The Place: Holiday Inn, Beaumont; room 730.

Let’s get one thing straight, this is going to be short. We just had dinner, and I’m tired, as in, I’ll be asleep by nine tired.

We did just over 89 miles today. The weather was fabulous: light winds, mostly from a favorable direction, and the heat and humidity were relatively low. The roads were mostly smooth, give or take 10-12 miles of chipseal that vibrated my arms deep into numbness.

Average speed was about 18.5 MPH (exact numbers will come later), and I, shockingly, would have come in as a part of the lead group were it not for a flat, two miles from the finish. Of course, I would have been nowhere near the lead group had they not suffered from a series of flat tires themselves.

At the end of the line: Free Shiner beer, free massages (and I don’t mean to complain too much here, but I did get what I paid for there), and a verdict from the bike mechs that I need to get a new rim for my front wheel (though probably not until I get home).

Geh. After that, a shower, a good dinner at the Spindletop Steakhouse, and now a big crash in energy leading me to wrap up this day’s review right here.

Good night.

ADDENDUM:

OK, now that I’ve rested and had time to put all of this together, here’s the day’s details:

The day started out pretty tame, as we worked our way out of the Sheraton North Houston parking lot behind our police escort and began our path towards Will Clayton Parkway.  Once we reached Will Clayton and we lost our escort, the pace picked up a bit as the roads started clearing of cars and we headed towards FM 1960 across Lake Houston; it was on this part of the ride that I got mixed in with the faster riders of Team DRAFT, Team Jackass, and the Chris Express, and more or less flew (for my fat ass) over the bridge across Lake Houston and down Fairlake Lane to the first tailgate rest-stop.  It was at this point that I realized I’d never be able to keep up that pace for the entire day, and pulled into the rest-stop to recover my wind and fill my protein bottle for fuel to get me to the next rest-stop 16 miles down the road.

Brad and Dave relaxing after the ride.

Sadly, as I stopped to fill my bottle, I missed some of the big excitement of the day as the riders who skipped past the tailgate got to mess with a live water moccasin in the road.  Reports are that he even lunged at one of the riders’ legs as they passed by, but I’ve yet to confirm that story.  Needless to say, if anything lunged at me that day, I neither saw nor felt it.  What I did see, however, was the nucleus of the group that I would spend most of the tour riding with as we sort of grouped up on the way to Dayton for the first time.  This group featured Ross and Mike, with Mike’s GPS letting us know when the turns were approaching, and I believe Tracy and David had been it that group as well.

It was a quick stop in Dayton, long enough to grab a couple of pickles, a bit of Gatorade, and a refill of my protein bottle before pulling out again and heading for lunch in Devers.  For this leg, which ran almost exclusively along US90, passing through Liberty, Ames, and Raywood, we also picked up the brother-in-law pair of Rick and Brad, who would also be a part of my riding group for the majority of the tour.  With Rick, Brad, and Mike setting the pace up front (and me sucking wheels and air in the rear), we burned up US90, eventually puling into Devers Elementary School for lunch with an average speed of almost 18.7 MPH so far for the day.  Now I understand that that’s a nice relaxed pace for some of the folk on the ride, but for me these days, that’s damn near flying; sadly, it would go to my head a bit after lunch and cause me to do stupid things.

Mike and Rick (well, Rick's hand)

It was after lunch, when I should have been sitting back a bit and letting my body digest, when I lost my head a bit.  We had set out again on US90, and for some reason, we all forgot how to ride as a group.  Some people fell back (Brad started to cramp up a bit at this point, IIRC), some shot ahead (like Ross and myself), and some maintained their pace from the previous leg (maybe a bit under that pace).  As I shot ahead and turned south onto FM 1009, I caught up with Rick, who had also started the leg strong, but then decided to hold back and wait for his brother-in-law, and I had the lead group – a mix of DRAFT, Jackass, and Chris Express – in my sights.  It was here that all reason shut off in my brain, and rather than slowing the pace and reforming our group, I decided I could make a solo effort to catch that lead peloton full of horses far stronger than I.  For miles I kept them in my sights, dumping energy into my pedals and sweat onto the pavement, on occasion I would even get a bit closer to them; and then we turned into the wind.  As FM1009 turned up towards the north to reconnect with US90, that giant pack of riders just started creeping further and further towards the horizon as their drafting allowed them to maintain their pace far easier than me, a lone rider with no shelter from the wind.  By the time I had rejoined US90 in Nome, that lead group was gone over the horizon, and I was spent, only able to catch and pass those few unfortunate riders who flatted along the route.  And by the time I pulled into the rest area in China, I was utterly gassed, and took an extra long rest break, waiting for Rick, Ross, and Brad to roll in and rest up before heading out for the final leg into Beaumont.

At the start of this final leg, Brad was experiencing problems with his foot and leg, and Ross had shifted into his slower gear, and we spent the first couple of miles slowly rolling down the road, but it wasn’t long before everyone got their second wind and we started hammering once again.  As we shot down Old Sour Lake Road/Phelan Blvd, we passed (quite to our surprise) that lead pack who had stopped for yet another flat tire.  This only served to add a bit of giddyup to our step as we had hoped to beat that team of horses into the Holiday Inn.  Sadly, our hopes were dashed when yours truly caught a flat in my rear tire just two miles from the finish, and we helplessly watched as the other group passed by while I was getting my repair.  No worries though, this isn’t a race, and frankly, I was proud to have finished as close to Team Draft and the other as I did (it would be a long time before that would happen again on this tour), so there wasn’t even a bruise on my ego after that flat.  Besides, the extra delay in getting into the Hotel parking lot just meant that the Shiner waiting for me would get just a little bit colder.

Sunburn and Shiner

From that point on, it was the aforementioned beer, massage, bad news on the rim, and trip to the Spindletop to gorge myself on salad, rice, and catfish, before heading back to the hotel for some wonderful sleep before Day two, which would take me into Louisiana for the first time in my life.

Final numbers: 89.11 miles, 4:50:32 elapsed, 18.40 MPH average

A couple of notes about my numbers for the ride:

1) They usually include the time and distance associated with pushing the bike to my hotel room.  This is usually around 0.1 miles and a minute or two of time, so it’s not too worthy of note.

2) I was coming in consistently about 1-2% higher in mileage than others on the ride.  I double-checked the wheel-size setting on my computer, and it’s set to the recommended value for 700c x 23mm wheels/tires like I used, so I don’t know what the deal is.  I need to find a measured mile and do some calibrating, I guess.