In the Hills of East Texas

Did the Tour de FireAnt in Marshall, Texas yesterday, covering the 62 miles in 3:04 for a 20.2 mph average. Not all that fast but there's a number of false flats out there that'll slow you down as well as a new twist in how they started the tour. All the cyclists were part of the morning parade thru downtown! Took us about 10 minutes to cover 1/2 mile over those slick brick streets in downtown Marshall...trying not to fall over on anyone since we were going so slow behind the motorcycle cops and the lead truck. I think I got plenty of track stand practice! That pretty much killed anyone's overall average if they included it as part of their overall ride. We had a marching band behind us and floats and stuff like that. It was a neat idea but I hope they don't make the riders do that again next year. It was kinda scary in some spots since I didn't know the skill levels of most of the riders around me...I kept waiting for someone to fall over on me! There was a big turnout this year, probably around 150+ bike riders which is not bad at all for this tour. I've been there when we've had 50-60 max. I think the organizers are really trying to grow it now instead of letting it float along like it had been all these years.

My ride was good overall considering how much I've been on the saddle the last week. My back was fine (still felt a few twinges sometimes) and I was as prepped as I was going to be. There were about 25-30 folks from the Shreveport area including 12 or so of Team LaS'port. Once we got out of town we formed a front group but kept it civil at 20 mph for a couple of miles. But it didn't take long after that to pick up the speed and we were down to a 20-man grouppo going 26 mph thru some of the low rollers southeast of Marshall. About 22 miles in, David P took off on a nice hill after we had passed a combine on the road and I couldn't respond to the jump and fell off the lead group that now had 8-9 riders left. They disappeared and I joined in with Joe, Jon, and Frank. Eventually we had three other riders join us which helped a lot in keeping a nice paceline going. About 40 miles in we lost Jon and one of the other riders so it was just five of us going at a fairly fast pace. The big challenge was going up FireAnt Hill which has a 7-8% grade for 1/2 mile (which is a long way up for most of us in Louisiana!) but we crested that well enough though it did take some real effort to climb.

Eventually, Joe, Frank, and I dropped our other ride companions as we headed into the last five miles of the tour. Frank was plenty exhausted but Joe and I weren't going to leave him at this point. It wasn't a race so we weren't going to knock ourselves out to get to the finish line! Then about two miles from the end I heard Frank crash behind me...Joe turned around to look at me and I said "He didn't hit me." So we turned, seeing Frank on the ground in pain...it didn't look good initially. He had some nice road rash on his right arm but he had landed on his left hip...had hit a piece of wood that slid his front wheel out from under him. I remembered seeing the wood on my right as I passed by it but I thought Frank was on my left. Apparently he had swung over to the right without me knowing and went directly into that chuck of wood. We got him up and he insisted on riding in....his bike was okay (thank goodness!). I said let's get going then, because his hip was going to stiffen soon and it was better to ride while it was still loose. It was only two miles and we stayed with him all the way to the finish. We let him finish ahead of us and he headed home soon after.

Jonnene did the 45-mile route, getting a trophy for being the first finisher in her age group, covering the distance in about 2:20. We ate the pizza provided and hung out with the Shreveport crowd for a couple of hours afterward. I won a door prize of energy gel packets (although I really wanted to win the bike that was being offered!).

One of my oldest buddies, Dale, was in town for the weekend and wanted to talk to me about doing a cover for his second book. He also wanted to see the house. He and his wife live in Birmingham, Alabama and hadn't been by this way yet this year. We had visited them last year for the ULM-Alabama game and we also got together for his mom's funereal a couple of months ago (see earlier posts).

Action from the ULM (white unis) vs. Arkansas State game.

Last night I was in front of the flat-screen watching the ULM-Arkansas State game (won by ASU 37-29...we had three turnovers that killed us) and sometimes switching to the LSU-Florida game which Florida won 51-21 (and tickled me since I don't really like LSU).