I had an excellent trip, overall - no flats, no wrecks, no speeding tix...
The price was right for the Lamar accomodations, although I didn't sleep worth a flip, and when I did I was awoken by the "BOOM" of the bathroom door echo in the gym... The folks working there were very friendly and helpful.
Sorry about leading us a bit astray on the way to the start, but it turns out that if we had turned left on Burnett at the YMCA, we would have dead ended into the 6th street exit ramp! So, no foul...
It was good to wander through the various 'benters in the front while we waited for the start. Bud and I had decided to hit it hard from the very start, so we tagged onto a pack of tandems and let 'em pull us along for the first 10 miles or so into the wind, teasing Greg while we were at it. Heading north towards Elektra, we were averaging 21 or so, cooking along.
Along the way, we kept wondering where all these bikes we were passing had come from... It seemed like there were HUNDREDS of people who must have started down the line from the "official" start, just to avoid the crowd... Including a couple guys on P-40s who we both passed around mile 25...
Bud had little patience with my desire for a half cup of Gatorade and a cookie in Elektra, and left me behind... Of course, I wasted a couple more minutes LOOKING for him...
I stopped at 52 at Margaritaville,
then later passed through the Gate,
and stopped at 70 to hit the bathroom - along the way, cruising along at 25 or so, either pulling, tailing, or "Doing the Demo", as Mikey sez...
occasionally honking with my new "AOOGGAHH" horn for fun...
And still had a 21 average to that point, anticipating it would drop severely as we were about to turn south... However, I was able to catch onto a few nice small groups, and keep hammering along... FINALLY catching/passing Bud around 80(?) -- I was in a good rhythm with four other guys, and he was in a group of about 15, and called out to me as we passed them - - I hadn't seen him! However, I was "in a groove" and decided to keep on pushing, figuring we would hook up at 90 or the beer stop...
I stopped at 90 for a bit more ice, and Greg pulled in, saying that Bud has just gone by... So I took off after him, smelling the beer... I mean, "Barn"... No, I mean "Beer"...
We rode together for a couple miles, as he told me about being gassed -- or UNgassed, as in "Nothin' left in the tank"
I went on ahead, and cruised into the Beer Stop - but Bud passed it by.
I had my now-traditional three beers with a few other GDB pals who came by, and headed on towards the finish with one of them -- and suddenly checked my computer, and saw that I had about 10 minutes left to stay under my theoretically unreachable goal of 5 hours of bike time!!! So I said "BYE, GOTTA GO!!!" to the GDB'er, and hammered to the finish, passing at least a dozen people going up the overpass... and hit the finish line in 04:58:00 (about 5:45 total) for a 20.5 average, cutting over 30 minutes off of last year!!!! [What a difference ~12 degrees of temperature makes!!!]
And hit the fire hose less than 5 minutes later...
I enjoyed the trip together as the RBENT group, and regret not being able to hear stories from several others we didn't see afterwards -- post 'em!!!
The rest of my pics are at
http://s53.photobucket.com/albums/g73/flyinglazboy/HHH%202007/