Driftless Randonneur Tales: December in Texas

As previously noted, I signed up to do the Hill Country Randonneurs 600K (the Old Dime Box 600K) some time ago. I did this for a few reasons:

To thaw out.
To test the theory that I could do longer rides using the aerobars to give my hands a break (more on that in a follow-up blog)
To ride with a group of folks that I enjoy riding with.

As it happens, in the last 14 months I've ridden a full brevet series and a 1000K with the Hill Country folks (Jeff Newberry, Rob Tulloh and Amy Russell) along with some assorted Lone Star Randonneurs (Dan Driscoll, Gary Gottlieb, Dana Pacino) and assorted others. I always enjoy rolling with these folks and this trip proved to be no exception.

My friend Eric Peterson was also interested in doing a longer ride so we ended up sharing a rental car and hotel room. I did this ride last year and screwed up my travel arrangements big time. I arrived on Friday after 6 PM so by the time I got my rental car, drove to the hotel, got something to eat and put the bike together it was quite late. I then booked my return flight on Monday at 10:30 AM. We finished the ride at 19:00 on Sunday. By the time I showered, got something to eat and packed the bike it was 01:00 and I had to get up at 07:00 to make it to the airport.

Not again.

This time Eric and I flew in on Thursday and had a leisurely dinner at 600 Degrees (good pizza and a really good beer selection!) then spent Friday assembling the bikes and generally faffing about before joining a subset of the group (Dan, Gary, Dana and Dan Colvin) for dinner at a nearby Italian place.

We rolled out at 07:00 and the weather looked great for the day. It was cold at the start (mid-40's) but warmed up to the mid-60's during the day and the winds were fairly light all day so we made great time. The route goes northward toward Crawford where it turns around and returns to Georgetown for day one. Last year we got to Crawford at dusk and left after dark just before the Christmas parade was going to start. This time, we got there about 16:00 and had a nice meal. Only mishap on the way up was Dan Colvin had a flat, other than that no problems at all.

He's every bit as smart as he was in office

Here's the Strava from day one.

Last year we finished the first day at 01:00. We made much better time this year (the light winds and riding with the Charly Miller group) and got in at 11:50 so a luxurious sleep before rolling out at 07:00 the next day.

The weather on day 2 wasn't quite as nice on the first day. It was warmer (high in the lower 70's) but quite windy and we'd have a headwind most of the way out to Old Dime Box. We met a group of HCR riders doing a 100K/200K about 8 miles into the ride and the pace picked up dramatically. I knew better than to try to keep up with fresh legs doing a shorter ride so I fell off the back. We eventually regrouped at the first control and Jeff, Amy, Eric and I rode together the rest of the way. We saw Gary, Dana and Rob on the retour when we were headed out to the turnaround at Old Dime Box and would regroup with them at the last control at Thrall.

The control at Thrall has a good kitchen where they'll custom make pizzas but what I was looking forward to was mashed potatoes. Alas, the Gary/Dana/Rob group had eaten the last of the mashed potatoes (sad trombone sound) so I had to content myself with a couple of pieces of chicken.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and we finished at a little after 20:00 for a ride time of just over 37 hours. I hadn't done a long ride since my Hound Dog DNF and was really feeling the lack of miles in my legs but I got it done.

Eric and I hurriedly said our goodbyes and went back to 600 Degrees for more pizza and several FCAB's (Frosty Carbonated Alcoholic Beverages).

Here's the Strava from day two.

On Monday, the weather went somewhat to hell and on Tuesday it went totally to hell. Monday was cold and very windy, Tuesday was 38 degrees and steady rain.

We lucked out.

My return trip was mostly uneventful for this time of year. The flight out of Austin was two hours late because they had to de-ice the inbound plane in Chicago so I had to reschedule my Chicago->Madison flight and ended up getting to Madison about 3 hours later than planned.

And the wind chill was -7F when I arrived :-(

Some pictures from the ride courtesy of Jeff Newberry and Rob Tulloh