Paceline

Holy cow, riding in a cycling paceline is a blast! The rush of speed and of bodies working in harmony is exhilarating!

One of my friends at work and volleyball partner in crime recently started riding his bike again after a long, 10-ish year hiatus. He knew I rode to work regularly and wanted to get back into the sport again.

A few weeks ago one evening, I got a text from him, "Wanna ride at lunch? Bring your bike to work." The cooler fall weather and an opportunity to get out of the office for a while made this an easy choice. I loaded up my steed and couldn't wait to get out of a meeting to go play.

The first time out we rode around the lake, then headed over to the "rich" part of town near Love Field and just rode around the neighborhoods. He struggled to keep up and I enjoyed an easy pace. We did 10-ish miles in that hour and both came back grinning.

Last week, I had a meeting cancel so it was my turn to text him. He'd ridden a longer ride over the weekend and was tired, but jumped at the chance to again enjoy the crisp, fall lunchtime ride. As we went, I asked him if he'd want to go do a 44-miler that weekend in Bonham. He thought that if he could do this lunchtime ride and recover well, he would do it.

Sure enough, Friday he said he could go and wanted to give it a shot. This was my first road ride ever the year before and I made it through. He plays sand volleyball regularly and is in shape. There was no doubt in my mind he could make it through, maybe being a little tired at the end.

So Rick picked me up early on Saturday and we met up with his friend, Linda, on the way in McKinney. We raced to get registered and just start.

Rick was like a jackrabbit for the first 10-ish miles, and I silently wondered if he'd burn out at about 35 miles. I had a tough time keeping up with him, especially with all those hills early on. We decided to skip the first aid station and move on.

About 12 miles in, Rick spotted a guy with a "classic" bike; one that was about 20+ years old and struck up a conversation with him. Turns out Wayne, originally from South Africa, was here from China on business and some friends conned him into doing the ride. It was a great bike in its time, but a little old technology compared to today. He was enjoying himself despite the older frame and getting a good view of the Texas countryside.

After a while, we realized we were all pacing about the same and decided to try a paceline. Rick started us out, then Wayne pulled for a while. I stayed trailing. I noticed a shadow behind me and realized that someone else had jumped onto the train. He introduced himself (John maybe?) and chatting. Nice guy. Before long, we had several others. Through this point, we were averaging about 17-18mph

We decided to stop at the 2nd rest stop, just to get the butts out of the seats for a few minutes and grab some ice for the bottles. Four of us continued on the paceline and it started to get hilly. Just as we started to get into a small hill, dang Rick, who was up front at the time, piped up and asked everyone to raise hands to see if it was Kari's turn to pull. Well crap! I didn't think I could go fast enough for these guys, especially on hills, but what the heck. They all raised their hands in agreement.

We'd already started up the first small hill and I broke to get to the front. Turned out I sped up too much because Rick, who was behind me at that point, told me I'd dropped a couple of them. Ha! I slowed down a bit so they could catch up, then led the pace for a few miles. Fun! I didn't think I could do it, nor did I think I was fast enough for it. The guys were really encouraging.

We continued swapping out spots until about the 33 mile mark and averaged about 18-19 the rest of hte way. An extremely nasty car accident split us all up. Rick and I stopped to help initially; the other two stopped for a few minutes then went on. I won't go into the details, but it was bloody and required 3 medical helicopters to come take some of the vicitms away. There hasn't been a news link to see what happened to them.

On a brighter note, I'm so freakin' hooked on pacelines now! Wow! Fun stuff. It makes me think I might be able to move up into the next group in the Corinth bike riders. Whee!!

A downside to bike commuting

I should've known not to trust Jennifer Lopez.

No, I'm not talking about the singer, J Lo, but our newest meteorologist for NBC5 who just moved here from Atlanta after finishing her stint on The Weather Channel. The girl hasn't quite learned about Texas weather yet. Or maybe her skills on localized meteorology just need some polishing. I'll cut her some slack though, as she's only been on air here for about 2 weeks. And I know what she's going through.

In any case, ol' Jenn told us that thunderstorms for Tuesday would be very scattered and west of Ft Worth. So I believed her; trusted her, and took off on my commute to SWA that morning thinking all would be good with the world on the way home. Cool even.

At about 4:45, I was closing up shop here at work and decided to take a peek at the radar. Sure enough, there was a huge storm which looked as if it might be just east of my route, but there was more light rain all over my route home. Surely, I didn't mind a little light rain. Still, I thought it might be time to high-tail it out of the office and try to get ahead of some of it.

The first few miles through the neighborhoods were just fine, thankfully. I was enjoying the relative cool of the afternoon and not having to try to duck under as many trees as possible to enjoy brief moments of shade. But by the time I got to 635 (about 6 miles into the ride), I knew I was toast!

It started to sprinkle, yet I still thought I might miss the bulk of the rain. I peddled furiously as the sky darkened and I heard my first rumble of thunder. Sure enough, I topped a small hill and saw that there were sheets of rain coming up and I had to find a place to get cover soon.

The rain started coming down heavier, so I pulled up to a laundromat on Josey with a good overhang to wait it out for a while. There, I chatted with an older lady who had coke-bottom glasses and a cigarette dangling precariously out of her mouth. Back in the day, her car broke down once and she was too scared to ask her co-workers for a ride, so she walked about 10-12 miles home one night. Wow. What can you say?

The rain appeared to lighten up a bit, but I could see trees still blowing hard with wind. It was getting to be about 6:05, so I decided to brave the wind and light rain and just go anyway. I was already wet, but worried about running out of daylight before I got home. As I rounded the corner of the building, once again, I could see a sheet of rain pouring just ahead of me on my current path. Sure enough, within about 100 yards, I was again in the middle of a downpour so I dove into the next shetered area, the awning of a gas station. As my neighbor Marsha would say, "It's a gully washer. It's a turd floater". Crap!

Here, I was "lucky" enough to have Pedrrrrrrro come chat with me as he exited the gas station. Pedrrrrrro had a beautiful way of rolling is r's, but his accent was thick. But that's not the most interesting thing about him. Nope, Pedrrrrro had about 1/4" of a big ol' hanger-downer from his nose and it was all I could do not to make eye contact or even stare at it as he yammered on and on. Now don't get me wrong, he was a very nice fellow, but holy cow, it was awful! It would teasingly wave at me with every exhale he did. "Hello, Kari! You can't ignore me! Look at me, while still trying to maintain a conversation!"

He rambled on and on about some things, occasionally asking a question to which I'd vaguely respond. He soon realized that I wasn't reciprocating the conversation much and told me that he didn't want to wear me out and that his girlfriend Marrrrrria also chatted a lot. So much chatting that he had to limit her to his 450 minutes a month. I had to laugh at that one. After about 10 minutes, Pedrrrro went on his way. It was one of those places where you wonder if a Candid Camera person is filming this interaction somewhere.

By about 6:15, the bulk of the rain had passed enough that I was ready to just get going again. I was thankful that I'd just bought a great Brooks shirt at Run On recently for safety - it's one of those day-glo greenish-yellow numbers that you can't miss. I took off and stayed on the sidewalks until I could get to side streets off Josey. As cars passed puddles, they'd spray a wall of water on my already drenched body. Im' sure a few thought it was comical.

The side streets werent' nearly as bad and I really only had one last leg of the ride that was a bit scary which was on Sandy Lake. I made it through that fine and by the time I hit the intersection of Sandy Lake and 35E, the rain stopped. I kept watching the sky, though, wondering if I'd finally found a breaking point or if I was in for another round of misery. EIther way, the motivation to get my butt home was high and I found myself making up all kinds of time the last 1/2 of the ride.

The streetlight fairies were who tortured me with red lights while I was in the rain decided to cut me a break and I managed to hit nearly all the lights green the last hour of the ride. It was a relief. Finally, I made it home about 7:30, unscathed and starting to dry out. I'm not sure my shoes will be dry enough for another ride to work tomorrow.

We'll see what miss Lopez has to say in the morning.