Each LSR Randonneur event I participate in presents new opportunities and challenges and this Fleche ride is a perfect example. George Evans went into more detail about the concept of the Fleche' rides on his log and gave a very good detailed recount of the roads we traveled, the towns we visited, and some of the challenges we face as a group. What makes this ride so challenging is that not only do we have to cover the minimum 360K over a 24 hour period, we have to do so in such a way that we cannot spend more than 2 hours at any stop under any circumstances and that a minimum of 3 riders have to complete the course in a group. As George pointed out, the 3 other LSR Fleche teams did their 360K ride in a loop while we did ours as a point to point ride from Shreveport, La to Grand Prairie, TX. Although I am still feeling a little "loopy" after going over 30 hours without any extended sleep for all of Friday until about 10 pm Saturday, I finished the ride in pretty good shape. I still cannot believe I managed to get up this morning to lead the M&M/8 am ride this morning and out of desperation to stay in a draft, managed to hang on to a group that went pretty fast. Here are some of the highlights and challenges from my personal perspective.

 

The highlights.

 

1. Riding with 3 great companions including George Evans (the team captain), Century Sharon Stevens (I give her full credit for getting me interested in randonneuring), and Ryan Lange (I suspect that he will be on many Randonneuring hall of fame lists by the time he is done). They provided lots of good conversation, cheerleading, and companionship throughout the ride.

 

2. The great roads we used throughout the entire ride with the exception of a couple of short stints on US highways, we used secondary farm to market roads the entire ride! Traffic was extremely light to non existent for all but the last few miles of the ride. I thoroughly enjoyed the stint down US 80 outside of Mineola where George Evans and I each took the middle each lane (this is a divided highway so each lane we were in go in the same direction) and shot the bull like we were on a bike trail. Throughout most of the ride, we all rode in the middle of the lanes without fear of getting hit.

 

3. The beautiful scenery from the beginning of the ride to after we crossed the Lake of the Pines dam. I especially enjoyed seeing the tall pines, the bald cypresses on the bottom lands and swamps around Karnak and Jefferson, the newly budding hardwoods, and the wildflowers in the fields. We also enjoyed seeing all the restored old homes and shops as we rode through Jefferson. One thing of note; I don't know if it is my perception or what but in the 45 minutes we sat for dinner in Jefferson, I must have counted 6 trains passing through downtown which is pretty unusual for a town this small and far away from a main switching yard. Naturally, I made a comment about this to Sharon. Sharon and I then decided that the Union Pacific got wind of my railroad crossing caper last week and decided to test my new "stay stopped at at railroad crossings with gates down" policy. The railroad made one serious mistake in their test procedures. They kept their trains moving. To truly test my new policy, they must approach the railroad crossing, get the train just close enough to trigger the lights and gates and stop the train for about 2-3 minutes (long enough to safely get 4-5 cyclists through the crossing) and then proceed!

 

4. Despite the distance, hills, cold, and fatigue, I felt pretty strong throughout the ride. In fact, for most of the ride, I rode well out in front of the group and then slowed down to let everyone catch back up. This strategy worked very well because it gives me an opportunity to get 5-10 minute rolling rest stops which really helps when we hit the hills.

 

5. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the country side gradually light up at dawn on Saturday morning. Although we were out of the piney woods and well into the relatively treeless Blacklands between Canton and Kaufman, the scenery was very pretty with the freshly greened grass on the hills and extensive fields of bluebonnets and other wild flowers adding colors to the countryside.

 

6. Although there was an awful lot of barking along the way, the loose doggies were actually pretty rare if not non existent. We did encounter a few but those gave us very few problems.

 

7. We gained a lot of admiration from the locals along the way. The people singing our praises included 2 policemen in Mineola, the convenience store operator in Canton who got our autographs and had her picture taken with us, and 3 locals in the store we stopped at in Ola,! Those were only the ones I can specifically single out!

 

8. This ride is my first "Double Century" and represents another thing I can brag about to my friends and family. I can actually ride a bicycle from Louisiana to Dallas in one day essentially non stop and there were people who went with me who can verify this. My next goal is riding a bicycle from Houston to Dallas in one ride in one day. I rode from Houston to Dallas before but it was broken up into 3 days as part of the CycleUSA for Autism event 6 years ago.

 

The challenges;

 

1. Cumulative sleep deprivation that may take 2 days to completely recover from. I wound up taking 2 20 minute power naps which really helped me complete the ride in good shape. I never felt really sleepy although I was getting pretty disoriented when we got into Mineola. I some how managed to fall sound asleep in the post office in Mineola, enough so that I was even dreaming. As sound asleep as I was, I can't figure out how I managed to wake up on command from George but I did!

 

2. The record cold temperatures. This ride was as a whole alot colder than the Weatherford 300K Brevet I did in February. What I really had to guard against was overdressing since I tend to overheat when working hard. The cold was really apparent when we were standing still or leaving a rest stop. It was not nearly as bad when we were moving.

 

3. Hills, Hills, and more hills, especially in the middle 100 miles between the state line and Mineola although we did get a short reprieve around Lake of the Pines. My getting out in front and taking the rolling rest stops plus my doing the Windhaven loops earlier this week seemed to help alot. The trip between Mineola and Canton and points west was mostly a climb but not nearly as bad. Overall, we had 11,000 feet of climbing.

 

4. Staying hydrated and keeping up with my nutrition. I managed to eat 10 power bars, 2 pieces of home made fudge cake, 1 big hamburger, 1 breakfast burrito, and a small apple pie as well as going through 2 water bottles plus 4 V8's, 2 chocolate milks, and 2 20 oz green teas throughout the ride and I managed to LOSE 1 pound after the ride.

 

I am sure there is more to the story but one reaches the point where this becomes overkill. Now for the time stats on the ride.

 

Over all time: 25 hours including the trip to Wally World and the 15 mile ride from George's relatives to Greenwood with an 18 hours and 17.6 hours on the bike.