Yesterday, in Aledo, Texas, I did my first bike rally of the year and my 447th overall. At this time of year in North Texas, you never know what sort of weather you're going to get. It could be summery or wintry, or anything in between. Yesterday, alas, it was wintry. My friend Phil and I planned to do the 66-mile course, as we did a year ago. The night before, when we saw the forecast, we decided that 40 miles might be the better part of valor. As it turned out, we did 20 miles. Or rather, we tried to do 20 miles.
Let me explain. The rally's website said that the actual mileage of the 20-mile course was 22.5. As I sat in my car with the heater on at the start, trying to stay warm, I decided to ride only 22.5 miles. It would still count as a rally in my log book, and I wouldn't freeze to death. The temperature was in the 30s and the wind was blowing at gale force out of the west-northwest. The sky was overcast. The overnight forecast was for snow flurries! My bike blew over twice as it was leaning against my car. The plastic stem cap of my rear wheel blew away immediately when I set it down while inflating the tire.
I got to the start with a few dozen other hardy cyclists at 7:58, two minutes before the start. Phil was nowhere to be seen. "Good for him," I thought. Ordinarily, I would tease a friend mercilessly for wimping out, but in this case I thought Phil had been sensible. Within four miles of the start, my feet were frozen. I seriously thought I was going to get frostbite. The first half of the course was into the wind, which was biting cold. I counted the miles, knowing that when I reached 10 or 11, I would be home free. I stopped at a rest stop at 15 miles, where I ate a cookie and used the porta-potty. A sign said "6.9 miles to go."
"Piece o' cake," I thought. But then the rally took a Kafkaesque turn. I rode through the intersection where my friends and I got off course a year ago. (We ended up with 70 miles instead of 66.) There was a police officer standing there. I asked, as I went past, whether he was sure we were to go straight. He said yes. I told the riders around me that I was suspicious; but a few miles up the road, there was an arrow directing riders to turn left. I was relieved, thinking that the course had changed from a year ago and that we were on course. I was wrong. We had skipped from the 20-mile course to the 66-mile course. On and on I went, through ritzy neighborhoods. Up and down, back and forth, sometimes with a headwind and sometimes with a tailwind. When I saw "25" on my odometer, I knew that something was wrong, because Aledo High School was nowhere in sight.
Finally, as the course appeared to be taking me back out into the countryside, I rode back. I found three or four riders talking to a motorcyclist and a sag driver. Although the motorcyclist and the sag driver were working the rally, they had no idea where the high school was. The motorcyclist called someone on his cellphone. He told us that the high school was five to 10 miles behind us. We had gone far out of our way.
I was livid. I'm afraid I said many bad words to the man who accompanied me. I apologized for my harsh language. He said he didn't mind. He was as upset as I was. At least we had a tailwind for the first few miles of the return trip. During this time, I managed to get my average speed to a respectable level.
Eventually, we turned north, into the wind. It was almost absurd how slowly we were going. We rode through downtown Aledo (such as it is) and, a mile or so later, reached the high school. Thank God! I ended up with 33.7 miles for the day. Ironically, the 40-mile course was actually 37.8 miles; so I may as well have done the 40-mile course!
It gets weirder. After going into the cafeteria for food, I walked my bike back to my car, trying to keep it upright in the wind. Just as I reached my car, someone pulled up in an SUV. It was Phil! He came to the rally after all! And to make it even crazier, he got off course just as I did and ended up with 33 or 34 miles. We did the same course but never saw each other! As we sat reconstructing the rally in a nearby Taco Bell, we concluded that we started only a minute apart; but that was enough to keep us separated for over two hours. I still can't believe our bad luck. Misery, as you know, loves company. Phil and I could have commiserated, right down to getting lost together rather than separately.
My feet never warmed up. The most I can say is that eventually I stopped fearing frostbite. Nothing else on my body got cold. I wonder whether anyone rode 100 miles. I can't imagine being out for five or six hours in that howling wind. My average speed for the day was only 14.2 miles per hour. That ranks 446th of 447 rallies. I saw "5.9" on my speedometer while climbing a hill into the wind. There were long stretches where I was going only 10 miles per hour. I did hit 33.8 miles per hour on one of the descents, which was fun. According to the weather page I use, the official high temperature yesterday in Fort Worth was 54º. The average wind speed for the day was 19.9 miles per hour and the maximum wind speed 35. Give me some warmth! I'm tired of riding in wintry conditions. (Come August, you'll hear me whine in the opposite direction.)
Addendum: Phil pointed out to me, correctly, that a cellphone would have connected us at the start. It'll take a hell of a lot more than that to make me submit to being leashed!
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 