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General Category >> Ride Reports >> Hill Country Randonneurs Gonzales 400k
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Message started by square_corners on Mar 26^th, 2012, 8:15pm

Title: Hill Country Randonneurs Gonzales 400k
Post by square_corners on Mar 26^th, 2012, 8:15pm

My first 400k with the Hill Country Randonneurs - fantastic route, although I should temper that statement with 2 facts: ZERO wind and the most awesome wild flower display I've ever seen! This is the first very long ride I've ever done with no wind whatever. In fact, there have been darned few rides I've done in Texas with such complete lack of wind. The stretch from Seguin to Gonzales - about 33 miles each way, would be horrible with a "normal" amount of wind. That part of the route has lots of big rollers and very rough chip seal for 99% of the distance.

This is also the stretch where we viewed awesome acreage blanketed with wild flowers. It wasn't just bluebonnets, although the bluebonnets were superb. No, there were also superb displays of Indian Paintbrush, and flowers that looked like poppies but were in colors of the rainbow - white, orange, violet, yellow - in some cases masses of one color; in other cases, all mixed up - a potpourri of color! there were acres and acres of them, stretching from the road to as far away as one could see from the road. This was perfect timing of this route to coincide with the peak of the flowers. For the entire ride, when the flowers weren't rioting, the lush green of freshly watered grass, Mesquite trees in fresh leaf, and lushness uncharacteristic of this part of Texas, just blew me away!

The ride started out pretty chilly and ended chilly. I didn't wear leg warmers and on top, I only wore arm warmers and windbreaker over a short-sleeve jersey. It was really uncomfortably cold and I was regretting not wearing more. While the first 5 miles starting out were mostly climbing on some very large rollers, we were starting in the edge of the hill country and heading southeast, eventually taking a big descent. As we descended, we went from dry, clear air, into 100% humidity. We had heavy drizzle and light rain - everything was wet, including me. While I did have a rainjacket with me, it wasn't quite wet enough to put it on. But I had so much trouble seeing through my glasses, I ultimately took them off and rode without eye protection. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic and bugs seem to be absent whenever precip is falling. Eventually it dried up, but the clouds remained, keeping the temperature down in the 60s until the first peeks of sun, about 11:30 in the morning. It quickly went to the 80s though as the remaining clouds burned off, topping out at 88°. The route is all about rollers - not much completely flat and lots of steepish rollers up to to 12% gradient. We were not in the hill country, but mostly to the east - a little flatter but not much flatter. This was a great route to do on the recumbent - the climbing wasn't that difficult (other than the 22% hill near the end - I walked that one!) and there was always a nice downhill reward for the effort. (BTW, I started my Garmin half a mile after the start, having gone up a 7% hill for much of that distance. So I added half a mile to the total and used the "elevation" loss as my total climb for the ride).

254 miles / 8968 ft climbing / avg 15.8 / max 37.7

Title: Re: Hill Country Randonneurs Gonzales 400k
Post by dd5339 on Mar 26^th, 2012, 8:57pm

Nice write up! That sounds like a ride I might have to put on my to do list for next year.

I'm hoping there will be similar displays of wildflowers for this weekends brevet in Canton.

Semper Fi

Title: Re: Hill Country Randonneurs Gonzales 400k
Post by square_corners on Mar 26^th, 2012, 11:18pm

I'm planning to do Canton - hope to see you there!

Title: Re: Hill Country Randonneurs Gonzales 400k
Post by rmillay on Mar 28^th, 2012, 5:46pm

Man, I envy you guys! That was the route I broke 9 hours on, and the weather looks similarly good this year. Maybe I'll be ready by next year. Have a great ride.