The month of January has been a light riding month for me. I rode the windy and flat SpaceX Odyssey while in South Padre. I then came back to Austin and rode my training permanent Rudy's 2 Step which turned out to be a big challenge. The perm is super hilly and if you have been off the bike for awhile, hills are challenging. After grinding out the perm, I then looked at the calendar and saw that HCR had the PDC Double Century brevet on the calendar. It's a very tough 300K that features 10,696 feet of climbing (https://ridewithgps.com/routes/26797518)
I pre-arranged to pick up Jeff at 5am on Saturday. I woke up on time on Saturday morning and dressed for the ride. Since this ride was more than 200K, I doubled up on the shorts to avoid bruising. This strategy has been working for me and my old Brooks saddle has been put back in service since the one I ordered back in the spring, kept being delayed and delayed and delayed and I finally just cancelled my order. I picked up Jeff and we headed down to Wayne's house where the ride would start.
At the ride start, we found other riders including Amy, Nick, Dan C, and Scott. Scott was planning to ride the 200K brevet. The rest of us were riding 300K. As we got ready to roll, Dustin showed up and announced he was going to ride the 200K too. As expected, the ride started and faster riders went off the front. I had some trouble with my asthma. Even though I had used my inhaler in the car on the way to the ride, I had to stop and use it again to get my breathing back under control. Now, I was well back and figured I might be riding solo. A few miles down the road, Nick rolled up. He had stopped to use the bathroom at the first C-store we passed. It was nice to have another rider to share the road with and we needed each other in the 30 miles of wind we had to ride into between Johnson City and Fredericksburg. We had been making pretty good time, but that stretch took a lot out of us. We both opted to walk to the Sonic adjacent to the control store and order a sandwich for lunch. We needed to replenish and build strength to ride to Kendalia.
The good news was that the stretch to Kendalia was primarily south. That meant a tailwind or a partial cross tailwind all the way. The only challenge were the hills, but the big push helped a lot. We briefly stopped in Luckenbach to take a picture in front of this famous hill country town. We also fixed a problem with Nick's saddle having come loose. The big hill ahead of Kendalia is nicknamed Ballbuster. I was riding the hills a bit faster than Nick so I got a bit ahead on this stretch and I knew he would catch me on the descent on the other side of BB. As predicted, he caught up to me just as I rolled into Kendalia control where we found Jeff and Amy waiting for us on the front porch.
We got some good news that wind was expected to die down as it got later in the evening. We took advantage of the remaining light of the day to start our trek to Dripping Springs. Thankfully, we found all the low water crossings bone dry. I think we all enjoyed having a group of 4 riders and the conversation and laughter were much appreciated.
We stopped a few times during this stage to put on more clothes, turn on lights, and address an issue with Nick's tail light which seemed to have some trouble staying on. We finally fixed Nick by him taking my blinkie which attaches to my helmet and putting this one on his helmet. In Dripping Springs, we found some chairs to sit in. Amy and Jeff both put new chemical toe warmers in their shoes. My feet felt fine so I didn't bother to do this. I still had my booties on and felt good.
The last stretch back to the end control featured Fitzhugh Rd, Barton Creek, and Bee Caves Rd. These are all hilly. The steepest hill is the final climb up Barton Creek to Bee Caves Rd. We stayed together as a group for the final miles on Bee Caves and finished the ride in 18 hours 26 minutes. I was super glad to have chosen to ride and finish strong. I was most happy to be with good friends through the day. I am feeling like the 1000K coming up next month is feeling more real now. The time was nowhere near my fastest on this course. I have done it previously in under 17 hours. So, there is definitely room to improve and be ready for the big multi-day rides.
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