Two weekends ago, Daniel and I rode in our second century ride. It was 100 miles in Wichita Falls for the infamous Hotter n' Hell Hundred. I was certainly more nervous about this century ride than I was before Tahoe. Sure, Tahoe had the elevation as a challenge, but something about the fact that the ride is called Hotter n' Hell just made me a little nervous. I wasn't really in the mood for heat stroke but I bucked up and decided to do the ride anyways.
We got lucky. It was 67 degrees that morning when we geared up and made our way to the start line. In fact it remained quite cool for most of the morning. As we approached mile 80 it started to get a bit hot and reached about 95 degrees. But, we only had 20 miles left at that point.
The obstacles that I did not expect were the challenges that we ended up facing. Those challenges came in the form of oblivious riders who caused many, many crashes. It was actually more scary than the heat. I have never seen so many ambulances at a bike rally. People were crashing left and right. I'd pass a crash on the right and 2 miles down the road, there would be a guy on the left with his eye cut open and EMTs all around. It was quite insane. This ride is one of the largest rallies in the country, with 14,00+ riders at the event this year. I think it is so highly publicized that a lot of individuals who were not truly prepared for such a ride decided to join the masses anyway. A lot of folks were riding with earphones in the ears, which I imagine is what caused many of the wrecks. We were amazed at the number of riders who seemed oblivious to the idea that cycling with headphones on is dangerous, especially when you have 14,000 other rides on the course.
Our ride went well and we got out of there unscathed. Our time on the bike was 6 hours, which was just about an hour less than the Tahoe ride. Will we do it again next year? Probably on our single speeds. After all, it was Flatter n' Hell.
Way to go!
ReplyDelete