cuda2k

Finally winding down a very long day which went something like this...

10:00pm Fri Night: Everything ready to go, and time to catch some shut eye.

4:45am: Alarm goes off, time to get up and out of the door asap. My lovely wife surprised me with fresh baked Banana Nut Muffins!

5:00am: Start loading up. I walk out of my apartment and am immediately met by warm muggy air. Wait a minute... Wasn't the low supposed to be like 70 degrees? This ain't no 70 degree air. I confirm that it's more like 80 degrees. Uhg. I also notice that the forecast WASN'T wrong about the strong south wind. Already probably 10mph and was just getting warmed up. Great, today's route is a North then South loop.

5:15am: The Barracuda Mk.I is loaded in the truck, I've got everything I need, time to go pick up TheCahill in McKinney 30mins away.

6:00am: TheCahill is loaded up and we're on the road for Greenville Tx, about an hour east of Dallas

7:15am: Arrive in Greenville. Made the mistake of following another truck with a bike in the back thinking he may have a clue where to go. Oops, went a few minutes out of our way but no big deal. Memories of doing the same thing last year come to mind. And I also remember the way I want to go to get down to the downtown area. TheCahill went to register while I got the bikes unpacked and everything loaded onto the bike.

7:30am: Saw BF member dl613 getting ready to take off in one of the race groups. Wished him good luck, and noted we both had the same jersey on. He so stole my idea.



8:00am: Starting gun is fired and the pack of riders start off. Planned mileage: 100k. Roll out was smooth and it seemed like we were off to a good start. I kept an eye on TheCahill who had been off the bike quite a bit lately.

8:03am: TheCahill shouts from behind me, something wrong with a wheel... or make that tire. Yes, the dreaded first thing out of the starting line flat bites us. TheCahill has no tube, no pump or inflator, or even a patch kit on him. Luckily I had both a spare tube and an inflator on me so I got to watch the entire pack of riders pass us by as he changed the tube.

1-17mi: Nice good tailwind pushing me along at 18-21mph. TheCahill was rolling a little slower so I decided to push on and meet back up with him at the agreed upon 2nd rest stop. Road was fairly smooth, older chipseal which had been smoothed out over the years. I felt good, reminded myself to drink periodically and stay relaxed.

14mi: Stop at the second rest stop. I needed to adjust my seat. The clamp was coming loose and the nose was pointing far too high. Of course not even this simple fix can go smoothly as the hex head on the hut is about 90% stripped. I hope to get it loose one more time to replace it this week. TheCahill needed to lower his seat a little as he was having some hip pain.



14-25mi: More smooth sailing. More uphills to deal with. Had to keep an eye on a few 'friendly' dogs along the route. Heart jumped as I climbed a nice little incline and saw a truck coming from the other way with a doberman pincher in the back. But he stayed in the bed as they rolled past.

25mi: Third rest stop. TheCahill is taking some time getting in and getting a bit concerned. He finally arrives but doesn't look happy. His knee had a painful pop a few miles back and he's in noticeable pain. He tries to walk it off, pops a couple more Advil before we roll out slowly. Right after this rest stop is the turn off for the 54mi route vs the 100k. I stay behind him watching his pedal stroke and can tell the leg is bothering him. He takes the smart move and turns down the 54mi route.



25-30mi: The next stretch of the road is smooth, and only 5mi to the next rest stop. We've now turned into a cross wind, and I'm having a hard time keeping on an even line. Every flag we pass, every blade of grass I see tells the same story, it's going to be a very long, brutal ride back to Greenville. Even the clouds are starting to work against us. What had been a mostly overcast sky, dark enough to even make me think twice about the chance of a rain shower, now started to break a little letting more sunlight through.




30mi: Cahill and I took this opportunity to redose on the 'SportsLegs' supplements we had started at the beginning of the ride. I have to say after this ride and Hotter'N Hell, I think the stuff works. We didn't stay here long and pressed on into the first headwind leg. At this point in the ride, even with my slowing and stopping to keep Cahill in sight I had a 17.8mph avg speed.

30-39mi: Even though we weren't straight into the wind (yet) speeds were definitely dropping quickly. We were into the land of never ending rolling hills now, with one happy little fact... they all go up more than down. For the first time of which would be many more times I thought: "How did they find a route that went up hill both ways?"

39mi: Second to last rest stop at a volunteer fire station in Wolfe City. I remembered this stop from last year. A nice stop where we were informed that there was still one decent climb left on the route. This year I also found a very welcome cooler filled with ice. Cahill was once again taking a lot of time rolling into the rest stop and my advise to him was to call it a day. The last rest stop isn't much of a stop, not much more than a tent on the corner of two rural roads.




39-47mi: Nonetheless, Cahill pressed on with me towards the final real climb. After this climb there is only more rollers (again more uphill than down). The headwind was a true headwind now. I saw the climb ahead, short, but at least 7% at the steepest, then flattened off some but still climbed for another couple hundred yards. Once at the top I was thankful to pull off to the side and wait for Cahill. I waited and waited, and was concerned that his knee had given out on the climb. At my location I could only see the very top of the main climb. Finally I saw his green 'Ireland' jersey coming over the top. As soon as he stopped he informed me he'd been stung by a wasp on his leg at the bottom of the hill. Fell over in the process of trying to swat it away. After a brief rest we pressed on into the wind once more. I rotated often between the drops and the tops and the hoods. Trying to stay out of the wind as much as possible while keeping my power up. I estimated the wind to be at least 20mph now, and watched as my cruising speed drop further and further. At least three times I looked at my current speed and thought "Well, at this pace I've got about an hour left."




47mi: Last rest stop. I thought about calling it a day. My moving speeds were somewhere around 15mph by now, and I was still passing more people than I was being passed by. I toweled off with ice water to cool down as now there were large open stretches of sun beating down. Cahill rolled in and I could see he was finished for the day. I nodded in agreement. His knee had gone from painful to numb now. I on the other hand looked down the road and knew I was close. Something like 6-7mi to the end and if I was able to do it last year with a heavier bike, less water, and a lot less miles under my belt, I would do it this year.




The last miles were hard. I was maintaining a slightly faster pace than many of the other riders still on the course though. Which gave me the option of slowing to 10-13mph and stay in draft for a while or pressing on and trying to salvage some of the overall avg speed I had built up in the first half. I decided to press on at what ever pace I could manage. Even the last couple hundred yards were up hill. I saw the large oak tree that I stopped under last year, this time I pressed on to the finish. Even though I hadn't finished the 100k, or challenged the big roller coaster hills that we shortcut around on the 54mi route, it was a successful ride. And most certainly a challenge.

54.30 mi
16.7 avg
03:16:10

In a couple months the Autumn in Bonham ride will give me another 100k chance and another shot at those hills.

/end novel

biolife

This was a delightful read

ravenmore

Cool report Jon - see you got your rear wheel fixed. Good pics too.

cuda2k

Yup, rear wheel was straight and true. One new spoke and a good truing and it was all smooth rolling once again.

kevinmcdade

Excellent ride report, Jon!!! The wind was VERY brutal today. The high humidity definitely did not help either. I rode with one of the OAS guys today. He was a very strong and fast rider who graciously let me draft off of him for most of the ride. I did a solo 45 mile ride on Friday in the same type of wind and got beat up pretty good. Today's wind was at least 15-20MPH. I'm glad to hear the Cahill didn't get hurt too bad in is fall.

I may do the Autumn in Bonham with you guys.

cuda2k

I've heard good things about Bonham and it takes some of the same roads as the Cotton Patch Classic. Bonham is a bit more to the north from Greenville. Bonham's route has more rolling hills and less flats (oh yay!) Hopefully though there is a fair number of downs along with the ups. Unlike what CPC seemed like... up hill both way... how DID they DO that?!

Drat, just realized that my bike shot was taken from the wrong side of the bike. Guess I was paying more attention to the gale winds than the bike at the time.

kevinmcdade

I'm pretty familiar with Bonham and the roads around the city...they are some pretty good motorcycle roads. The last time I was up there on my motorcycle, I thought to myself that it would be great to do some cycling on those roads. The way this weather is cooling off it may be a very pleasant ride. I'll look up the details of the ride today.

cuda2k

Kevin, I've started an Autumn in Bonham thread in the Southwest regional forum (see sig). Has link to the website and all that jazz. I heard that dl613 went down yesterday in the race, though he didn't hit the deck as hard as others in the group. They were only a mile or so into the race at the time too. I saw the emergancy vehicals blocking two lanes of traffic and a lot of riders off to the side of the road, and a couple in the back of an ambalance. It was right after we had fixed Cahill's flat so I wasn't sure if it was a race group or a tour group crash. He posted in the CPC thread in the regional forum and said he and others were able to keep riding so sounds like he missed the worst of it.

dstrong 

Great read, Cuda. It sounds like weather conditions were the same all over TX yesterday, warmer than expected and oppressively humid.

cuda2k

And today we get lots of rain. Sounds oddly like another ride recently don't it?

Sat: Hot with wind and sun.

Sun: Cooler, rain.

Wish we could get the middle of the ground now and then... but then it wouldn't be Texas no would it?

Doggus

...and rain it did. Hans and I rode the the Cotton Patch Classic on Sunday since they still had the route markings up. Got out to mile 40-something and then the rain belted us for 10-15 miles. And to top it off, Hans got two flats on his tubulars, within a 5 foot span. He ended up rolling the last several miles on his rim and flat while I went ahead and got the truck.

cuda2k

The CPC round would be a decent one to do just about any time of the year. Any of the more traveled roads all have very wide shoulders. There were some stretches where the shoulder was a lot rougher than the road bed so I was lured out into the far right of the lane. Especially when I was fighting that wind and the last thing I wanted was more resistance from the chipseal.