Saturday:
I’m not sure I’ve ever ridden my bike in such windy condition for so long. I arrived at Lalla’s place just before noon. When I walked in he was eating his breakfast and updating facebook…go figure! We both knew the day was going to get epic, so we weren’t in too big of a hurry to step out the door. Eventually, we got kitted up, pumped our tires, lubed our chains, clipped on our helmets and mounted our new steeds. It still amazing how much more I go forward with every pedal stroke!
The ride was hard to say the least. On our way out of town we stopped in at TCC, one of the shops in WF, to meet another cyclist, Les. Les has had an interesting story during the last month. He had a horrible crash at Mineral Wells and then again on a group ride shortly after. The crashes have left him with two sprained shoulders, two broken ribs, and enough cuts and scraps to make both Lalla and I cringe. Together, we headed north and west (the direction of the wind). We kept our pace fast and managed to push lots of watts all day long. About halfway into the ride we stopped at a little convenience store to fill water and drink a Coke. This is also where Les turned off to head home. Lalla and I pointed our bars south and pedaled for about 30 minutes-the only time all day we had a tail wind! Somehow we managed to head further west before taking a loop out in the middle of nowhere (I don’t think we saw a car, house, or sign of life for about 2 hours) and returning east. By this point, the wind had shifted and was hitting us hard from the north. We originally thought we’d have a tail cross wind home, but this wasn’t the case. I asked Lalla how long it would be until we got home and he replied with “about an hour and a half.” In my mind I was sarcastically thinking “great….I’m shot!” The only thing that kept us both pedaling was Lalla consistently asking “We pushing good watts?” We ended up averaging 235 for the 5 hr 30 min/97 miles. Ouch!
As divine as it feels to climb into the clouds, it feels much less angelic when it’s 36 degrees and windy. Or as Lalla would say…”It was f@#$ing cold.” We got up early in the morning to get rolling. After some biscuit-esque pancakes and some French press coffee, we packed the car and hit the road. At this point we were already second guessing our decision as the car told us it was 42 degrees. That was the warmest temperature we saw all day since we were heading north.
I may or may not have been in and out of sleep the whole way up to the Scott Hill. When we got there Lalla told me “Dude, I’m not riding today” before we even got out of the car. I’ll admit that I didn’t really want to either, but I couldn’t give in after three hours on the road. Before getting in the saddle we decided to drive to the top. It was gorgeous! We could only see the bottom 1/3 of the mountain because of the thick fog/low clouds that covered the remainder. About halfway up the combination of the wind and clouds made the drive up worth it. We could see the clouds rolling up over the road as we were parked. It was really amazing.
The ride was about what you’d expect. Since Lalla wasn’t riding I only road the mountain (1003 ft. ascent) three times. When I hit the bottom the first time I had been on the bike for about two minutes. I thought a 350 watt warm up would be painful, but it actually felt good. Lalla hit the climb by foot and I went up and down with only the time it took to descend as a break.
Afterwards Lalla needed to throw away the two bags worth of trash he had collected from the side of the road (yes, Watt Posse saves the environment) when he noticed two raccoons that were trapped in the trash container. We figured out that they were trapped because there were scratches all around the inside where they had tried to climb out. We quickly found a long branch that we propped against the side of the container so our furry friends could climb out. Hopefully they’ll figure it out!
All in all it was an epic weekend. No flat tires, great rides, and lots of fun in Da Falls. See ya’ all soon!
-Adam
