It was an excellent Sunday morning/afternoon/pretty-much-all-day ride... we (Pete, Jeremy, and I) left the shop just a few minutes after 9.
When we got out to Benbrook, we decided to take advantage of it being one of the last days cyclists can ride around Benbrook Reservoir without paying a $1 "toll." It was a bit breezy, but not as bad as last Sunday. Temperatures were just about perfect, and though the skies looked ominous all day, no rain fell.
As we got further west and the roads got hillier, I started to feel a little bit like Jan Ullrich. You know... German, about 20 pounds overweight, 3 months behind in training, and helplessly watching my friends ride away from me on the hills and not looking like they were working very hard to do it. Luckily, like Jan, I know how to catch up on the downhills/flats. Overall it was a great ride, though. We walked our bikes through an old stone tunnel, found that crazy hill again, and generally had a good time.
As we came back into Fort Worth via the Trinity Trails, Jeremy and Pete peeled off; I'm guessing they got home with about 135km under their belts. I continued north on the trail to the Stockyards, then rode bicycle route #41 south on Samuels back to downtown. There's a great historic neighborhood (I've heard that Sam Houston stayed there the night before a gubernatorial debate) there that looks like it's about to be bulldozed, so that made me a little sad.
I didn't carry a camera, but maybe next time I'll get some pictures. When I got home, I'd ridden 154.24 km. Not bad, especially considering it was only my second ride over 20 miles this year...
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I got home with 85.32 miles on, we did that in 5:19 of riding time and just over 6 hours clock time. Averaged 16.0 MPH, which kind of surprised me- I thought we were doing much less than that.
Garmin says The Hill gets up to 27% in spots, and is well over 20% the whole way up. It definitely qualifies as a Real Hill, even to me :-) Honestly I was pretty surprised that I could get up it in 39/21, but if that thing is ever on a competitive route, I will definitely have more than the 23 on the back end.
Don't know if you figured it out, but I bonked pretty hard right about the time we got back to the trailhead in Benbrook. It was *all* I could do to hold 20 MPH on the flats with the wind at my back. Next time, more food and less coffee.
All in all a most enjoyable ride!
-Pete
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