Originally Posted by WalksOn2Wheels

So I went and did the stupid thing. And BOY was it stupid.

Spinistry puts on a lot of gravel grinder type events in North Texas and they are always awesome. I realized before I left for my trip that they had one for the weekend after I got back and decided that would be a good way to get some miles in and challenge myself at the same time. I decided on the "50 mile" ride which they called the "75k" ride which was actually 51 miles.

And guys, the wind here in North Texas today was just plain brutal. 25mph sustained with gusts of 35. And I mean SUSTAINED. There was one point where I had to take a quick left and then right back onto a gravel road and I'm just watching plumes of dust shooting out from the very road I had to turn on. Luckily, the wind was from the north and the ride was northbound for the first half and mostly southbound for the last half.

In my last couple of rides, I had discovered that I was actually able to push into the red and drop my HR back down fairly easily. This ended up being very important. I pushed through the windy parts and was able to pull my HR back down so I wasn't pegging it the whole time, and when I got to the middle point, there was this lovely section of ups and downs and twists that was just so great, it was the most fun I've had on a bike in a LONG time. So after all that going in and out of the red, I felt super strong when I got those first tail winds.

Then at about mile 35, I got tired. Then it occured to me that I had consumed exactly 5 chicken mini's from chik-fil-a, a few small pieces of cut fruit, and a red bull. And that's it. And I didn't have any food on me. Once I hit mile 40, it was really just a game of putting my legs through the motions. I had to stop on the last section a few times because it was a long west bound road with lots of ups and downs and a massive cross wind. And because I couldn't really make an effort and actually keep my HR up, I was getting COLD with that north wind chilling things down. But I made it back and still finished in around 4 hours, so that wasn't half bad all considered.


TL;DR: long rides require food. I am an idiot. I still had fun because stupid people have stupid ideas of fun.