Normally, I would write about individual rides, but this week, the story is about 2 rides and a curious problem that affected both rides. On Tuesday, Jeff and I rode the hilly Meander to Leander 100K. This is Jeff's favorite permanent because it starts around the corner from his house. We have ridden it numerous times as training for bigger ride such as PBP. Jeff is currently training for Colorado in July and I'm happy to join him to improve my own fitness and pick up Ks.
Tuesday night, we rolled out around 6pm in the heat of the evening. The summer days are long so we didn't need to put reflective gear on until about mile 20 or so as it started to get dark. As we rolled toward Leander, Jeff started to notice his headlamp that is attached to his generator hub was flickering between full beam and the mode you see when the capacitor is powering the lamp when the bike is not moving. At the control, Jeff tried a few things to see if there was a loose wire or loose connection. However, nothing was amiss and the light continued to misbehave all the way back to the final control. We were wondering if perhaps the switch, the hub, or the lamp was the issue. Not sure at this point which component was the problem.
When Jeff got home, he said that after taking the bike apart and putting it back together, everything seemed to be working. That seemed like good news and it seemed the problem was behind us.
Saturday morning, we agreed to meet at 6am to ride Newer Braunfels. This is a good ride to do on hot days as it has lots of services - especially at the end of the ride when you are needing ice and water. As I rode to the initial control, I caught up to Jeff who said the light was acting up again. As most of this ride was going to be in daylight, it seemed like this would not be a big deal. The sun would come up and we would finish well before sunset.t
The weather on Saturday promised to be hot and humid. We started early to take advantage of cooler weather. Normally as you ride south, you encounter wind and you look forward to the turn around in New Braunfels. The wind was not a factor this morning and we arrived to the control in Lockhart with our average speed at 15mph. I'm not a speed daemon, but this was the fastest I had ever ridden this section of this permanent.
I ate a Hostess pastry and drank chocolate milk. Jeff was pleased to find breakfast tacos available. I had eaten a. taco at home (from Torchy's) before I left home so I wasn't interested in a taco. As we left the control, we found Lockhart was gearing up for a parade. We were glad to get past this road and avoid the parade traffic.
We made our stop short so we could continue on to New Braunfels. The sun was up, but we had cloud cover. As we rolled past Fentress we snapped some photos and talked about the choices of control. We debated briefly and decided to stick with the QT. We both hoped the kitchen was able to make pizza which had been a problem the last time. The heat index was ramping up and we both looked forward cooling down at the control.
We regained some time and arrived to New Braunfels with our average speed well above normal. Jeff pointed out that even though there was only a small tail wind, it would be hot as we turned north. We took a long stop at the control. Thankfully pizza was available. I picked a pre-made slice of pizza, a cup of ice, orange juice, a large bottle of water, and a Dr. Pepper. I took all these things outside and ate in the shade. Jeff ordered veggie pizza and we had to wait for it to be ready. We ate, filled and iced our bottles, and cooled off by dumping water on our sun sleeves.
We both drank a bottle with Skratch Hyper-Hydration.
We rolled north along 1102 where traffic was heavy forcing us to spend more time on the rough shoulder. As we rolled towards San Marcos, Jeff announced his front hub was still acting up.. Despite the fact that it was turned off and bright daylight, the wheel was still generating drag. If this were a night time ride, you wouldn't notice/care, but in the middle of day, this was an undesired and unexpected problem. Jeff was full on worried this problem might impact his plans. With bike parts in such short supply, it was worrisome to get the wheel fixed before his trip.
As we arrived in Kyle, Jeff's mood was glum. I did my best to cheer him up. It's not usual for me to be on the front, but Jeff dropped off a few times and I slowed down so we could regroup and talk. The last thing I wanted was for Jeff to be in poor spirits as we still had 30 miles to ride to the finish.
At the control, we both had ice cream and refilled our bottles. Jeff continued to worry about the wheel and I asked if we could reverse the wheel and see what that did. We did that and found the wheel still was under drag load. Bummer. We then reversed the wheel back to the original position and voila! the wheel was behaving again. We were both elated that the problem was gone. Jeff's spirits returned to normal and he was his usual self on the bike. We stopped again in south Austin, to get ice for our bottles. We were intent on staying hydrated and avoiding a death march to the final control.
We finished the ride in 10 hours 30 minutes. In an interesting coincidence this was the same as the last time we did this ride. I was really happy to be done. The day was getting hot and I didn't want to be riding in the heat any more. Likely, the next time we do this ride it will be the usual SE wind and we will be back to working together to reach New Braunfels with our average speed above 12mph.
All photos I took can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/49bV2wexHezq4q2z6
Comments