Archive for March, 2010
When you're waiting for girls, what you gon do? Act a fool?!?
Waiting for a ride into the city, we decide to act stupid on our race bikes…
On Saturday, March 13, 2010, James and I set out to ride our bikes from Houston to Austin. We had little or no training for this event, and almost no preparation. In fact, we had only decided to do the ride for the opening of the SXSW music festival a few days before. Google Maps has recently added a “bicycle” option for their direction/location service, so we decided to use it to plan the route, rather than invest all the time driving and checking road conditions and safety…
Saturday, March 13-5:00am
My alarm rings. I was so exhausted the night before from driving out to visit my family that I had neglected to pack a bag. I called James. He wasn’t even awake yet. He groggily tells me that we start at seven.
6:00am
I am now out of bed, groggily throwing things onto the floor that I *might* need. I settle on a pair of pedros tire levers, crank bros multitool, Inhabitant cycling jacket (from my trip to Tokyo), three Larabars, a tube of camelback sportsdrink tablets, my wallet, my phone, a toy film Camera I bought in Japan, and my Ricoh CX2 camera in the side holster. I still can’t find my Tarckbike.com Jersey. We still haven’t gotten around to making Highflange.com ones.
7:00am
I’m about to head out the door, when James lets me know that he’s picking me up so we can start near Pauline’s House. I’m relieved. Apparently google maps hadn’t figured out a way that was actually safe for us to get outside of downtown, where I live.
8:00am
We’re ready to go! For the rest of the day, time passes like a blur. I try not to look at my watch. It’s going to be a long day, and it’s going to hurt…a lot. The photos taken should provide a recap on events as they unfolded.
A pair of brave adventurers embarking on their journey to the capitol
As we hit the road, the rolling along I-90 was smooth. We passed a number of club riders on their Saturday morning rides out on the wide and smooth roads of Brookshire. The weather was good, but a bit cold. The wind chilled our legs and fingers as it blew by us.
On the road: Note the wide shoulder to keep away from traffic
As we drew further and further away from Houston, we noticed something: the drivers were more cautious and kind to a pair of cyclists on the road. Houston is noted as being a very dangerous city to ride in. Austin, however, is a bicycling capitol of the country. You can literally watch the animosity and aggression of Houstonians fade as you ride towards hill country.
What happened next proved to us that Google Maps still needs a bit of work on their “bicycling” segment. Our excellent directions lead us literally right up into a creek. We documented the failure, and realized that, at that point we had no other choice than to brave the drivers along the side of the highway shoulder. In Houston, I should add, this would be suicide. You’d be either shot at (I should add that I have experienced the sound of gunshots from my bicycle a few times downtown) rammed by a pickup truck or have food thrown at you out of the side of a window. If a Houstonian doesn’t ride a bicycle themselves, you, to them, are about as welcome in their city as Osama Bin Laden.
Google Maps Fail: Leading us straight into a dead end: UNAMUSED.
James decides to hop the barrier and ride the highway (I-10) shoulder
I begrudgingly oblige to ride on the freeway. We have no choice. There is a creek that we cannot cross.
So, James gets the bright idea to ride on the highway. I’m looking around wondering if maybe somehow I could swim with my bike through snake infested waters. It seemed like a better option…
Hey this isn't so bad...
I have to say I managed to live riding on I-10. This is us exiting, but you can clearly see how wide the shoulder is. I was impressed by the lack of backside attacks by soda cans or twinkies.
AND...James gets a flat
Then I hear something all cyclists dread. *HISSSSSSSSSSS* “Dude I think I just flatted”
I manage to pull the offender out of the tire: What looks like a Raccoon tooth. By the way the total roadkill count for the day was 34.
Watch James snap a SOMA steel reinforced tire lever
As James inserts his tire lever, it snaps in two. So much for SOMA’s “steel reinforced” levers. I pull out a pair of fugly pedros levers I had borrowed (he left them at my house. That’s borrowing right?) from Mike. These things never fail. Seriously. They don’t look delicate, or elegant but Pedros levers WORK EVERY TIME. If you are touring go grab yourself a pair. I may have been a total square with my overpacked backpack on, but I had plenty of food, sports drink, and endurolytes tablets to keep us rolling.
Along the way, we started to notice a few cyclists wearing numbers. Had we accidentally rolled into some sort of cycling race?
They gave us free snacks.
Apparently there was a charity ride we bumped into. They let us grab a few snacks and we hit the road again with a lot of pain in our legs…
Needing a break...badly.
Hruska's Bakery right outside Smithville
Another Stop...the pain is searing, the dehydration and sunburns setting in
On the floor. When will this ride end. Austin is so close...
Burnt to a crisp
one side is really dark. The other side is not. The meat is falling off the bone any moment now...
At this point the pain was intense. No more photos...
Luckily we made it right outside Austin, right near our hotel, burnt to a crisp when our support vehicle, chasing us with our respective lady supporters arrived with our bags, photo equipment and a change of clothes.
The resulting celebration was…well…sleepy.
Trying not to fall asleep
DRINK DRINK DRINK!
We are back! It was a long grueling ride but we just made it back to Houston in pain and severely sunburned. A full update will be posted shortly but we just wanted everyone to know we did it and we are alive.
Today two members of HighFlange are preparing for the DirrrtySXSW ride. Essentially an unsupported ride, we will be taking off from the city of Houston on our bicycles and heading for Austin.
This is an unsupported Randonneur ride, and to be the testing grounds for future rides.
Follow us on Facebook or Twitter to see if we make it through it alive.
Updatesxpics will be posted throughout the day.
There is a zen like moment of calm before you embark on a risky journey. Most people spend months training for something like this, adhering to a strict schedule. I spent the last month battling an illness, and the better part of last year battling an impossible academic goal, a failing engagement, torn ligaments and broken bones.
Exactly one year after “the beginning of the end” I am in a completely different space with life. Different goals, different bikes, different aspects of riding which I have chosen to now participate in. Moving from the highly publicized long distance bike tours with refreshments and cheering to racing where every moment of the ride is filled with searing pain in the hope of creating achievement and victory.
Each ride, too, becomes purpose driven. Today is base miles, tomorrow is intervals for sprinting, next friday is climbing practice, an exercise filled with nausea from your heart rate shooting up to the redline for an extended period.
All of this is necessary to build the machinery inside of you that makes you stronger, because inside we are all weak, and if we are weak we are dead.
Chris Hoy on my wall reminding me that "greatness, therefore, is not an achievement, but a habit" from the film "Standing Start"
Houston to Austin by fixed gear on Saturday. Either we make it or we die trying.
Either way we’ll get it on camera.
Ride hard. Pedal harder. Never look back when you make a break.