mountain biking in the burbs

On Thursday, the early morning, butt crack of dawn, ride hard , ride fast , ladies group didn't get organized to do a ride so I decided to do a bit of a distance training ride in preparation for a ride coming up on the weekend.

The weather was moderate and sunny but there was a pretty stiff wind from the west, north west. The first part of the ride around Smithers Lake went smoothly enough, and I even had my wind sort of at my back. Coming back along the backside of lake into the wind was actually not too bad, as there are a lot of trees and enough curves to break the wind up a bit. I finished with 30 miles and decided to do a longer route home than planned to give myself an extra 15 miles. The first 4 miles I was headed south so the wind was on my right, not a problem. I turned north onto Ricefield road and almost immediatly discovered that it was recentlyy repaved, not with blacktop but with the infamous but ever present in Texas chip seal surface. Chip seal paving consists of pea sized but not pea smooth gravel held in place by a light coating of tar and lightly rolled with a teeny tiny (in this case) little steam roller. In fact when I passed the steam roller about 7 miles into the route from hell and it was barely big enough to hold the guy driving it.

Ricefield Road is so called because it runs through rice fields which are, well, basically flat and treeless. If I had been wise I would have considered the 15mph head wind and the fresh surface an omen, and turned tail and headed back for better surfaces but I didn't. Instead I struggled on, figuring that I could turn off on county line road in about 4 miles. I should have known that it would be freshly paved as well. So I struggled on into the head wind, my back tire skidding on the gravel and the rear of the bike swinging back and forth like a dogs' tail. Every single possible turn off north or south from Ricefield Road, for the whole 12 miles of Ricefield Road, was freshly paved or in the process of being repaved in sections with gouged out black top in between. It was like mountain biking on the level, and because the frame of my bike is pretty stiff, I felt every single piece of gravel I rode over as well as the lack of gravel and gouged out blacktop in between.

When I finally reached the end of Ricefield Road, I stopped to make sure all of my fillings were still in place. I also spent several minutes digging loose gravel out of my sandals, tires, brake pads, and gears. Obviously Ricefield Road is off the tour itinerary for the next few months until they have finished repaving it and there has been enough traffic to sort of squash the gravel down a bit.

Having decided that that was enough fun and frivolity for one day I baled out on the ride, cut it short and headed for home cutting past the coffee shop where I usually stop. After a restorative cup of coffee and a brown sugar scone for the sore teeth, I feel much better, thank you.