really long or really steep. My gps showed no grades greater than 8 percent, and there just weren’t any hills that were long like the Muenster ride hills, in spite of the fact that the view from the northern edge of this ride very much reminded me of the countryside in the Muenster ride.

I started the ride with intentions of seeing how well I could hang with the lead group of hammerheads, but that plan came to an abrupt halt just 8 miles into the ride when my chain broke. Then I stopped to help another guy who had flatted, then he flatted again, and the end result was that it turned into more of a conversational ride. My mph average for the ride was 16.0.

I really enjoyed this route. Most of the roads were just super low traffic country roads, with much better pavement than I expected. There were a couple of stretches of narrow highway with more traffic than I liked, and one stretch of rough chipseal, but I really would like to ride this route again. It’s really pretty countryside, and the weather was really nice for the start, but of course it was a bit hot by the end.

There was cold watermelon, lemonade, and cookies served afterward. This FWBA group is always friendly, and I had the usual comments and questions from those who hadn’t seen my bike up close before. It was a fun ride, and not a bad recumbent route, for those who might want to ride it the next time FWBA does this route.

This was to be my longest distance to date, 209k. The afternoon ended up being 93 degrees with a high humidity. If Italy is this hot in June, remind me never to schedule a visit with the Pope in the summer. It was a beautiful morning, though. Nelson, Ray, Jerry, and I set out from near Park Row and Bowen in Arlington at 6:30, and rode south down Bowen all the way to Sublett, then east on Sublett all the way to Lake Ridge Parkway, then south on Lake Ridge.

After a quick restroom stop at Lynn Creek Marina, we rode on south through Cedar Hill and Midlothian, stopping at the first control at mile 26, the Whataburger at Hwy 287 and Midlothian Road. Somewhere during this stretch, it occurred to me that I hadn’t gotten a brevet card from Nelson, and he said the cards were back in his vehicle. This oversight would end up making my day longer.

We next rode small rural roads until we hit Hwy 157 just north of Maypearl. We made another quick stop at the Exxon in Maypearl at mile 43, then continued on toward Italy. This stretch of roads had less traffic than just about any I’ve traveled, but during a five mile stretch of it, it had the same amount of elevation gain as the Lynn Creek Marina to Cedar Hill stretch, 270 feet. Jerry ended up put some distance between himself and Nelson and Ray on this stretch, and just like I had good sense, I stayed with Jerry. I knew Ray’s knee problems had been keeping him from riding as fast a pace as he would like, so I figured that was the reason for his falling back, but it now seems there was more to it than that.

We arrived at the second control in Italy at mile 60, and took a longer break here. Nelson and Ray arrived just a few minutes after Jerry and I. After leaving Italy, we rode east on Hwy 34, turning north on FM 877, just past Avalon. This road took us past some seriously fast sprinting dogs, and across the Lake Waxahachie dam, before bringing us into Waxahachie, and the last control, a Shell station on Business Hwy 287 at mile 86. I had to stop along this stretch and free a bug from under my cycling cap. It had apparently been there since the last control stop, and I kept having the sensation of something crawling on my head, only to discover that it wasn’t a phantom sensation; it really was a bug! Besides the dogs and dam and bug, the stretch of road from Avalon was memorable for being rough new chipseal, and a steady incline, and somewhere on this stretch, I hit the wall.

The rest of the ride, I was fine on flats or downhills, but I was plainly slowing Jerry down on any uphill. I would try to crank harder, but I would get no power, just a rise in heart rate. I don’t know if it was because it’s the first serious heat of the year, or I had maintained too fast a pace earlier in the ride, or if it was leftover effects of hammering Thursday evening. We made a fairly quick stop at the last control, and without waiting for Nelson and Ray to arrive, set out for Midlothian and Cedar Hill.

This stretch is also mostly gentle uphill riding, but with my lack of power, the uphills didn’t feel that gentle. The heat was brutal during this time too, and I had serious doubts about being able to finish the ride. Once we turned onto Lake Ridge Parkway, with all its downhills waiting though, I knew I was ok for the distance. We stopped at Lynn Creek Marina for water, and it ended up being a much longer stop than we planned, as we waited in line to pay for our water, and listened to the woman running the marina arguing with a group of kids (tip: don’t rent a boat at Joe Pool Lake and plan on them letting you take alcohol on it …….. on second thought, don’t take a boat on Joe Pool Lake on a summer weekend at all; leave it to the drunk kids). I think this longer than planned stop helped me recover some.

The remaining ride down Lake Ridge Parkway, Sublett, and then Bowen, was flat and easy, and we made good time, except for all the traffic light stops. The traffic on this stretch was a lot heavier than I like riding in, though. Just before the end of the ride, as we turned from Bowen onto Park Row, we smelled rain, and the pavement was wet. It was the second time in the ride we smelled rain, and was as close as we got to actually being rained on. The clouds that had showed up were certainly welcome.

Jerry and I finished the ride at 4:03. Total time was 9:33. Total miles were 128.5. Time on the bike was 7:48, for a 16.5 mph average. I was so slow during the 450 feet of elevation gain from Avalon at mile 70 to Cedar Hill at mile 105, that I surely lowered my average for the entire ride quite a bit. I’m glad there was only 3300 feet of climbing on this route; I might have had a tough time of it on this day on a route with bigger hills.

Because I had forgotten to get a brevet card from Nelson, I would have to wait for him, so I could get my card. It was my first brevet, so I did want to make it official. Jerry said Ray and Nelson would probably be along in 20 minutes or so as he rode off……… yeah right. I drove to a store and bought myself an ice cream bar and the persistent object of my craving after a long, hard ride…….. a bag of Fritos.

I sat in my truck at the ride start (a residential neighborhood) with the air conditioner running, doing my part to kill the ozone, for an hour and a half. Still, no Nelson. The neighbors were starting to peek at me between blinds, so I figured I’d better leave before they reported me as a stalker. I drove the route backwards until I finally spotted Nelson (with no sign of Ray), at Sublett and Collins in Arlington. This is very near my house, so I dropped off my bike at home, changed clothes, then drove back to the start.

Nelson arrived to finish his ride at 6:30, 12 hours after starting it. He informed me that Ray was back at Lynn Creek Marina, waiting for Nelson to pick him up. After several stops to try to recover, he was unable to continue.