Camp Day 5 - Not for the meek

Initially planned as 100 miles, then 75 miles, then we started with a plan to decide at the 20 mile point whether to do 50 or 75 miles. Ended up doing 25 miles for multiple reasons. Read on...

Cold and rainy so only the usual suspects showed - Bentley, Cat, Jim, the Turk. Wes, Catie, Nathan, and Brent were expected, but DNS. So, Bentley only had to ride 1 mile to take the camp honors from Wes.





Unbeknownst to Wes (fortunately for Bentley) a beautiful woman saw us and congratulated us on our bravery in the weather conditions. We invited her to ride along and she offered to follow us in her car. Those of you who know Wes know he likes beautiful women so you can imagine when he finds out about this he is gonna be bummed!!!!!





Rolling out Stone Oak Parkway towards 281 the group seemed under control. Bentley maybe struggling a little, but wasn't really raining at the time.





The view thru Jim's glasses showed about how things were looking in the first few miles around 10 am.





When the rain started, Jim checked his computer and turns out the Temperature was 36 degrees!!!!! (Lower right hand corner on the upper computer...)





And the wind was howling out of the north. Hmm, 36 degrees, stiff north wind, rain, riding along at around 12mph. Recipe for disaster?





Bentley punctured and Jim helped change the flat. For some reason Jim's hands were never warm after this?





Back at the shop after 2 hours and 25 miles of riding, no one could feel their hands or feet. Cat and Bentley really seemed to enjoy this.







Bentley cheered up when presented with this years Training Camp Champion booty. The Bicycle-Heaven "Hammer" and a gift certificate for Trilogy Pizza!!






Last year's January training camp, Wes fell to Bentley this year. Who will take camp honors next year? Only time will tell.






Great week for all because of all. Great rides, great fellowship, more riders than last year.


We logged 25.5 hours, riding 400 miles. Totaled 20,000 feet of climbing and rides averaged from 12.3 mph (today in the freezing rain) to 17.7 mph (day 3, with the largest group out east where the terrain is a bit flatter.)


An interesting part of the day was talking with Cat's boyfriend Marc, in Belgium, after the ride. We told him that we were enjoying a "nice Belgian spring day." Turns out the weather in Belgium is about 20 degrees warmer than here right now!!


We saw city, suburbs, ranches and farms. We saw buzzards, cardinals, and a variety of animals. The groups ranged from 4-12 and we had a total of 25 different people show up for rides. Matt upped his yearly ride total to 200 miles, by riding 185 this week. The 2 peoples who coulda/shoulda been here but weren't were Sager and Browntoeni. Jim and Cat rode for the first time together on tandem. We had podiatrists, physical therapists, college students from Minnesota, doctors, nurses, medical device reps, accountants, top fuel drag racers/mechanics, professional triathletes, sound technicians and bike shop owners in the mix at various times during the week. The comraderie was absolutely off the chain.


Thanx to Matt for getting Doug off for a couple of the rides (and doing a couple of the rides hisself.) Thanx to Cat for joining us and letting us show off our roads. She is impressed by us Texan cyclists riding together as a group, and stopping to help each other for flats or other mechanicals. Thanx to the Father for taking us out east day 3.


Right now our friends from Team Solar Eclipse are out in Ft. Davis for a few days of their cycling camp. We miss them and wish them well.


The Turk still blames Sager for the cold and foul weather. We are suspicious of a certain Ultracycling athlete from Sweden, currently living in Washington state, adding a bit to the hex, perhaps.


Thanx for reading. We'll do it again next January either 2nd or 3rd week. Hope to see you out there.


Your Team at Bicycle-Heaven. The place to be.