Tour de French Fry

(I've recently theorized that French fries might be a good post-hard-workout food - carbohydrates and potassium from the potatoes, sodium from the salt, and they taste good. Okay, so there might be a trans fat issue somewhere in there, but nothing's perfect ...)

The 2007 Tour de France started yesterday. And while my interest in that event has increased due to the amount of cycling I'm doing - I can much better appreciate the pain, effort, and achievement that goes into this 3,500+ km race - I still take even greater interest in the biking that my teammates and I get to do ourselves.

This morning Don and I drove up to the Denton Water Works parking lot and met Jarrod and Matt at 8:00 AM (well, 8:10 because we were late due to gassing up the car!) to do the (approximately) 30-mile Team-In-Training loop. It was a nice route on mostly country roads with little traffic on a Sunday morning. There was one stretch on the I-35 service road that was quite rough with a lot of patches, but I think we can avoid that whip next time by taking some alternate roads that parallel the highway. There was also a pretty steep hill at mile 12, but it passed by fairly quickly, and hills are part of the training!

Anyway, with the late start and a few stops, we finished up the first lap almost 2 1/2 hours later at 10:50 AM. It was Matt's first time on a road bike but he performed admirably and finished the entire 28.6 mile lap on the old Centurion (yep, "Old Bessie" has been passed on to its next rider). Great job! I guess those spinning classes at the gym helped him out. Jarrod had to meet his wife a little after 11:00 so he had to call with quits with Matt; so it was just me and Don for the second go-round.

Unfortunately, as the time neared and passed noon, the Texas sun finally showed its force; the temperature today hit 95 or so. Although our overall pace was pretty good for the second 30 miles, we still had to hit the convenience store "rest stops" and at the second stop at Lake Ray Roberts's "The Dam Store" (so named because it is on the Lake Ray Roberts dam :-), Don had to call it a day.

So I rode the last 8.6 miles by myself back to the parking lot to get our "SAG wagon". This part of ride wasn't too bad - a few rolling hills, but nothing horribly steep - and the road was fairly smooth. However, the skies were definitely darkening. About 5.5 miles from the car and "salvation", I felt the first sprinkles of rain drops. At 4.5 miles from finish, the air became completely grey and I was PELTED by hard rain with wind and very low visibility!

It didn't matter if I rode slowly or quickly, it was just as bad, so I tried to keep up a good speed and hoped that it would let up soon. Luckily, there was no lightning and it eased up after about 4 or 5 minutes (and thankfully, my bike computer and cell phone still functioned despite the water), but I was completely drenched and my shoes were heavy and squishy.

The rain eventually became intermittent droplets and then the sun grew sunny. By the time I got back to the car, all traces of the storm were gone, save for my wet cycling jersey and shoes. Per my (still functioning) bike computer, I did the final 8.6 miles in 31 minutes - I was quite happy to have been able to keep a 17+ mph pace after 49 miles of biking and some nasty weather. The total ride was 57.2 miles in about 5 hours (with all the stops). Not the fastest time, but a good warm-up to Saturday's 100K Peach Pedal.

Anyway, after driving back to The Dam Store, Don and I were both so hungry that we decided to get "The Dam Lunch Special". Jarrod had mentioned earlier (when we stopped there for the first lap) that it was a tasty treat, and he was right. A very delicious burger, refreshing drinks, and (you guessed it), crispy French fries.