Out with a Bang!

Early Sunday morning, we made our trek to St. Francisville for the Baton Rouge Bike Club Fall Century.   The weather was perfect and I was looking forward to a great ride.   Christine and I had decided to do the metric century (62 miles) and we had a lot of friends riding with us.   So before I proceed, let me introduce the cast of this musical.

Of course, my beautiful wife Christine was with me.   And our riding buddy, Danny Smith, who first suggested the ride was there.   The Bourgeois Twins, Bob and Blake, made the trip as well as the father/son dynamic duo of Paul and Blake Esch (13 years old).   And to round out the ensemble, we ran into our BRTri friend, Matt Chenevert.

The century riders headed out at 8:00 and the metric and half riders went out at 8:30.   We all gathered together and started the adventure in a big group.   And 0.43 miles later we were all separated.   It took about 2 to 3 miles before we all got back together and we settled into a good pace and rolled on.   Before long, we hit our first big hills and all the nervous people got more nervous.

Big Blake was nervous because he hasn’t been riding a lot.   Little Blake was nervous because it was a longer than he had ever ridden.   Christine was nervous because she has been putting in a lot of running miles training for the marathon.   I was nervous because I didn’t know when my Friday workout was going to bite me in the butt.   And on top of that,   the crowd (other riders) was still congested and some of them were a little squirrely.   And then Bob jettisoned a bottle.

He turned around and went back for it as we pressed on.   And then we turned on Hwy 66.   Not to be confused with the famous Route 66 which makes it way to California, this one makes its way to Angola Prison.   And there were lots of folks going to prison.   Every year Angola has a huge rodeo and this was one of the weekends.   So here we all were, 100+ people in spandex hugging the edge of the road as about 1000 rodeo junkies passed by.   Yee-Haw!

To make matters worse, this was the worst road surface we rode on.   For about 2 to 3 miles, it vibrated our bikes so bad that my hands were aching.   But you couldn’t sit up or relax because of the traffic.   And that’s when some old guy ahead of us pulled out into the middle of the road!   I yelled “Car Back” as if he wasn’t aware that he was in the path of a lot of steel and he pulled back to the side.   I decided to pass a few riders and get in front of him to help him out.   Something just wasn’t right there.

We finally made it off 66 and after some searching, we found Bob.   He had missed a turn.   And at the first SAG stop about 20 miles in, we all regrouped, refueled, and headed back out.   And that was the last we saw of Matt and the Bourgeois Brothers.   Bob had to work Sunday night, so no messing around for him.

This next section   took us up to Rosemound and some nice roads and good hills.   Everyone seemed to be doing great.   We got into a speed downhill section where I topped out at 37.4 miles per hour.   The only problem was that a bug hit the back of my throat at about 31.9 mph.   I never even got to taste it.   After that, things settled down until we hit an unexpected delay: a debris removal truck.

This is when Paul began doubting our location.   There were no riders coming up behind us and something didn’t seem right.   I was “almost” positive we were on the right road, but that didn’t help much.   Another group finally came up and we also confirmed by the flag man that this was the correct way.   So after about 10 minutes of sitting, we headed through the debris laden street on our way to more adventures.

After another turn we made our way to “Chick Hill”.   This was formerly known as Red Bug Hill and it is a very steep incline.   At this point in the ride, Danny is up ahead wandering aimlessly and I was leading the pack of myself, Paul, Blake and Christine.   And on the long grueling uphill, Christine blew by all of us.   As Paul put it, we were all “chicked”.   Therefore, in honor of Christine’s victory, we renamed the hill to “Chick Hill.”

A few miles later, we pulled into the second SAG stop at about 40 miles.   And now for the dilemma: turn right and we go 10 miles back for a half-century ride.   Go left and it is another 22 miles (actually 25) and we do the metric century.   It came down to Christine and Blake to make the decision.   Paul, Danny and I were game for anything.   And then they both made the fatal mistake and uttered the words: “Let’s do the 62″.   (Play some scary music now.)

So we ate and took the left turn.   And a few miles later, my legs were dead.   On Friday, I ran 18 miles.   Probably not the smartest thing to do 2 days before an extremely hilly bike ride, but I did it anyway.   And at that point in the ride, my legs were moaning that I should have taken a right back there.   I let Christine, Paul and Blake pass as I backed off for a little bit.   A few minutes later my legs came around and I caught back up.   And it was a good thing because Christine started up a 25 mph freight train for the next couple of miles!

A few more miles and we stopped at our last SAG stop.   And we were all getting tired.   We still had what we thought was around 12 to 13 miles to go (actually 16), so we ate a good bit.   Some pickled Okra, banana and a gel pack later and we rolled on.   And that’s when we almost picked up a tail.

Do you remember the old guy who latched on to us at the Tour de Tangi?   Well he jumped out of the woods and tried again here!   We drastically slowed the pace while “waiting” for others and he went on.   He ended up tailing Danny for a bit before he lost him as well.   We made it back to our second to last road and stopped at the intersection.   Every ones faces all showed fatigue.   I asked Blake how he was doing and his one word answer said it all, “Tired.”   Blake is an amazing 13 year old.   For the entire ride, he never complained once.   He just smiled, put his head down and pedaled away.   He definitely impressed us old farts.

With about 7 miles to go, we had an unscheduled pit stop.   We were tired so we pulled off for a quick leg rest break.   That is when Danny mentioned some muscle pulls in his legs.   He had been pushing hard on the hills all day, and I think it was getting to him.   We started back up and he immediately cramped and screamed.   And everyone stopped again.   After another few minutes, we tried to head out again.   And that is when we heard the shotgun blast.

It actually wasn’t a shotgun but just Danny’s back tire.   And it had a big hole blown in it: tube and tire.   Well crap.   Isn’t that special?   We pulled it off and put in a new tube.   Blake had an empty gel packet which we added to try to reinforce the tire.   We aired it up and started rolling…..gingerly.   We made it a couple of miles and it blew again.   Another change.   Another mile or so and another boom. Another change.

At this point, Danny was getting frustrated and we were all tired.   We had already had about 6 or 7 people ask if we needed help, but we wanted to finish the ride.   After the 3rd change, one couple decided to follow us back in their truck.   And Danny made it about 1.5 miles from the finish before it blew again.   And he was done.   Our Guardian Angel loaded up his bike as Christine, Paul, Blake and I pedaled the last 1.5 miles back to the park.

And after 65 miles (not 62), we finished.   Everyone was happy because it was a great ride.   And we were all impressed with how well we had ridden.   Riding with this group was a blast, and it was a beautiful day to be on the road.

Tags: bike, Metric Century, ride