Bluebonnet Express ride report

Yeah, yeah, I KNOW I've been saying for 3 weeks that Space Race is my next charity ride, and then I ended up entering one every Sunday since. Blame McSpeedy, who I think might just be a little obsessed with expanding his t-shirt collection. Either that, or he's suffering race withdrawal since he's made a deal with Wife not to do anymore out-of-town racing for a while.

Total distance: 62.19
Total time: about 4 hours
On-bike time: 3:27
Avg speed: 18.0 mph
Avg w/stops: 15.5 mph
Max speed: 31.4 mph

Last year:

Distance: 65.2 miles
Total time: 6:01*
On-bike time: 4:18*
On-bike avg mph: 15.1
Avg. mph, incl stops: 10.8
High speed: 28.3 mph

To paraphrase Greg Lemond, cycling never gets easier, you just go faster. And go faster we did...by about 3 mph, all around. :)

At this point, I don't think I need to spend words on the wind (which was considerable but not unbearable), or McSpeedy's tendency to blast past whole pelotons of riders and expect me to stay on his wheel (which was only mildly irritating on Sunday...I was in a take-no-prisoners sort of mood, and spent my fair share of time out in front, chasing people down. Especially this one guy, but more on that later). What was notable is that this route seemed much flatter than last year, and that we didn't use any of the posted rest stops.

Like I mentioned, I didn't intend to do this ride. I was unimpressed by it last year, and since McSpeedy had the kids, there didn't seem any point in driving all the way out there to ride it solo. Especially since I can get a decent distance by riding from my house to one of the Sunday club rides. Also, this particular club ride was not going to have an official leader, so I felt like maybe I could help out. However, McSpeedy's mom wanted to take the kids to church, so he offered to drive and pay my registration if I would do this ride with him. Woo! T-shirt ride! :)

Unfortunately for us, day-of registrations are not guaranteed t-shirts or the free lunch on this ride, and we found out while paying our registration that we were eligible for neither. They did, however, give us leftover Katy Flatland t-shirts, so McSpeedy was happy. (Even moreso, because he thought the Bluebonnet shirts were ugly.)

So anyway, by the time we got registered and into the start line, we were pretty far back in the queue. I don't know when exactly we left the parking lot...I think it was around 8:20-8:30, which was not too bad for the number of riders that were there. It did give us time to discuss the game plan--ride fast, avoid rest stops, except for one at the midpoint (30 miles).

Once we were on the road, we took it pretty easy for the first 5-10 miles, not really ramping it up until after we got onto the first open stretch of road. Then McSpeedy proceeded to put the hammer down, upping the pace to somewhere around 23-25 mph. I was surprisingly fine (tailwind?). We passed several groups of riders, and then a guy on a tri bike blew by us. Not a big deal...that's fine. People can pass. Lord knows it's happened before, right?

The next hill, we caught and passed him. Apparently, he did not approve, because his "on your LEFT" contained a bit of attitude when he passed me the next time. Or, maybe I imagined it did, but the action doesn't really matter as much as the result--he became my rabbit, and I vowed that would be personally responsible for riding him into the ground. We turned into a headwind, I led out and caught his wheel. I passed and then gently, ever so sweetly, pulled away. We turned into a tailwind, he passed faster than was strictly necessary, bellowing "ON YOUR LEFT". I turned to McSpeedy and raised my eyebrows, giggling a little. We stayed within sight, and on the next turn into the wind, I looked at McSpeedy.

"So, should we pass him this time, or just catch his wheel?"

"Just let him go. We'll catch him again soon enough." I think there may have been an eyeroll here, though he was wearing sunglasses so I can't be sure.

"Unacceptable."

Aaand we chased him down again. :) Like I say, I was feeling a bit competitive. We played this game for about 15 miles, I think, until the last turn to a tailwind before the 2nd rest stop. As was his custom, he flew around us and was gone. McSpeedy refused to chase, so I had to content myself with keeping the enemy in sight. We stopped at the gas station on the corner, he went ahead. I was pretty sure we wouldn't see him again, but then we passed him on the side of the road about a mile later, watching someone fix a flat. Whether it was his flat or that someone's, I couldn't say, but I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I cheered a little inside. Take THAT, Mr. TriBike. I beat you so mightily your TIRES couldn't take it. :) (McSpeedy claims that he saw him in the SAG truck later, but I can never tell whether he's messing with me. If so, I hope it wasn't something mechanical. Even if he was my temporary nemesis, I hate to see anyone's ride cut short that way.)

Somewhere around the 30-mile mark, we saw the sign for the 3rd rest stop. McSpeedy made a hand gesture indicating that we should ride on through, but it was my turn to overrule. No more ridey my bikey, the Joy needs food. I explained the situation, and he agreed to stop. Before we got there, though, we passed a flower shop/fruit-veggie stand/bbq place and opted for that instead. After stocking up on water and gatorade, and some most excellent bacon-and-egg sandwiches (no BBQ till 11:30, apparently), we were back on the road in about 20 minutes.

As soon as we got back on the bike, I realized that was about 10 minutes too long for my legs. They were tired, they were achy, they were rubbery, and they were absolutely not responding to any requests to get the bike moving more than 20 mph. I passed this info up to McSpeedy, who slowed down to what I could manage and pulled me along until I had warmed up again.

Even though I did start to feel better (maybe that bacon sandwich kicking in...), those last 15 miles were hard. McSpeedy had gotten back into the competitive spirit and started chasing down his own personal nemeses, for slights real or imagined...Old Guy in Yellow, Motobecane Guy, Crash Test Dummy Guy...we passed them all. I don't remember many of them or what they did to incur McSpeedy's wrath, probably because I was freaking exhausted, and all I could really do was concentrate on the view over his left shoulder and hope to hang on.

About a mile from the end, I was feeling pretty decent again, and he waved me around so I could take us into the finish. So I did. When we pulled into the parking lot, my average speed was reading at 18.2 mph. :) By the time we navigated around the people and cars and whatnot, got lost, and managed to find our car finally, the average was down to 18.0. Still, I'm pretty sure that's my fastest average to date, so woohoo!

Now, really, sincerely...next up--Space Race!