MS-150 Chronicles 2010 - Part 2

Part 2, Saturday.

THE START

So after fighting through the traffic mess leading up to the start of the Ride, my lovely wife Sharon dropped me off a quarter mile from the start, and I made it to the starting gate incident free, with the exception of the excruciating rendition of our National Anthem I mentioned previously. Within minutes of getting there, the Teams were already starting to take off North on Eldridge, with thousands of Riders snaking their way in a generally northwesterly direction, strung out ahead of and behind me for as far as I could see. The ground was damp, and we soon came on our first accident, a female rider flat on her back, but not apparently much the worse for wear. We drove past this scene two more times in the first hour, but to all appearances the injuries were minor, or so we all hoped. Strange to think that falling off your bike could be less painful than riding the entire 175 miles over two days, but small consolation to the Riders who went over their handlebars.

As usual, the Ride Marshalls were everywhere, motivating people to stay in their lanes of traffic, ride safe, and rendering aid to dozens of Riders in the first several miles. The Ride Marshalls are an interesting combination of Cyclist, Cop, Cheerleader, Mentor and EMT, and there is no way an event of this magnitude keeps from coming unraveled without their constant attention. They were relentlessly cheerful, but they could bite when they needed to, such as the time I ventured into the opposite lane of traffic to pass a gaggle of four-abreast socializers. To paraphrase, they are the Sticky Goo that holds everything together.

The first 35 miles were otherwise uneventful, then about ten miles before the Bellville lunch stop, I saw a truly strange and wonderful sight: A 1977 two-tone Ford F-150 Pickup towing an exact duplicate 1977 two-tone Ford F-150 Pickup. They're even the same color combination: brown and white, their paint jobs are equally faded, with exactly the same amount of dirt on both. Now what - I'm thinking to myself - could cause a person in this day and age to own two 23 year old pickups of exactly the same type? Did this guy not get the memo about the Cash For Clunkers program? Was this Citizen thumbing his nose at his generous government's offer to simultaneously improve the environment, fuel economy and the Flyness of his Ride?

I'm thinking with that gun rack, he's probably a Tea Partier, and his name surely must go on a list. Not saying that he'll be harassed, mind you. Let's just say that he might get some extra attention come tax time, or at the 10,000 security checkpoints our government has established throughout the land to guard against people who "get bitter, cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations".

Or so sayeth the 44th president of the land.

On the other hand, if one assumes that the working 74 Ford F-150 got 17 miles per gallon by it's ownself, and, say, 14 miles per gallon towing its twin, then those two vehicles collectively were getting 28 miles per gallon. And per capita fuel economy is off the charts if both trucks are occupied, with a maximum safe occupancy of 11 people per vehicle, plus dogs, which gives him a better fuel-to-passenger ratio than Houston Metro by a factor of about ten to one, and all without a dime of taxpayer subsidy.

Anyway, this guy is my hero. May his trucks last another 50 years each.

With this little meditation completed, we're just shy of Bellville at this point, and your correspondent pushes it up to 22 mph in the hopes of getting to lunch that much sooner. Within minutes, I ride up on the "FMC Twins", two Hotties on the FMC team riding side by side, with exactly the same body shape (pleasing), matching jerseys, bike shorts, helmets and socks, their long red hair streaming in the wind. Were they actually twins? Sorry to say that safety prevented any closer examination, much less conversation, and within minutes, thousands of hungry riders were turning into the campground.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON:

Lunch in Bellville is uneventful. I meet up with Shawn again, but we lose each other along the way. Continental has these wonderful tortilla wraps for lunch, along with sundry other goodies. Let's just say that airline passengers don't eat this good. I hit the road after lunch, refreshed and searching for the elusive Bluebonnet, which has been scarce at best for the first 50 miles. The rest of the ride into LaGrange is strangely devoid of the State flower, their season having apparently peaked the week before. There is, however, a ton of Indian Paintbrush, the official flower of the Kinky Freidman For Governor campaign. I wonder if this is auspicious?

That reminds me that Kinky promised in his last campaign to make Willie Nelson his State Energy Czar, and if memory serves, Willie had advocated Hemp in lieu of Wind turbines to solve our energy problems. Never did understand how one could be the replacement for another, but Hemp sure would be a lot kinder to migratory birds.

I get some starch in my legs, and with a slight tailwind, I'm able to sustain 20 mph for the last 25 miles. I'm finally into LaGrange, those cheering crowds once again bringing a huge smile to my face, and the ubiquitous professional photographers once again clogging the finish line. Two of them are actually sitting in chairs directly in the path of the Riders, and I wonder how much of a piece of this action MS actually gets. Oh well, it wouldn't be the first time Commerce trumped common sense.

Sharon manages to get a snapshot of me at the finish, and I save $51.99 the Brightroom photogs would have charged me for a CD, notwithstanding that they got some fairly cool action shots of me on the Ride, generally with a smile on my face, and looking right sharp in my Continental jersey. I gimp over to the Continental tent, get the bike parked, sign in, and sit down with Sharon, gratefully, with a Shiner Blonde and a ciggy, waiting my turn for a massage. Life is good.

Sharon takes off a couple hour's later, and it's off to the showers. The lines are moving slower than year's past, despite a massive increase in the number of buses that ship Riders offsite to the high school showers across town. I see Shawn pile out of the trailer I'm in line for, and we exchange some pleasantries. He's none the worse for wear despite the hundred miles and some mechanical difficulties. Way to go, Shawn.

Once I get into the trailer, I see the reason for the delays. It seems they've replaced the Locker Room style trailers of old with the kind where each shower stall now has its own little changing room. Unfortunately, this has the effect of increasing the wait-time on each shower from five minutes to ten minutes. WTF is going on? Since when did men need private changing rooms attached to their own personal shower stalls? Since 1998 (my first year on the Ride), it was a simple routine: walk into shower trailer; hang up your crap, strip, get into shower and clean yourself; get out, dry yourself off, put your change of clothes on and make room for the next Rider.

Why the change, I wonder? Nobody seemed to mind the old system, cramped though the changing area was. At least everybody got in and out quickly, which I would think was the objective. Once I get in the shower, however, I catch a clue: the rack hanging off the shower head is loaded with half-empty bottles of Axe Body Wash, moisturizers and conditioners. Now, like it or not, we are all Metrosexuals. Anyway, I finished my Toilet and slogged on back to the Continental tent. When I got there, they had just started the Wine & Cheese party, as well as the drawing for various Continental prizes, and this went on for some time. The prizes included:

- Two standby round trip airfares* good anywhere in the continental United States except during holidays, weekends and other blackout periods as designated by Continental airlines.

- A voucher good for one piece of checked luggage* on any domestic flight with purchase of two non-refundable round trip tickets, a $50 value.

- Free headset, pillow, blanket and unlimited bathroom privileges* on any Continental flight with the purchase of a full price non-refundable airfare.

- Free meal upgrade* from "Sandwichette and crackers" to "Salisbury Steak and Carrots" meal on any flight greater than 2,000 miles.

- "Divorcee's Special" Unaccompanied Minors discount voucher* of $50 per travel segment, with a minimum of two segments. Good for children 12 or younger; booster seat cost not included.

* Certain conditions and restrictions may apply.

Ha, ha, ha. Of course, your correspondent is having a little fun at Continental's expense, probably because he didn't win anything. The prizes were actually much cooler than that, and there were at least 15 of them.

For the first time, I've left my tent at home and opted to sleep under the big tent. Pretty soon, I'm off to my sleeping bag, one of the very few without an air mattress. Strange as it might seem, I like sleeping on the ground. You merely perfect the art of pounding out all of the dirt clogs and other irregularities under your bedroll, and Mother Earth makes an excellent mattress. Since I snore, for the sake of my fellow riders, I've brought my Breathe-Right Nasal Strips, and loan one to the guy on my right. Seems the guy on my left also came prepared, and had earplugs to fend off the noise, the irony of this being that he turned out to be the loudest snorer in the entire tent. It didn't matter. I was so tired, Keith Olbermann couldn't have kept me awake.

It's lights out around 9:00 pm, and just as predicted, the rain starts directly thereafter and keeps it up until around midnight. Nothing more soothing than the sound of rain on a tent. One last thing: over the course of the night, folks would get up - no doubt for bathroom breaks - and walk carefully down the narrow aisles that separated the sleeping bags. When they got close to my spot, I would hear most of them stop, and hear a pronounced "thump". Curious, I waited for the next one, and sure enough, a leg reached out to kick the air mattress of the Chronic Snorer next to me.

Funny.