Saturday, May 26, 2007

May 26th Velocity Ride:Rain Will Not Slow Us


Morning Regrets

I awoke hoping it was raining. Daniel and I made a back-up plan to ride trainers while watching the Giro.

I made it over to CDT (Casa De Truxillo:Stanton's House) at 0710 and hooked up with James. I was hoping Jen M. and Richie Howell would be there; alas, we were solo.

Spill(s)

When we got to Bannister and Ben White, I called Daniel who informed me that we were a half hour early. Up until then, the ride was largely uneventful. When James and I were on the off-camber turn before St. Elmo a thought occurred to me that the roads were slick and one of us could fall. Was it intuition? Or was it PTSD from my spill at the Thursday Night Crit?

As soon as the thoughts of spillage crossed my synapses into the oblivion where thoughts go, James took a spill and skinned up his right knee real good.

Here Comes Richie

At Slaughter and So. 1st, I was happy to see Richie Howell pulling up on Slaughter. We rode down So. 1st together and watched as Daniel sped by in his vehicle. We arrived at the school at 0800-ish. David Van Newkirk showed resplendent in his Cicle C jersey.

We kicked around the school parking lot for a few minutes. We rolled down So. 1st a bit hoping to see more Circle C-ers. We saw only Danskiners. As we rolled back toward the school, I saw the bruise-colored skies spewing pockets of liquid in the distance.

It didn't look good.

When we rolled through the school parking lot, Bob Pillmore greeted us with a report of his first of 3 anticipated flats.

Where Do We Go From Here?

It seemed like a good idea...at the time. We were going to ride south to San Marcos, so if it rained, we could turn around and have the wind at our backs.

The rain started to fall as we got on San Antonio Rd. Bob said something about how it was breaking up.

It was.

The clouds were breaking up into little pieces of rain.

Paging Noah...

By the time we were halfway down Old San Antone Rd it was full on deluge time. Mrs. Noah, line up the animals!

Slop. Grit. Slop. Rooster tails. It wasn't pretty. And to top it all off, we were HAULING ASS! We were averaging 20 mph on OST (Old San Antone) Rd. As all of my faithful readers and riders know, averaging 20 mph on OST is barely remarkable. But it is when the Lord is unzipping his pants and taking a nature break on your face.

We're Breaking Up

By the time we got to Buda David and Bob Pillmore turned off. Bob said something about the wisdom of riding into the rain. I was heading for Bill Miller’s BBQ for shelter and maybe some ribs.

We stood under the awning about 5 minutes thinking about our options. Richie voiced a desire to keep on keeping on. What was the worst that would happen: we would get wet.

I hope you only had one flat for the day, Bob.

The Adventure Begins

James appealed to the angels of our slower nature stating that going 20 mph in the rain was not really a good idea. We agreed. Then James hauled ass down the road into Buda and the rain.

We eschewed 2770 and the cement trucks for the more scenic Cole Spgs Rd and 1626. We were having fun, spraying each other with road spray. Then as we ventured on to 1626, Daniel got his flat. We stood around in the rain and lost every BTU that was inside of us. At that point wisdom said to turn it around. We listened.

Now we hauled ass back through Buda and up OST. It was awesome, dramatic. We were the hard men of the South, and we were the only knuckleheaded cyclists we saw.

When we made it back to the school, the rain had let up. Daniel headed out in his car, and Richie road with James and me to Dittmar on So. 1st. The humidity grew thicker, and by the time we got to my house, the streets were largely dry.

It was an awesome ride!

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