krisalis

Hi Spanna! We’re in a pub in Camden.
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

One this weekend, another next weekend….then a baby shower the weekend following that.

Circle of life and all that, I suppose. Certainly keeps a girl busy. This girl, at any rate.

I’ll get around to writing about Day 2 of MS150 soon…or when life slows down enough and stops getting in the way!

Three more cyclists have been hit by cars in the past four days whilst riding up on Parmer Lane, bringing Parmer’s total to four in the past week.

Two were riding with Amy on Saturday, and were hit whilst riding in the shoulder by a car that went through a red light. The driver that hit them was not ticketed.

The third was riding on Tuesday morning, and was hit side on by a car turning across traffic. His report was posted on the Austin Riders forum, and has been reproduced here. The driver that hit this cyclist was ticketed.

It sounds like the start of a bad joke – there were 5 people, 1 labrador, 2 bikes, 8 bags, 2 pizzas in a Toyota Highlander – but actually it was just the start of our MS150 adventure.

We rolled out of Austin somewhere around 6.30pm on Friday night, after some misadventures trying unsucessfully to attach the bike rack to my parents big Lexus, and ended up cramming everything into the Toyota. We arrived in Houston a little before 10pm, dropped some people and luggage off at a hotel near the starting line and made our way to Lennie’s appartment. We made oatmeal for the morning, and some PB&J sandwiches for Day 1, filled up our water bottles with e-load, portioned out our trail mix and other munchies and laid our our biking gear for the morning.

The alarm woke us up after a fitful night’s sleep at 4.15am. We shoveled down some oatmeal, drank some tea, slathered on the sunscreen. We pumped up our tires while Mark took Rosie out for a pee, then loaded the bikes and bags back into the car, and headed off to ConocoPhillips. Except that I put the wrong address into the GPS, and we ended up Not At ConocoPhillips, which was Bad. But we fixed it, and still got there in plenty of time. Good.

Offload bikes, drop off luggage. Pee. Find friends. Provide pump, sunscreen and sunglasses to assorted friends. Check tires again. Fiddle with glasses and faff about with general stuff. Pee again. Have minor panic as one friend in group loses screws from the bottom of bike cleat, and they have to be replaced in order to ride. Line up to start.

We were scheduled to roll out from ConocoPhillips at around 6.30am, 30mins ahead of the mass start at Rhodes and Tully Stadium at 7am. The ConocoPhillips pack rolled out at 6.42am to the tune of Queen’s “I Want To Ride My Bicycle”, which was subsequently stuck in my head for the whole weekend.

Somehow, our group of 6 found each other as we left ConocoPhillips, and managed to get ourselves into formation. We muddled through the first few miles, getting warmed up and getting comfortable on the bikes. After a couple of miles, we formed a mini paceline and started chugging along behind Katie, who was ready to go, go, go!

The first 50 miles of Day 1 are totally flat. As in ___ flat. As a pancake. This is so unusual for us Austinites that we have no mechanism to compute what that is really like to ride on for an extended period of time. It’s so fun!

There were a few minor incidents early in the day – a wobbly cyclist who had been weaving in and out of the team pacelines went down in the pack just in front of us, and an idiot decided to drive his car through a closed intersection, narrowly missing a side on collision with a large pack of cyclists who were traveling at >20mph. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt in either incident, and the driver got a Big Telling Off by the police officer who was controlling the junction.

We lost a few of our little group in the crowd, but all met up at the 2nd rest stop, and pressed on together. Thanks to our rockin’ paceline, we zoomed through the first 50 miles at an average speed of 19.7 mph. We skipped the “lunch stop” at Bellevill, since it was only 9.20am, and pressed on to Nelsonville for the PB&J break at mile 60.

Our group drifted apart after lunch. We were all paired off with a ride buddy though, so this all worked out fine. Each ride buddy set ran into our own set of small challenges during the ride – there was one flat tire, and a couple of mud-filled speedplay cleats. It had rained the night before the ride, and so the grass was muddy. Speedplay pedals + mud = bad news. I got stuck at a rest stop for ~20mins trying to clean out my cleats. Bah. I’m getting cleat covers ASAP.

The net result of the various delays was that the whole group met up at the final rest stop, and headed out on the home stretch of 11miles together.

We rode into La Grange somewhere around 1:20pm. Total ride time was 6 hrs 31min, including stops. Actual ride time 5 hrs 23 min. Average speed 18.4mph. Total distance 100miles. Total calories – somewhere around 3500!

The best thing about finishing Day 1 in La Grange this year was that I felt good. Last year, I was feeling like crap when I crossed the line, so I was really psyched to still feel strong.

We rolled into the ConocoPhillips tent, parked our bikes, and got signed up for a 30min massage.

Ahh. Sweet, sweet, sweaty massage.

Mark and Rosie arrived while I was face down on the massage table. I didn’t realise they were there until Rosie announced her arrival by sticking her nose up through the face hole and snuffling my face, which made me squeal a little bit, then made me laugh and laugh. Funny pup.

After the massage, it was refreshment time. After downing a couple of bottles of water, I went for the good stuff – peanut M&Ms and beer. Mmmmm. Nothing better.

We gradually gathered the troops, and headed out to our hotel for showers, naps and dinner. All very, very good.

We were in bed by 9pm. I was out like a light by 9.05pm.

I just forgot to take a photo…

75 miles in 4 hr 7 min, average speed 18.4mph.

Glad to be off the bike!

And, now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get a grande massage.

Lunch day 2. 45miles down, 37 to go.
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Lined up for day 2. It’s early.
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Made it! 100miles, avg speed 18.4mph
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

80miles, 4hrs40min. It’s hot.
Originally uploaded by krisalis.

60miles in, 3hrs20min, lunch stop!
Originally uploaded by krisalis.