I thoroughly enjoyed myself out there with a bunch of bent riders.  Typically I ride alone or with a group of diamond frames so this was very different for me to ride with and see so many bents at one time, they are a rare sighting in Fort Worth.  It was good to see familiar faces and to have the opportunity to say things like oh your Reever or the many others I met face to face for the first time.  
 
I agree there is certainly room for improvement with this function but hey, don't we all have areas we can improve in.  Perhaps the best thing any of us could do is send Dean an email with our ideas, after all he asked for feedback and did work hard to pull this off.  
 
It was great to see Easy Street travel up from Austin to represent the bent nation so very well.  Thanks to Patti and Paul for posting here so we would know about it and thanks to Tim for posting on the Bacchetta site.  Much gratitude to all those who traveled to participate, it was great to meet you.  A great thanks to Gary for letting me ride his Awesome VTX+, although my wife doesn't share in the enthusiasm    
 
All in all it was a great day on the bike Saturday with all the wind and Sunday with the rain.  Beats the heck out of sitting in an office or watching Tv any day.

And the winners are? Please post, I know several of you took ho e medals, congrats.

'Twas a rainy, windy Sunday morning out at TMS, for the 40K. There were 30 or so DF riders, split into two start groups, and a small group of us bents - 2 trikes, and 3 two-wheelers. My particular ride was a good one, helped out by Gary Bradford loaning me his disc 700 rear wheel for the SprintX trike. Very kind of him, to volunteer this!
 
I sat on Joe Hooten's wheel at 20ish for the first lap, as we caught and passed a group of 10 DF riders about mile 3 or so, finishing the first lap a bit ahead of them, to the surprise of the people gathered at the start/finish.  My Strava record says it was 14:14, which is about a 21 mph average for that lap.  It had also started to rain, lightly.... About halfway through the second lap, it was raining heavier, and when we got to the incline, I decided I wasn't going to hang with Joe anymore at 20+, and thanked him for the draft. He was riding strong...  We were both wiping our glasses regularly. Soon, the group of DFs caught and passed me. I decided to hook into the back of their group, drafting at 20, and as we completed the second lap in front of the people, I was right in the back of the group, with all kind of spray obscuring my glasses, so about all I could see were the white shoes going up and down in front of me - but I hung at the back and avoided causing any problems.
 
A rainy half lap later, their group sped up on the incline and left me behind - I couldn't hang. From that point on it was basically a solo time trial in the rain, for the rest of the way. I caught and passed several other DF riders on my loops, and no one ever passed me, but I never caught Joe or the DF group - although I had Joe in my sights somewhere around the middle of lap 4.  Perhaps he saw me, and thought, "Oh, hell, no...."  
 
I was pretty tired on my last lap, but still felt pretty good, and was able to hold 20-21 mph the last mile or so into the wind to the Finish, finishing in under 1:18 (my goal was to be under 1:20), with an average about 19.25 mph according to my computer. I'll get the "official" time later. Not bad, on a 40-pound trike in wind and rain!  It's still kind of amazing to me how tough it is to get a trike above 20mph...  I think if I'd have been on the Xstream, I would have smoked most of the DF riders -- but as wet as it was, I'm glad I was on three wheels -- I never had to think about the road conditions, at all, except to dodge the major puddles.
 
It was good riding and sharing time with the rest of the bent gang that was there, and I'm sorry I missed Saturday's activities -  sounds like it was quite the party. Thanks again to Gary for the use of the disc wheel! I'm sure it added at least 1 mph to my average. Of course, I forgot to stop my Strava recording when I finished, so it shows a 16 mph average... (grin)
 
Thanks for everyone who participated this weekend - hope everybody had a good time - plan to do it again next year!
 

 

 

OK, cleaned up the Strava data to remove extraneous before/after points...  overall time shows as 1:17:47, with laps splits of:
 
14:32 - 20.7mph (thanks, Joe!)  
15:25 - 19.5mph
15:46 - 19.0mph
16:41 - 18.0mph
15:23 - 19.5mph

Dallas Park and Recreation Senior Programming Coordinator Katie Cline sent me the following:
 
I am working on the results as we speak, yes for some reason my data base grouped some recumbents with standard. We are already looking forward to next year and have figured out ways to make it bigger and better. You will receive an email from me when results are ready and posted on line with a link to view them. Thanks for participating in the Senior Games
 
Katie
 
 
Katie,
Just wanted to send a BIG thank you for the Senior games cycling events on Saturday. and an even bigger thanks for including recumbents in this year's cycling competitions. Although the weather was not the best, it was very exciting to have the competition and I believe most of the participants had a very good time. While there were some glitches, I hope they can be used as a learning experience so the games can be held again next year.  
There was some confusion after the events on Saturday regarding the results, as several of us who had ridden recumbents were mistakenly included in the regular cycling categories. Some of us never knew our finish times and there was confusion over where some of the participants actually placed. Will the final results be posted some where so we can see the official times in the different events?  
 
Thanks again to everyone who helped put the games together. Already looking forward to next year.
 
Patti Erickson