I took my first SAG ever. :( I had a bug that I thought I could shake off, but it didn't happen. I bailed on the last 10+ miles. The segment from rest stop 2 to 3 was pure misery. Stomach and head were killing me. Too bad because it really was a scenic route. Got home and slept till about 6PM.

Sucks.

This weekend should be interesting with Fayetteville on Saturday then the Tour de Houston on Sunday.

This weekend's ride was a lot of fun. The scenery through the forest was great. Wish it was a bit warmer, but it wasn't all that bad once you got going. My legs are still a little sore from all the hills, but it's nowhere near as bad as I thought I'd be. Only hill I struggled a bit up was the last steep one before you got the the I-45 frontage road. I was in my lowest gear, standing out of the saddle, and it was taking effort to get up it.

We did have an eventful start and ending to the ride though. I've been driving the carpool with my friend for all the rides so far, so he drove this week to even it out. We took his wife's car because the bike racks fits better on it than his little convertible. We park and start to set all our gear up. I go to air up my tires. Rear tire pumps fine. I go to unscrew the plastic cap from my front valve (yes, I use those even though I know I don't need them) and it immediately starts hissing at me. I think maybe the presta valve is unscrewed underneath somehow so I go to take the plastic cap off. Probably a 1/4 turn into that I hear a loud pop and my tire goes instantly flat. I look at the valve, and the entire inner guts of the valve are missing; the valve stem was completely hollow. We changed the tube quickly, but for every one of the fast descents on the ride I kept hearing that loud pop in the back of my head. Not good.

Then we get to the car after the ride, and it won't unlock. We have to use the manual key hidden in the keyfob to get in. Guess what? Dead battery. Luckily the nice people in the pickup truck next to us had jumper cables, and we got it running fairly quickly. We realized later than in his car you have to push the ignition button twice to turn everything off but in her's you only need to push it once. He must have double-tapped it getting out of the car before the ride which turned it off and then turned back on the accessory mode. Damn keyless ignition systems!!!!

I'm pulling a "double" in two weeks with R2R and the Bluebonnet Express.

me too!

Also I just noticed how freakin far away Fayetteville is - it's practically to La Grange. I'm not really into getting up and leaving the house at 5:30am on a Saturday just to drive almost an hour and a half to ride. I understand the need to do some hill training, but jeez.

Yeah, but Fayetteville is worth the drive. It is a great area to ride, and the people make it worth it. That town shows up every year to support us as we ride through town, and I love the chance to go out there and pay them back by eating a meal on the square and buying something from a store. They make it so much fun to ride through the town during the MS150, you can forget for a few minutes how tired and sore you are.

I don't remember going through it on the way down from Waller. Starting from Katy this year so maybe I will.

I missed the Fayetteville ride last year. Heard it was nice. It is fun riding through town on the MS150. As I recall, there is a rest stop right before, or right as you get into town. I remember the folks in town having a grand old time cheering on the riders. Very festive.

There is a rest stop right beside a baseball field right as you come into town. Lots of trees and good shade. Fayetteville is where they have all the music playing on the front porches of the buildings around the town square. They have lots of people standing on the side of the road dancing, cheering, and giving high fives to riders. Several folks have automatic bubble machines blowing bubbles across the road too. I always feel so energized after riding through town that I want to whip a loop around the square and ride back through a second time just for fun. It is like riding through the middle of a party for a couple of minutes, then it is back to the open road.

It sounds like a great time, but I'm still deciding if I want to get up at 5am and make the trek by myself. It'll take up a good chunk of the day with the travel time and all. I could stay here and do 50 miles in GBP instead. Still pondering.

Well, what I described is how Fayetteville is during the MS150...not during this ride. But it is still a nice hilly ride on quiet roads. It is nice to eat at one of the diners on the town square after the ride and just hang out before driving back. But yeah, it is a longish trip no doubt.

Very much worth the drive. This was by far the most scenic R2R route. Beautiful rolling Texas countryside. Bluebird sky. Hell, I even got a little sunburn yesterday. Only downside, the road surface was probably the worst so far.

Town Square before the start.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=439211

Farmhouse with stone barn.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=439214

Bluebird sky
https://youtu.be/3hIOj2jrn48 And the country fried steak and fried okra at Orsak's Cafe after the ride was pretty awesome :)

Glad it was a good ride! I didn't end up going.Would love to see more pics if anyone has them. Did almost 40 miles around the parks here instead. Then Tour de Houston today, again 40 miles.
All in all a good weekend!

I did the 60 mile route. I got a bit of a burn too, but mine was mostly from sitting on a bench in the square after the ride waiting for my wife to get back from working at breakpoint 3. And great minds think alike...I had the CFS and fried okra at Orsak's too. But did you get the apple cobbler with ice cream? Now that was delicious! It was really nice to have the wind behind us for the last leg back into town for once.

Haha... no, but I did hit the DQ in Columbus on the way back. I needed either caffeine or sugar for the drive back. I choose the sugar rush with a Reese's peanut butter cup blizzard. But I crashed hard when I got home. Zzzzzz :)

All-in-all it was a great weekend to ride. I got in 50 with my wife on Friday and 60 with my daughter on Saturday. I'm feeling good about the MS ride next month.

Wonderful weekend for riding. I didnt do any of the charity rides, but did 50 out of Zube with NWCC cronies, and then 30 near my house very early sunday before a social engagement. Saturday was damn near perfect once the fog burned off. 5 bike paceline, sunny but not hot, light tailwind for the last 20 miles, faster than greased lighting! Finished with an almost 18 mph avg, which is 2+ MPH faster than I usually do that route. Really wanted to do the tour de Houston, and my buddies reported back that it was a blast. Stupid fantasy baseball draft got in the way.

I did the Tour de Houston yesterday, the 60 mile route. I had a lot of fun. Strava says it was 63 miles, plus I did another 12 riding home after it was done. The weather was great. I feel ready for the MS 150 now.

Yup, had a great time yesterday at the Tour de Houston. My wife and I did the 40 miler - she isn't up for the longer ones yet. Still had a blast. The route was a little sketchy in a few areas, but overall the roads were in good shape. The wind coming back toward the city was nice. I really enjoy riding in and out of downtown. Its nice being among the buildings. I think turnout was decent. Not as many as I'd expect given the amount of cyclists in the city.

This will sound really lame, but I'm a little disappointed the t-shirts are basically exactly the same as last year. Only other thing I would change are the snacks at the rest stops. I love the little cups of trail mix and M&Ms or what have you that we get on the Ready2Roll rides (or something like little PBJ squares). Those Kind bars were awful, and I can only eat so many honey roasted peanut packets. I hate bananas, but the orange slices are alright.

Looking forward to this week's Ready2Roll, since it's much closer to home, and then Bluebonnet Express on Sunday.

Looking at the weather forecasts, Saturday's ride might be a washout. Hope I'm wrong, but it isn't looking good.

As for the Tour de Houston, we did the 60 mile route. Maybe the Ready2Roll series is doing some good because I got off my bike on Sunday and felt like I could do another 60 miles. I even accidently missed the last rest stop (couldn't understand what the person was yelling into the megaphone, and then realized when I hit Hempstead Hwy that it was probably about the rest stop). All in all a really good ride. I agree about the snacks, but that's part of the reason I bring my own bars and gels to each ride.

A couple of guys in our group got ahead of us a little bit an witnessed a very bad crash on the 2nd stage. A rider got her wheel caught in one of the expansion joints/cracks in the pavement and did a endo/face plant and was knocked unconscious for a minute or so. They stopped to help out, but said their were a bunch of people helping and they were just getting in the way so they left. We passed by after she regained consciousness, but they were holding her head and neck still. She was moving all her limbs so I guess that's a good sign. Hopefully she's doing better and it wasn't anything too serious.

I skipped every other rest stop. I ate 2 brownie bites and a packet of Southwest airline peanuts. Mmmmm. Mrs. Bag and I went to Chuy's later for beers and an Elvis Presley Memorial Combo.

There was a bad accident on R2R last week as well. I didn't see it happen, but there was a girl laid out on the ground holding her arm. Looked like collarbone. It was at a (dry) water crossing, so steep descent/ascent. They always seem to have concrete at the creek and the transition to the asphalt was in bad shape. She must have hit a crack or hole pretty fast and gone down. The ride marshals were all over it, slowing people on the down slope and keeping everyone moving so as not to create a bottleneck. They did a great job. Hope she's ok.

Yeah I noticed teh forecast as well. But, we're still 4 days out.
We didn't hit the last rest stop coming back either - in fact i didn't even know there was one.
An ambulance went by us while we were on TC Jester heading south before making the U and heading up to rest stop 2. I'm wondering if it was for that rider that fell. Hope he's OK.

The ambulance went by us maybe 2 or 3 minutes after we passed the accident and was heading in that direction so I'm assuming it was for her.

I have a friend who is friends with the girl that crashed on the R2R ride there. She is fine. Xrays showed nothing broken, so just some cuts and bruises.