My quest to attain K-Hound status for 2021 requires that I get about 1500K in before the end of the year. There is a 600K coming up in December that will help. Other than this, I need to ride some 300K rides to help fill in the additional miles needed. This started with choosing to drive up to Willow Park to join the LSR for the Willow Park 300K. I have ridden this route at least once before so it was a little familiar to me. In order to ride this, I opted to skip on finishing Rouler by riding the 125K in Austin. I figure that I can catch a 125K later in December to finish Rouler. Probably a good choice for a cold/wet day when a longer ride would be unpleasant.
Amy was instrumental in getting me to sign up. She pointed out that Patrick would visiting from Massachusetts and wanted to be sure I got a chance to meet him. I sent email late in the week to Gary to indicate I was coming and I printed out the cue sheet and made a copy of the RWGPS file. I then did my best to fix up the RWGPS file to fix missing cues and to add all the services and controls to the route map so that this info can be on the Garmin. This brevet was created in the days before EPP so there is an excellent cue sheet (per LSR tradition). It was just a matter of transferring some of the info from the cue sheet to the RWGPS file.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/38044661
Ahead of the ride, I agreed to carpool up to Willow Park with Amy. Amy lives between Austin and Dallas so it made sense to pick up her and her bike on the way. Friday evening, I made sure to have everything loaded into the van and then set my alarm for 2AM. I had to reach Amy's by 4:30 and that would leave us plenty of time to reach Willow Park before 6:30 AM. The ride was scheduled to start at 7:00 AM. I also visited the kolache shop Friday morning and bought pastry to bring with me for breakfast ahead of the ride. I set up shop to sleep on the pull out bed on our sofa so as not to wake the whole house when I got up at 2AM.
I had a restless sleep (as is normally the case when I am nervous). I woke up on time and made coffee. I loaded up my bottles and put on most of my riding clothes. I doubled up on shorts as I was riding more than 200K. Since it was hours before the ride, I opted not to use any chamois cream. I was on the road by 2:45 and I texted Amy to let her know I was en route.
Traffic on I-35 was light. I reached Amy's by 4:10 and we loaded up the car with her bike and gear. I had to make special consideration to mount Amy's bike on the fork mount as her fork has holes rather than an open fork mount. This meant I had to put the skewer through and line it up with the holes on her fork. It took me about 5 minutes to get that sorted. We then headed up the road to Willow Park spending the time chatting about who was riding, the weather, and what to expect as the day progressed.
We arrived to Willow Park around 6:10 AM and had plenty of time to unload/set up bikes, use the bathroom, and turn over our paperwork to Gary and Dan. The riders wer Sue (it would be her first 300K), Mike (who I met in Georgia), Patrick (visiting from Massachusetts), Dan (the LSR RBA), Gary and Dana (on the tandem). It was a good group. I snapped a few photos as the sun came up.
Michael
Gary and Dana
Sue
The wind was blowing out of the SE which is a normal expectation for those of us from Austin. However, in winter, it is often the case that the wind shifts out of the north. On this day though, the fates smiled on us and the wind brought warm weather and clear skies the whole day.
Later in the day, I learned that Chris from Houston had joined us on the course. We eventually saw him later in the day as he rides fast and caught up to us.
The first stop was at about mile 35 in Granbury. This was not a control. The first actual control is around mile 63 so it was a good idea to stop and get water/ice/food. I bought a pack of donuts and a Dr Pepper. I ate some of the donuts and put the rest in my bag for later.
The first actual control is an info/photo/epp control so we just rolled on past this to the next control (in Glen Rose) where I bought some chocolate milk and a sausage wrap.
Recently, I have been trying to have more fun with selfies and Saturday was no exception. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures. Patrick is such a hoot!
Michael was in good spirits too.
The hardest part of the day was the stretch between Glen Rose and Hico. In this stretch, we were experiencing the worst of the wind, hills (more up than down), chip seal, and traffic. Dan, Patrick, and Amy went off the front with the promise of arriving to the control first and ordering us grilled cheese sandwiches at Ranglers. The rest of us got behind the tandem and made steady progress. Banter was replaced by silence and no amount of attempt by me to make us smile, laugh, and talk was helping. I tried, but it was to no avail. Fortunately, after Hico, we would start to head north with a tailwind.
We reached Hico and found our friends waiting for us. The grilled cheese was a splurge for me as I have been avoiding cheese and full dairy products as I hope to lower my cholesterol numbers. We had a nice long stop and then mounted our bikes to head towards Buff Dale. The road we had been fighting for the last segment turned flat and made a slight shift in direction to the NW. We pedaled with ease and the friendly banter and conversation returned. It seemed like almost no time when we reached Bluff Dale. I was hoping for a short stop since we had 2 more controls ahead, but again we lingered.
After Bluff Dale, we continued towards Lipan. For some reason, Michael and I ended up off the front and fully expected the group to catch us. We pedaled easily and just chatted away. Not too far from the control, Chris from Houston caught us. We rode the last few miles to the control in Lipan with Chris and decided we would hang out there for the group to catch us. Christ thought the group might be 25 minutes behind us, but it was only about 5 minutes as they rolled up before we even walked into the store.
We decided to take a wait and see on whether we would stop in Weatherford. The group all left together but at some point Dan, Chris, and Sue took off and the rest of us followed them to the control. I did not need anything from the control so I ate some food from my bag while the ladies used the facilities. We then mounted up to ride the last 15 miles back to Willow Park. Along this stretch, Patrick and I amused ourselves with singing phrases from 80s bands and trying to guess the bands and remember all the songs from that time. It was a fun way to end a ride.
We all arrived together (except for Chris who finished ahead of us) and we celebrated Sue's first 300K.
We all said our farewells as we loaded up the bikes and went our separate ways. I was glad to have Amy along to keep me company for at least half the drive back to Austin. I dropped her safely at her house and then headed south on I-35. I stopped at Buc-ees hoping to find BBQ but instead I had to order sausage kolaches instead. I filled the van with gas and made it home by around 4AM. I took a shower and fell fast asleep happy to have finished a challenging 300K with good friends.
All the photos from the ride day are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ch5XsLF4kQgqzMA8A
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