Peach Pedal - Weatherford, TX

How often can one ride go straight into the wind?

Now I was a meteorologist at one time, but still can figure out which way the dang wind is blowing. All the flags in TX indicated a steady south wind Saturday morning.

We started out the ride heading south for quite a few miles. I thought that would be perfect, because that meant, at some point during the ride, and hopefully towards the end of it, we'd have a super tailwind to help blow us back home. Well it did seem as if we hardly had a tailwind at all. Oh well.

The ride started out at the Weatherford High School along I-20. We (friends, Donna, Mike and I) thought we would arrive in plenty of time to finish registering and getting our bikes in order to leave at 7:30, starting with the 100k folks, as Mike needed to be finished earlier for other stuff in the afternoon. There were 3lengths for this ride, 26m, 40m and 100k. We chose to do the 40m

The traffic flow to the school wasn't great at all and we weren't the only ones late. IN the end, we were parked, registered and headed out just before the 20m people left at 8am. It was a late start, but we made up some time.

We nearly missed the first turn west, as did many other folks. There was only a small marking in the road with colored arrows pointing the way to go. Of course, we had no idea what course color we were on, so we went with the correct choice of going with 3 out of the 4 arrows.

The course itself has plenty of rolling hills. There aren't any that are particularly steep, but there are a few that get you into the granny gear temporarily. Mike, Donna and I paced together well up until the 2nd aid station, where we did our first stop.

Donna was thrown from a horse about a month ago and thought she was doing fine enough to get back on the bike again. She's a good rider, but the angle at which she was sitting on the bike must've triggered some muscle cramps in her back as she struggled to catch her breath and be comfortable. Mike helped her stretch a little before heading back out.

The aid stations are full of enthusiastic volunteers who were quick to fill bottles with water or gatorade. They were cheerful and encouraging. The best treat was that there were massive bowls of cool, fresh peach chunks. I'm sure this is part of the grand plan to get us over to the Peach Festival!

All in all, it's a easy-moderate ride, despite the wind. Next time we'll either plan to be earlier or just camp out somewhere close. We didn't get to the Peach Festival in Weatherford after all, but did find a stand along the road and scored some fresh peaches. Mmm....!!