[analphilosopher] Keith Burgess-Jackson: Muenster

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Posted by Keith Burgess-Jackson:
Muenster
http://www.analphilosopher.com/posts/1146525801.shtml


   Two days ago, in Muenster, Texas, I did my fourth bike rally of the
   year and 375th overall. I stopped twice along the way. As I stood in
   line for the porta-potty during my first stop, someone pointed out to
   the woman next to me that she had a grease mark on her leg from her
   bikeâs sprocket. She laughed and said, self-deprecatingly, that it was
   her first ârace.â Little did she know that even experienced cyclists
   get these âshark-attack marksâ on their legs. Wouldnât she have been
   aghast to learn that this was my 375th rally? Iâve enjoyed every one
   of them, even those in which the weather was bad.

   Speaking of bad weather, itâs the time of year in North Texas when you
   donât know what youâre going to get from day to day. The forecast all
   week was for storms. But the night before the rally, I watched the
   television news and learned that the storms were supposed to pass over
   the area by the time of the 11:00 start. On the way to Muenster (85.5
   miles from my Fort Worth house), the sky was dark gray, but no rain
   fell. I thought the clouds might blow over before we started. When I
   reached Gainesville, which is 13 miles east of Muenster, I noticed a
   CBS truck in a hotel parking lot. âWhy would CBS be in Gainesville?â I
   wondered. Within a mile I had my answer. Overnight, there were high
   winds (80-100 miles per hour, according to The Dallas Morning News) or
   tornadoes in the area. It looked like a disaster zone. Many trees were
   uprooted and many others stripped of their smaller limbs. Telephone
   poles were down. Several buildings were demolished. Twisted pieces of
   corrugated metal were strewn along the highway. Emergency crews were
   hard at work repairing the damage. I hope nobody, including animals,
   got hurt.

   Just as my friends and I rolled to the starting line in downtown
   Muenster, rain began to fall. The wind (out of the west) was vicious.
   I had the foresight to bring my clear-plastic rain jacket, so I took
   it out of my jersey and put it on. Thank goodness! I sympathized with
   the riders who wore only cotton jerseys. One man had a tank top. Poor
   wretch! As for the wind, it was so strong that it nearly blew me off
   the bike a few times. Iâm dead serious when I say that my bike was
   angled into the wind. More than once, the wind caught my front wheel
   and nearly wrenched the handlebars from my hands. Luckily, I didnât
   crash; nor did I see any crashes. I guess everyone was being
   especially careful.

   About 10 miles into the ride, as we turned into the wind toward
   Rosston and Forestburg, the rain let up and the clouds parted.
   Sunshine! Within minutes I was roasting in my rain jacket. My friends
   caught up to me on the hills. I stopped momentarily to remove the
   jacket, which I stuffed into my jersey pocket. How quickly things can
   change. One minute I was thinking of cutting the ride short; the next
   I was marveling at how much fun I was having. No, the wind didnât let
   up, but you canât have it all, can you?

   Alas, the clouds returned by the halfway point. And eventually I felt
   raindrops again. Or maybe it was drizzle. Whatever you call it, it was
   cold, and it depressed me. When the wind is strong, it feels as though
   it slows you unless itâs directly behind. The only real tailwind we
   had all day was on the stretch from Bulcher (near the Oklahoma border)
   to where the course turned south. I rode most of the way with Joe
   Culotta. Joe is a superb climber, so I invariably got dropped on the
   hills. Usually I was able to catch up, but after Bulcher I stopped
   trying. There comes a point where you need to draw inward and focus on
   your own pedaling. Thinking about someone else is an unwelcome
   distraction. Just as I reached Muenster, having fought a crosswind for
   nine miles, the sun came out. Go figure.

   My average speed for the 59.84-mile course was 15.82 miles per hour.
   This is less than the previous weekâs 16.20 miles per hour, but
   Muenster is much hillier. In fact, itâs the hilliest rally of all, in
   terms of feet climbed per mile. A couple of the hills are brutes. Iâve
   done this course 16 times since 1990, 14 of them in April and two in
   August. I canât believe I averaged 21.2 miles per hour one year. I was
   insane! Actually, I was in good shape and rode much of the way with
   others. The best correlate of speed is time spent drafting. I now do
   most of my riding alone. My maximum heart rate was 161 and I reached a
   top speed of 44.9 miles per hour on the big hill north of Saint Jo.
   (Thatâs right: âJo,â not âJoseph.â) The official high temperature for
   the day at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was 74°
   Fahrenheit, but with the rain and wind we experienced, it was cold.
   All in all, I had a good time, as did my friends. Misery loves
   company.