Originally Posted by txags92

My wife and I had a good ride. My sister drove us up and we unloaded in the HEB parking lot. I got to start at the front as a rider with MS (with my wife), so was thankful I didn't have to wait too long to get started. I was happy to see how many people made it up to LaGrange to start, despite the logistical challenges. I really commend the MS Society folks for setting up the bus service back to LaGrange as well as Houston, as I think that made a big difference in how many people were able to ride on Sunday.

As for the ride, I was happy with how little headwind we had to deal with. When I heard the forecast for SW winds, I was expecting headwind most of the day, but I really didn't notice it much until we were passing Webberville close to Austin. The tailwind heading out of Bastrop was a lot of fun. We ended up skipping BP1, Lunch, and BP4 and only stopped at BP2 and the last BP. That worked well, giving us three legs of about 22-24 miles. We crossed the finish line just after 1pm. On the last few large hills coming into Austin a few miles after the last BP, I had a lady crash at about 30 mph right in front of me. She was moving left to go around a group of people and bullseyed a cone that was shifted to the right from where it should have been. She went down really hard and had lots of road rash, but didn't seem like she had anything broken. I managed to dodge her and then pulled over and helped get her bike and gear out of the road. It was just another reminder (as if I needed it) that it is not a race, and as much as I may want to carry speed on those downhills to make life easier on the next uphill, it isn't worth risking your safety to do it.

Thanks to everybody who rode and raised funds for us! Remember that you can keep raising money until July, and you now have the perfect tool in the form of all those cool pictures you are posting on social media. Include a link to your donation page and keep asking for donations.

The downside of the day for me was riding through 2 hailstorms on the way home. One was when we were still west of LaGrange and had nowhere to stop that was covered. We had to keep driving because the movement of the car was shielding the bikes on the back from hailstone impacts. The second unfortunately hit us about a mile from the house, and the only shelter we could get was under a tree hanging over the street. It was a sickening feeling to sit in the car with dime and quarter sized hail falling and my new bike on a rack behind the car. The stones were coming down so hard it would have been dangerous to try to get out and get the bikes off the back. So we had to just sit there and hope that the tree was preventing them from hitting the bikes. We couldn't see damage to the frames in the house, but the lighting wasn't the best. I plan to take the bikes out in the sun this afternoon and give the frames a careful inspection to make sure there is no damage. My truck has a few dents in the hood, and my sister's car has dents all over the roof. It was sitting right behind us under the tree, so hopefully that isn't a sign of what to expect with the bikes.