Ugh. The weather has been a problem all year...now this.

I think it's the right decision. Otherwise, I would have been on the look out for possible shelters in the event of lightning during the ride.

I am glad I waited til the last minute to drop off the luggage.

Day two starts at Fayetteville County Courthouse in Lagrange at 8am. I think it is the right decision if you realize they had to make it before busses started picking riders up in Austin and bringing them to Houston. Also take a look at the radar west of San Antonio. That is forecast to get stronger and more severe as it comes west towards us today and tonight.

For the riders who valued the MS150 solely as a ride, I believe you are right. MS Society should give them an option to ride and transfer their donations to another event.

On the contrary, most of us look at it as a fundraiser and the end goal of the event.

So my question now is:

We paid for the bus transport back from austin to the stadium. If we drive to La Grange Sunday morning, and park, will the buses and trailers now bring us back to La Grange?
Will they bus us from Houston to La Grange, and then Austin to Houston?

This just turned into a logistical nightmare for anyone that doesn't have someone picking them up personally in Austin.

...and the worst part - we just nailed down an alternate campsite about 10 miles away from the fairgrounds at an employees country ranch. we were all set. Now this. balls.

I did not ride in 2009, but I think in Austin at the finish, you can choose which bus to take back, Bus going back to Lagrange or the bus going back to Houston.

May be someone else can let us know whether or not the returning bus to Lagrange will continue on to Houston.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuu.....

Im riding somewhere, at least 75 miles tomorrow. My wife has agreed to drive SAG. Now I have to plan a damn route and try and get some of my club involved with almost no lead time.

I am very sad that day one is cancelled. I've been looking forward to this all year.

I doubt I can get to LaGrange to do day 2. This is horrible.

Im not sad for the fundraising.

I am pissed, uselessly, at the ****ty weather, and bummed personally that the challenge I started riding to topple has been pulled out from under me. Directionless rage, I guess. I'll get over it. Trying to channel it into planning an imprompteu ride tomorrow.

Still... F*(KF*&KF&(K

My post was not directed at you and I apologize if it came off that way. I understand the threats from the severe weather. It was more of a post about self realization that I can put up with getting wet. I would not want to ride in thunder and lightning. The heavy rain that rolled through Thursday night was not something I would be willing to ride in, no matter the cause. This is my first year, so I am one of the thousands of inexperienced people making the ride. I like to think that I know what I am doing, but I imagine, so does every one else.

Sorry if what I wrote came off as harsh because I didn't mean it to sound that way at all. I feel the same way you do in that we have nothing to complain about if the ride was wet.

I don't really understand the logistics of riding from La Grange to Austin. Is there someplace to park my car in La Grange? Will there be busses from Austin back to La Grange?

I can't find any explanation on the MS 150 site, and my team (Saint Arnold) doesn't seem to be offering any ride to La Grange.

In 2009, the last time MS cancelled day 1, there were 3 designated parking areas near the courthouse. Let me try to find the info and will post it up for you.

I think they are still working though and finalizing the logistics. I would have thought that they would have started these plans earlier and finalized or activated them once the call to cancel day one was made. My concerns are with the challenge route. I imagine many more people will be taking it since they won't be tired from day one. Fast hills , lots of riders and possible wet or puddled roads would not be fun. I'm sure they are combing that route to make sure it is safe. Based on the storms set to hit tonight and tomorrow night, I would not be surprised to see that route cancelled as well for safety reasons. Then again, this is my first time so I have no idea what I am talking about, just speculating.

Same questions I had - I posted them a few posts up lol. Its my main concern.
There arne't any updates on the facebook page, or the main site, so I imagine they are still being finalized.

Had the same thought yesterday when they were predicting more rain overnight Saturday. Was thinking about how in nice conditions last year there were wrecks and air-lifts and ambulances. Can't imagine it ona debris-laden wet road.

So now I'm concerned about Sunday. I'm not afraid of rain, but lightning I am.
If they cancel Sunday, think they would transfer our eligibility to the Dallas MS-150?

Well the info is out.

Highlights:

NO transport from Houston to La Grange - gotta get yourself there.
Buses/bike trailers will transport people from Austin to La Grange, and from Austin to Tully Stadium only.
Shuttles will transport people in La Grange from designated hotels/breakfast areas to the starting area in La Grange (otherwise find your own way there).
Parking info for people choosing to drive to La Grange will become available later today.

All the info can be found here: 2015 BP MS 150: 2015 FAQ - National MS Society

I think we're going to drive out to La Grange tomorrow morning. Anyone else?

I did 30 miles this morning around my neighborhood. Plenty of standing water, so my bike and myself are a mess. Those thirty miles combined with either route tomorrow will give me over 150 kilometers. I'm making the best of things are riding the Metric MS 150. My wife is dropping me off in La Grange tomorrow before driving up to Austin with the kids. The rest of the team is carpooling in a couple vehicles.

I'm curious to see how many riders make the trip to La Grange to ride the second day.

We (me and 2 team members) are planning to meet up at my house and leave around 5:00ish (I live NW part of town near 249/Louetta). That should get us in the area of La Grange but 6:30 and to have enough time to find parking, set up and get ready for the ride, and then head over to the starting area.

Since there apparently won't be enough parking for everyone, and it'll likely only be the BP MS-67, we might start at 7 at Weimar. Riding either way!

I have a feelin there will be serious traffic near the starting line. If I were to drive on my own, I would find a place to park within riding distance (3-5 miles) of the drop off location and pay them a parking fee.

i remembered reading about the 2009 situations and traffic delays around the starting point.

i am very lucky to ride with a large corporate team who has made all contingency plan for busing to Lagrange. Please give thanks to your captain(s).

In case you missed the update, the MS Society has offered registration transfer to SAMs MS150 and to send them an email before the 24th (provided that you do not ride this Sunday?)

We are checked into our hotel in Schulenburg. Did a recon mission into La Grange. Parking at the schools does not appear to be very ample but there does appear to be a good bit of street parking in town.

My buddy and I are going to ride our bikes to La Grange in the morning for some bonus miles (several folks were riding it this evening - really nice road) and my wife and daughter will drive and park in La Grange and ride from the official start.

My sister is going to drop my wife and I off in LaGrange and then pick us up in Austin. Get there early if somebody is dropping you off and just pick a good parking lot near the start to unload. It won't be any worse than the lines waiting to park at the ready2roll ride starts. Just be patient in the morning when getting on the route, as there will be big wads of riders bunching up early until we can get spread out. Exercise some patience early on and hydrate early. Supposed to get quite hot by tomorrow afternoon.

So how did everyone do? My wife was awesome enough to drop me in La Grange and stay home with the dog. I missed having her out there but the heat and the wind would have killed her. Almost killed me the last 20 or so miles. Great finish though. My small team probably finished 5 hours ago. Oh well I'm on the bus back to Tully now - probably will take about 6 hours lol. Post pics of you got em!

Ours went great! The starting line was wayyyy slow, but we had fun supporting the cause. We also felt really good about our ability on hills. I guess that's an advantage of training in Dallas or Austin!

Man, did we get railed by the storms last night. Our bus ran into a large bad cell once we got on I-10, we got rained on and hailed on. And the lightning was something to behold. There was an assload of traffic on I-10 going extremely slow for some reason (always?), so it took a good 3.5 hours or so to make it to the stadium. Luckily it stopped raining by then. The bike truck was there, but they wouldn't unload it until the lightning stopped - so we sat in the parking lot for over and hour, probably an hour and a half. I was kind of disappointed because the parking lot was dark and there was no cover from the storm if you didn't already have a car ride waiting for you. I tweeted to the BPMS150, and they had someone come and turn on the parking lot lights for us! Yay technology! The lady in charge finally made the call to unload the truck after so long even though there was still a little lightning, thankfully my bike was at the front so I got it fast. We finally got home around 9pm. What a freakin day.
Felt bad for the peeps with bikes on truck M, wasn't even arrived yet when I left at 9pm.

We saw that cell off in the distance and drove through the wet roads on our way back to La Grange. I live in the NW part of Houston (249/Louetta), so instead of taking 71 to I-10, we took 237 out of La Grange through Round Top and up to 290. Completely missed the weather, mainly because we were behind it. There was quarter-size hail at my house about 30 minutes before we got home, but it doesn't seem to have damaged anything.

As for the ride, yeah, it was what it was. I've been fighting off a bug the last week or so (sinus issues), and I could not get my heart rate down no matter what I did. I ended up getting overheated during the last stage and had to take a 10 minute breather on the side of the road next to the golf course before you went up that one last big hill. Couple that with the fact I somehow brought 2 right-hand gloves to the start (luckily I borrowed a friend's extra set), that I forgot to take my allergy medicine before I left home and had to go buy some at the HEB next to the lunch rest stop, and that I got sunscreen in my eyes halfway through the ride, yeah, it was an eventful ride.

The wife and I woke up the 16 month old twins and left our house at 4:45 am for the trip to La Grange. She dropped my off at the unloading spot by the elementary school. That was perfect since there were no cars there. I rode into town and hooked up with my team towards the front of the line (in front of World Financial). We rode out and held a good pace. We stopped at a few rest stops we might have skipped otherwise to see if some team members could catch up. We ended up crossing the finish line around 1:30 or so. I lost a water bottle in the last couple miles as I was trying to roll out a wicked charlie horse. That sucked.

Overall, I felt pretty good actually. I passed more folks on hills than passed me, the opposite of Chappell Hill. I think I was paying more attention to my cadence and shifting smarter. We left Austin around 4:00 and took I-35 north to 290. We hit the storms at Jersey Village. We were all hungry and ended up getting some of my burned calories back at a Whataburger along the way. I think we got into the house around 8:00 pm. The little twins were troopers though as was my wife for having to take care of them all day in the crowds in Austin. Someone is getting flowers this week.

I did set a new personal best on Strave..a Suffer Score of 201, so I have that going for me. I did a Focus T25 workout this morning (Upper Focus) and my legs did feel a bit sore on some of the moves. But, I'm still able to take the stairs, and that surprised me.

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.