One week after doing my first century of the year, I did my first 200k brevet. It was the Rio Vista Rumble permanent brevet route. 17 Lone Star Randonneur members left out of Lynn Creek Marina at Joe Pool Lake at 6:30 am this morning, heading southwest through Alvarado and Rio Vista, then looping back east, but more to the south, through Blum for a return ride through Itasca, Maypearl, and Midlothian.  
 
The south wind was howling early, but the clouds with it were certainly welcome. That wind was brutal on the first part of this ride. I managed to stay with the main group all the way to the first control stop in Blum at mile 59. With that first control so far away, we also made an unscheduled stop at a store in Alvarado at mile 30. On the rolling hills coming back from Blum, I was dropped fairly quickly, as were a number of others, and I joined and split with a number of riders all the way to the last control at mile 95 at Maypearl. Ophan Hill, just east of Itasca, especially seemed to spread the group out a lot, and I was very slow getting up this hill. I kept catching individual riders on the downhills after it.
 
I left the last control with the main group, but as fried as I already was, and with the hills I knew were coming, I had no intention of staying with the group, instead getting up close and personal with my cue sheet, and riding at a comfortable pace, by myself the rest of the way. 1 mile north of Maypearl, we turned onto Old Buena Vista Road. I don't know how many of you have ridden the hill on this road, but it can be a pretty tough hill when it's 100 degrees, and you've ridden 100 miles already. I was at 4 and 5 mph for a good stretch of it, but I didn't stop.
 
The ride finishes up blasting down the big hill on Lake Ridge Parkway from Cedar Hill. I flew down this road so fast I ended up finishing just 7 minutes behind the group. I finished in 9 hours and 25 minutes. Total miles were 127.0, total climbing was 4500 feet. My on-the-bike average was 15.5 mph. 9 hours and 25 minutes isn't exactly a blazing time for a 200k brevet, but it's faster than I thought I'd be able to do the ride today, and I had no health or mechanical issues, so I was pleased with the ride.

Bud, that's a ride to be proud of...  Amazing...  
 
PB

Quote from aikigreg on Jun 7^th, 2008, 11:15pm:

 
These brevets can be started late. Dan wondered if he should leave a card for you.
 
As for my slow, one thing about these aerodynamic bikes we ride is that you can do pretty respectable speed on flats with a relatively puny watt output. The big difference shows up on hills, and there is a BIG difference in my speed on hills from this year to last. Comparing heart rate average with speed average it produces shows a big difference this year, too. And, I did do this same ride in 8:06 last year. I have some limitations now that I didn't have then.
 
All that said, I'm pretty happy that I was able to do a 127 mile ride at all. There's a whole lot of 57 year old folks who can't! And I'm still making gains; I was plainly stronger than last week. That has to be good.

Bud ,"good job"!!!!

Congrats, Bud!!That sounds like one heck of an accomplishment for anyone. Yo tha man .