October 4th and 5th was the Louisiana MS 150 – a thousand-rider-strong bike ride for Multiple Sclerosis. Every cyclist raised at least $250, and many raised much more than that.
Prologue (up to Friday):
We (Bea and I) didn’t actually do a whole lot of training. Unless injured, I ride every day – and yes, it is only a few miles in general. Bea? not so much. Bea rode an on-loan Zonal Scattante which had dumped her twice already and dumped its actual owner in a violent enough manner to require that her jaw be wired shut.
So there’s that.
Friday night found us at Scott and Beth’s house (our team captains), enjoying a glass or two of wine, inhaling some wonderful Eggplant Parmesan, and roughly fitting our newest member Brent (he joined up at our Mahony’s Fundraiser) to the bike he’d be riding – my KHS Flite 500 road bike named ‘Blanche’. While he bought his own gloves and shorts, everything else was on load. Helmet and shoes from Scott, pedals from Jason, bike from me. We gave him a quick run-down on shifting and how to clip in/out of the pedals, and I gave his what may have been a damning warning: everyone falls on their bike when they first use clipless pedals. I’ve done it, numerous riders before have done it, and even more will do it after me. It’s just how things go. We broke up relatively early as we all had to get up quite early, and I believe we all had yet to actually pack. I don’t think sleep came until midnight or so.
I chose to ride Molly (with green monkey Julius), my single-speed track bike instead of my road bike. I know that the gears would have been nice, but I just feel more comfortable on the track bike, and there’s something to be said for that.
Stage 1 (Saturday):
00:dark-thirty came entirely too soon, as it usually does and with it came all the sorts of last-minute packing and preparation that we all know. We each ticked through our mental checklists a number of times, and I’m glad to say that the only I forgot was chapstick. I think that Bea got everything.
We met up with the rest of our team at a gas station, right on schedule. After a quick and error-free caravan (aren’t those the best?), we arrived at SLU in Hammond – the start and finish point of our ride. I donned my kilt (a portable and stylish changing room), and made the final preparations – number pinning, bike check, iPod setup, final clothes change, and luggage drop-off. We didn’t want to start at the very front with the super-serious people, so we lagged back and took out time starting out.
Our team eventually found our own tempos and broke up. As promised, I for the most part stayed with Bea, trying to give her advice and/or pull for her as much as possible, without sounding condescending. The hills were fun (both ascending and descending), the rest stops were placed at decent intervals, and the next thing we knew, we were at the lunch stop.
Lunch was roughly the same both days: ham or turkey sandwiches, pasta salad, rest stop food (cookies, bananas, oranges, granola bars, etc.), cokes/gatorade/energy drinks, and the soggiest, gooiest, most delicious PB&Js I think I have ever had the pleasure of consuming. This was also the point in my weekend that things were the oddest. While walking back to get something (more food, most likely), I got rickrolled. In the middle of Louisiana/Mississippi. I could not believe it, and Never Gonna Give You Up was stuck in my head until we hopped back on the road again and made our way to the destination for that day, Percy Quin State Park.
We continued along at about the same clip we had all morning, stopping at all the rest stops but the last, for that all-important refilling of the waterbottles, a quick snack, and the application of Florida Water-soaked paper towels to the backs of our necks. The last mile or so was in the deliciously cool and shady Percy Quin, where we climbed up a hill to the endpoint and were greeted by a man on a mic, plethora of riders and supporters, and perhaps the most important thing of all: beer.
The announcer, amongst others, had noticed that I rode on a single speed, and proceeded to either ask me about it or mere look/point and talk from a safe distance. At that point, I had a few critical items on my agenda (in no particular order):
- swap out the lycra cycling shorts for my kilt
- beer
- food
- beer
We made it to our cabin (our ever-resourceful leader Scott had fenagled that one somehow), showered, changed, and headed back out for dinner and drinks. Needless to say, we called it an early night and once in our cabin our moods mysteriously and quickly devolved into some sort of ridiculous middle-school style gigglefest. Deep sleep followed the theatrics, and was a welcome segway to day two.
Stage 2 (Sunday):
Everyone was in surprisingly good spirits Sunday morning – not a whole lot of complaints of soreness, which is always a good thing. While the ride back was similar to the ride up, it did take a different route. Somewhere after lunch (I think) Bea and I hit the first of three snags, all rooted in the same problem: a rear tire pinch-flat. It wasn’t caused by glass/nail/etc, but by a light shift of a protective piece of tape that lines the rim of the wheel. On the third occasion, we had run out of spare tubes, and considering that the next stop was almost literally a mile away, Bea flagged down and hopped into the SAG wagon (Support And Gear) and had her wheel attended to.
This would luckily be the only failure, mechanical or physical, that the two of us would encounter for the entire duration of the ride. I will certainly take that any day. Our teammate Brent however, would suffer a bit more of an embarrassing fate. I had warned him about the distinctly possible and almost inevitable fate of hist first jaunt with clipless pedals: he would fall while clipped in. And it would almost certainly be at a slow speed.
Well, I was right. After we finished the ride and had again traded lycra for kilt, we ran into a group of people we know through rollerderby – the Krewe of Rolling Elvi. Yes, they wore Elvis paraphernalia. One of the group, the only fellow single-speed rider and husband of RollerGirl ‘duMaine Attraction‘, told Bea and I how a guy had fallen on him at a traffic crossing (they had to stop). He had ice strapped to his knee at that point, and everything with it would luckily turn out just fine. When we caught up with our team and Brent embarrassed, said that he had fallen on another rider, I immediately knew who it was and proceeded to laugh. Hard.
Well, after inhaling food and Abita, we signed up for next years ride and proceeded to drive home.
Here is our route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2100034
I look forward to this challenge again next year, and wish to thank everyone who sponsored both Bea and I, our team, and the MS Society in general. So thank you very much, and I hope you will help out again in 2009.
– Will, Team Broken Racket
Team Broken Racket: |
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Jason: |
Brent: |
Bea: |
Beth: |
Scott: |
Yours Truly: |
And finally, the burn/tan line: |
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