BillandBob.com

Somewhere along the way, I never got around to finishing up my commentary from Bike Around the Bay, the two-day trip around Galveston Bay. In part 1, I covered the eastern portion of the trip, including my race through downtown Galveston.
Bike Around the Bay – Day 1

I also offered up some commentary about what I saw riding through the Bolivar Peninsula:
Bike Around the Bay: Bolivar Needs a New Fairy

We spent the night “roughing it” at the Moody Gardens Resort (and Conference Center), which was a great way to spend the evening, even if we had to start the ride gawdawful early in the morning. According to the weather forecast on Friday, Sunday’s weather was supposed to be better than Saturday’s. I need to quit using weather.com. Sunday started dark and ominous, with an increased wind out of the north and heavy “mist” off of the bay. Somewhere along the way, I had tricked myself into believing that the ride organizers were going to supply us breakfast at the start line. To quote Doug from Up: “I know a joke…”.

Instead of breakfast, I got a muffin, some overly hot coffee with fake “creamer” and harassment from a Dutch woman. She told me, not asked, “I’m going to draft off of you today.” I usually prefer words like “Hi!” or “How’s it going?” when someone first sits down near me and tries to engage me in conversation when I haven’t had a cup of coffee yet. In her defense, she had made a declarative statement, not asked for permission or even for any hint of interaction from me. She merely told me what she was going to do. This could not have been a worse omen had an albatross fallen from the sky right then.

Eventually, light started to break and we headed towards the Galveston causeway bridge on our bikes. This was a signature part of the ride since the causeway is part of the Interstate system, which means no bicycles. Prior to the crossing, we re-marshaled ourselves in the parking lot at Target/Home Depot to divide into three pace groups. I headed for the middle group and waited for the cops and ride organizers to release us.

“It’s all for a Good Cause(way)”
After some inspiring words from Bill King, the director of the Galveston Bay Foundation, like “wind” and “thanks“, we were truly off for the bridge. I was towards the front of the middle group largely because on the ride over from Moody Gardens, I had been behind a father and son duo where the twelve year old son appeared to be the more mature rider. Neither was anything I wanted to be anywhere near in a pack. “Hey, watch this!” is not something you want to hear with 2,000 cyclists around you and your only bolt-hole is in front of an uncaffeinated redneck fisherman’s front bumper.

So we rode out. The hammerheads went and then the “sport” group took off. While I was towards the front of the middle group, I kept passing people as we headed the couple of miles to the base of the bridge. At one point, I saw a big gap between my group and the next, so I yelled “gapping up” to indicate that I was doing a temporary speed increase, and then I was suddenly on the back end of the hammerheads. Weird.

Since climbing is a function of power-to-weight ratios, I expected to get dropped out of the back of the peloton by every other rider in my class. Apparently this was not to be. In fact, I continued passing people on the way up. Wow, that’s a climb. However, while the view was not great, I always refer to downhills as “the payoff”, and the downhill was a blast! Since PE = MGH, My “M” translates into more V when the PE becomes KE, a fact inconveniently unknown to the Galveston County Sheriff’s Deputy who tried to move a large orange construction barrel right in front of me as I’m headed for a ten foot gap at 30mph. Fortunately, I saw him in time and tapped my brakes a bit to give him time to finish his boneheaded maneuver.

Wind, Wind and More Wind
Off of the causeway, we were headed dead into the wind. I paced a guy for about a mile and suggested that he and I take turns and work together instead of riding side-by-side alone. This worked pretty well into Texas City, where we made a turn, and I saw that we had over 50 people on our tails. I knew we had picked up a number of people along the way, but I had no clue the line had gotten that long!

Being at the head of the paceline, using the term loosely since there were about 48 wheelsuckers back there, had its advantages into rest stop 1 since it meant that I got to the restrooms before everyone else. It also means that I got out of the rest stop before the leeches could latch on. I heard one guy in line behind me start talking about how great that was, but that “we really needed to learn to do an echelon”. No, we really needed to learn to rotate in and take your damn turn. The finer points of positioning can wait until after we master that little skill!

After Rest Stop 1, the next couple of miles were along the Texas City Dike. Unfortunately, I dropped my chain on the climb up the dike, which meant a delay in getting away from the leeches. Shortly after making it onto the dike, I heard words which will scar me forever:

“I make my own energy bars.”

Yes, Dutch woman had caught me, and she was feeling chatty. For the next five miles, while I was killing myself into the wind to drop her, she was chatting along without a single word from me. And then she invited others to join in. From my perspective, if she had enough energy to tell me her entire recipe collection for energy bars, then she can take a pull, and the appropriate answer to “You know, you could help out?” is not, “I’m doing fine!”. Insert choice curse here.

Fortunately, the road turned 90 degrees at the end of the dike, and I could not only drop her, but leave her in the dust. In fact, I even skipped the next rest stop to make sure I put time between me and her. Just short of Rest Stop 3, the skies opened up, and it got cold. Irritatingly so. I threw on my Wind Catcher, I mean, Breaker jacket, and pedaled dejectedly into RS3. At that point, I was tired (30+ miles into a stiff head wind), it was wet, and I wanted out, so I called Bob and made plans to have her pick me up from the lunch spot. Fred Hartmann can wait for another ride.

Bob rescued Bill from the cold and wet

Sadly, Bob and I miscommunicated and I caught on to a fast moving paceline (caught me from behind) only long enough to make it to our rendezvous point, but there was no Bob! Much hilarity ensued, and by hilarity, I mean shivering, but Bob and I finally connected. Rescue complete!

Luggage retrieved and heading for home
We headed for the drag strip where the finish line was, and I had hoped that there would be a portable shower facility there. No such luck! Time to grab my luggage and head for lunch. Even though I didn’t make the full 75 miles on day 2, I had spent a long time pointed into the wind, so I deserved a french fry or two!

We passed cyclists struggling over the Fred Hartman Bridge