April | 2014 | Steve Tilford

Day one down, day two started of the TradWind Energy Team’s Houston MS 150 adventure.

I don’t have an Internet connection, so am going to try to post this from the ride from my phone. Early rise today. Started riding before 6:30 am.

I ended up with 130 miles yesterday. 105 riding from the hotel to the ranch we stayed at and then Brian and I ride an extra 25 ish after. Brian is training for the Dirty Kanza. Maybe I am too now.

The thing that was the most amazing was the masses. We left at 10 am and had to ride 25 miles to the start and then “chase”. We caught the first guy at maybe 15 miles in. We nursed him along for a few miles and then he just was gone.

We kept going along at a pretty good clip. The wind was from the south, with a twinge of east. Pretty sure we were in the masses. Eventually we pretty much couldn’t stay on the right side of the road.

Then we got stopped by the police. Someone had crashed and they were flying in a life flight helicopter to take him out. It wasn’t a long wait.

It got pretty warm, upper 80’s. Bill, Brian and Nick are pretty sunburnt, even though Nick stopped and bought some sunscreen.

We had an awesome dinner at a ranch of a friend of Clean Line last night. We slept on a open porch, which was nice.

Today we have to ride an extra 10-15 miles to the start, then the ride which is over 80 miles, maybe 90. I’m just gonna ride back to Ann’s house, say hi to Bromont, then get my van to get my sleeping stuff etc.

Heading back to Kansas to pick up Trudi tomorrow. She is doing Paris-Roubaix today.

Gonna be a short turn around.

Road was pretty empty early on.

We saw this guy before the lunch stop, over 40 miles in.

Stating later made it more riding in the heat.

Pretty soon it was a whole lot of riders.

Brian and I came upon this guy on our extra ride. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was just resting.

Clean Line brought in 3 massage therapists for our group.

There was an enormous amount of guacamole. Something like 60 avocados.

And plenty of beer.

I only had a couple. I used to ride to Shiner from Austin back in the day.

There are a lot of eclectic places out in the countryside in Texas.

Bromont seems to not be missin’ me much.

Okay, this the last post on the MS150. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised how much fun I had the last couple days. It was a refreshing reminder about how vast our sport is and how many facets it has. Those people that sat on the bikes for over 10 hours to ride 80 miles, man, I have to give them credit. It was hot and windy the first day, then just muggy and windy the 2nd.

I was so impressed by the infrastructure that the tour had. I can’t believe how many SAG wagons, EMT guys riding, police (100’s of police) and all the other volunteers that made it possible for 13000 people to ride from Houston to Austin. And the cones. One lane was blocked off in Austin the last 6 miles. And there was a police officer at every intersection. It was a big organizational task.

We started off from the ranch we stayed at at around 7 am. We had to ride 12 miles to the start and by the time we got there, the roads were pretty much line to line riders. It was nearly impossible to ride side by side. So, I went to the front and pulled for the first 5-10 miles. We were going along at a pretty good clip, somewhere close to 25. We had a pretty good line of guys riding behind us.

I love the vernacular that a tour type rider uses. The announce when they are starting off by saying “rolling”. Of course, the ever present, “stopping”. Lots of people would say something was we went by about announcing our passing. One guys said, “Hey, sing out when your passing riders.” Oh, sure. I would be riding along, saying over and over, like 6000 times, “Passing on your left”. We could ride in the left lane a fair amount of the time, the road was virtually closed. Towards Austin, it started thinning out, but the cones made the bike lane super narrow, so it was hard passing.

The last 20 miles, we started just pulling a mile each. So, one mile in the front and 3 miles off. We kept up a pretty good speed. We got to Austin a little before 11 am. I think our average was around 22 mph, but the first hour, riding to the start it was only 15, so we were going a bit faster than that. It was Brian’s birthday yesterday, so we had a beer to celebrate. I kept going and rode another 20 miles to get over 100 for the day. I had to ride back to Ann’s house anyway, I just took the long route.

I had a little over 500 miles for the week, with one day of no riding and one day of 13 miles, so the other 5, were pretty big. Four days over 100, which isn’t normal for me recently.

I was going to have to get up super early to drive all day up to Kansas City this morning to pick Trudi up after Paris-Roubaix, but I just got her a ticket from Kansas City to Austin this evening, so she has to travel another couple hours, but it’s easier. She needs a little down time and hanging in Austin is pretty enjoyable down time. It is supposed to maybe snow in Kansas today anyway, so the weather isn’t so good. It’s raining right now here in Austin, but is supposed to clear up early afternoon.

I need to go and find a great breakfast place now, that is if Bill every wakes up. He’s staying too and he can sleep.

Here are some photos from yesterday.