Earlier this week, I asked Jeff about riding a shorter distance ride on Saturday. There were a couple of reasons for this. First off, it was going to be hot, hot, hot this weekend. The 2nd reason is that I have plans to get up early on Sunday and drive to east Texas for a family gathering. My mother-in-law passed away just before COVID pandemic hit. She would have been 100 years old if she was still alive. Some of the family will travel to have a BBQ picnic and celebrate her life. So, I didn't want to be wiped out from a hot 200K and then have to drive all day on Sunday. The proposal was to ride Paleface 125k. It's a little longer than a 100K, has some good hills, and would get us back home before the heat got really bad. Jeff was not sure if Nick would want to ride a 200K, but on Friday, he texted me to say Paleface was good and we should meet at the start control at 7am.
I had dropped my bike off at The Peddler in Hyde Park on Thursday for a new chain and a spacer to be installed to help keep the front wheels from rubbing against the disc brake rotor. Parts were on back order for several weeks, but Drew finally called on Monday and I agreed to bring the bike on Wednesday or Thursday. Jeff and I rode Rudy's 2 Step on Tuesday night and after that, I would be ready to bring the bike in for service. The bike shop was slammed with customers when I arrived. It's also no longer required to wear a mask and you can enter the store like in the past. It felt good to see the store alive with customers and the shop team running around trying to help everyone. Walter checked in V and I left it with them.
Friday morning, Colleen and I went to get haircuts. On our way home, Drew called and said the bike was ready to pick up. He had installed everything and checked that both wheels were rotating freely with the spacer installed. He said the new chain was working fine and that I would not need to replace the cassette as he had been worried about when he tested it before ordering the parts. I was relieved because that is an added expense and who knows how long it would take to get the part.
Saturday morning, I got up at 5:30 and made coffee. I got dressed and fixed my 2 bottles with ice and water. I made sure to inflate my rear tire as it always loses pressure over the course of days. I made sure to plug my Garmin in while I drank my coffee and then rolled out around 6;25 to go meet Jeff at the Speedy Stop on 51st. As I rolled through my neighborhood, there were lots of runners out and there was a water station a block down Shoal Creek from my street where runners were stopping to get water. As I rolled down 51st, I heard a familiar bell and saw Jeff in my mirror. He had gotten his bike serviced at Peddler this week as well. It had new/cleaned brake pads, new bearings in the bottom bracket, and a new chain. Jeff's problem with the front hub seems to be fixed.
We reached the Speedy Stop and I took a minute to load the course. We then rolled out a few minutes early and headed back towards downtown where we rolled across the Town Lake and on to Barton Springs Rd. We climbed through Rollingwood and made our way out to Loop 360 where we joined the part of the route that is part of Rudy's 2 Step. We made great time as we headed into Lakeway and the temperature stayed nice until we reached the Exxon. Our average speed was 14.0 even with all the climbing and traffic lights. At the store, Jeff ordered us tacos from the Texas Tacos trailer. As I parked my bike, a customer commented that I was crazy to be riding in this heat. I just smiled and replied that it was a beautiful day. I went into the store and got ice, Jarritos grapefruit, and also paid for Jeff's ice and soda. We sat in the shade and enjoyed eating our tacos and drinking our cold sodas.
Once we were done, we mounted our bikes and headed up the road back the way we came. We climbed all the hills that were descents on the outbound and descended all the hills we had climbed. That is one of the nice things about out and back routes. The route continued on the loop as we crossed Loemans on Lakeway Blvd and headed straight back to RR 620. There were several more hills to climb before we turned left on 620. For the next few miles, we rolled along without any issue. At Hudsons on the Bend, we climbed the steep hill there and then enjoyed the long descent down to Mansfield Dam. On the dam, the wind was right in our face and we worked to get across. RR 620 slowly changes direction as you climb the other side of the dam. As you reach the light at 2222, you are facing north. We decided to stop at Rudy's instead of going further up the road to the Shell station we sometimes stop at. I wanted chocolate milk, but they only had whole milk chocolate milk which will upset my stomach. I opted for regular 2% milk and a cup of ice. We sat in the shade on the front porch eating and drinking. As we left Rudy's our average had dropped to 12.3, but I was sure we would make up time as the remainder of the route was mostly flat.
As we rolled up 620, we were passed by first a woman rider and then a small group of roadies. There was debris in the shoulder and Jeff moved left while I went right. As we rolled passed the mess, we heard the woman rider call out for help. We determined she was not with the group of roadies and so Jeff and I turned around to see if we could help. She had a flat tire and Jeff did his usual to identify where the leak was and then confirm it looked like a pinch flat. The rider's name was Jennifer and she had one spare tube in her saddelbag. Jeff had removed the tire from the rim, but then we had a dickens of a time getting the tire back on the rim with the new tube in place. Jeff checked the entire wheel to make sure there was nothing poking out, and then pumped up the tire. As we went to put it back on the bike, I announced it was going flat. This time, we opted to not remove the whole tire, but just break the bead and remove the tube. We found it had pinch flatted opposite the stem. We did not have any more 700c tubes so we tried to patch the tube. Again, it was a fight to get the tire back on the rim. Jeff pumped up the tire again, but the patch failed. At this point, we were out of options. Jennifer was 40 miles from home and said she would try and call someone.
We said goodbye and wished her luck. There were no bike shops anywhere close by and Jeff commented that Jennifer would not likely be looking us up on Facebook since we had the epic failure of trying to help fix her flat. Our average had dropped to 10.8 after the stop and we did our best to finish the ride in under 7 hours (6 hours 52 minutes). The ride back to the Speedy Stop was uneventful and we did recover our average back to 11.3 as we rolled through town. At the Speedy Stop, I watched the bikes while Jeff went in to buy us cold drinks. I was glad to be done and drank most of my Dr. Pepper before we mounted the bikes to head home.
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