MS 150 and other stuff

I have been lax in posting as I just haven't felt creative or like writing and then the heat set in. There have been lots of rides and some sailing since the last post.

I was lucky enough to be given a pre-paid spot to ride in the MS 150 and was riding for a large team called The Feisty Devils. I got as close to the start as I could get and rode the 80 or so miles from Frisco to the Texas Motor Speedway. this shows my spot in the mass start

I rode my but off with one very short stop for the rr, when I arrived at the bike lot to walk to the team tents not many people had arrived.

The Feisty Devils had a nice tent with all the food and drink you could ask for. I was looking forward to riding a lap around the Speedway on Sunday but Saturday night they cancelled the Sunday ride due to severe weather. It was a good call as severe weather did come in and the area suffered a lot of damage.

The near empty parking lot with my steed #121







We have also been camping at Bastrop State Park and rode the hilly Park Road One route several times and went on a nice 8.5 mile hike with the dog Sprocket.



Michele and Sprocket ride through the Lost Pines At Bastrop State Park
(sorry for the blurred picture and no brain bucket on Michele)




I have still been doing two club rides a week and felt like I was in a rut so this Saturday Michele and I went to Ray Roberts State Park and rode the Dorba trail and the 20 mile greenbelt trail for a nice change of pace and 40 miles on another 100+ day.

Today we went to the Summer Bash our bike club puts on (http://www.gdbclub.com/ ) and rode our tandem a little over 30 miles and had a great lunch catered by Freebird's.

My friend Bobby took me sailing again and I hooked another nice fish but this one got off as I attempted to lift it over the transom while sailing at 5 knots. This picture was supposed to be a short video but I guess I need to do some work to get that to happen.

Michele and I have also been going to Lambert's Fitness Boot Camp for a six week course and we are both down over 5 pounds and this really concentrates on the body core. Heath is a good friend and the Coach, they can be found on Face book

It appears we are in for a really hot summer as it was over 100 all this week. This will limit the rides and eliminate the camping for now, but we are planning more adventures.

Next time will come sooner

Dennis

Copper Breaks rides

The bicycle rally our local bike club puts on was a success. The Lancaster Country Ride had great weather and about 1200 or so riders, always nice to pull that off.

After we both worked at parking and registration we then rode the rally route on our Tandem and visited the rest stops. We also acted as unofficial sweeps asking any stopped riders if they needed help and encouraging those that were struggling. Some of the porto's were overwhelmed, but you do the best you can, if the weather had been bad like 2 years ago only a few hundred riderw would have showed up

No sailing to report on but planning to correct that little problem soon.

We took a trip to Copper Breaks State Park for a long weekend, we drove through a lot of rain and arrived to find the park only got a little rain so the mountain bike trails and especially the roads were fine.

This park is nice, clean and has a limited number of campsites, it only

has 24 sites for R V hookups. This weekend was quiet and we hiked and biked a lot. The rain had brought this arid country to life although the lakes are very low, they need rain.

In this case I made it a point to stop and let the traffic slither on by, this rattlesnake was only about a foot long but thats enough to make for a really bad day.

The trails range from nice easy doubletrack to the rocky ledges trail which I didn't even try to ride we hiked it and either climbed or slid down the ledges.

We plan on riding the Germanfest Metric Century in Muenster next Saturday on the tandem.

Finally sailing

My good friend Bobby and I finally got to get out on his boat. We had a great day with clear sky and good wind, Bobby and I have sailed together for years cruising and racing.Bobby
We even dusted off the spinnaker and took off on a couple of long reaches, perfect.

I almost always carry a fishing pole when near the water and in my ditty bag I carry a piece of PVC pipe and a couple of short lines to set up a rod holder for trolling, it was a good day to fish too.

Leading the peloton

The bicycle rides have been hard to get in but we had a good 67 mile ride with the club last Saturday, we broke out the tandem and had a fast hard ride. We rode part of the Bluebonnet trail and the flowers were starting to look good. This is part of the ride our bicycle club puts on each year called The Lancaster Country Ride.

Tonight is the clubs fast ride, last week it was 34 miles at a 20.7 true average, I haven't been on the bike since then and I hope I can still hang in towards the front. It gets harder to stay in decent shape every year.

I just returned yesterday from an overnight backpacking trip on the Cross Timbers Trail where I camped at the 5 mile trail campsite, great time but my legs are pretty sore.

Dennis

Its been all about the bike

I have not had a chance to go sailing for a while now but since our trip to Palo Duro Canyon I have been on some great bicycle rides. On Thursday I met Heath and Jeannie for an afternoon ride on a sunny and very windy day. We rode 55 miles with about a 17.5 average, which was really hard with wind gusts up to 30 mph and sustained winds over 20. The picture below is after the ride, I'm on the right.

On Saturday I rode the GDB Airport ride and got in 59 miles on another windy day, I rode the entire ride with the fast group but I did get dropped on the last few miles around the airport. The 20 mile loop around the airport is where it is a free for all and you usually catch all the lights green so it is fast and hard. This day we formed a rotating pace line at about 26 and I stayed in it as long as I could. our group of 20 + slowly got smaller and there were maybe 6 or 7 left when I went off the back.

Tuesday was the First ride of the year at REI and I once again went with the renegade group, this group rides fast but safe and I managed to stay with the group the entire way with a second and third place in the city limit sign sprints that I was in position to go for. We got in 25 miles with a 19.9 mph average and it rained on us , this was a very fast average for wet roads as we had to really slow for the turns.

It has been raining for 24 hours as I write this and shows no sign of stopping, when this finally blows over I am going to try and go sailing, but it may be next week before that can happen.

MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT YOU HAVE

Dennis

Cycling Palo Duro Canyon

We have been getting a few more miles on the road bikes but when we get a chance to ride the wind and cold has been a killer. Last Saturday Michele and I rode the Tandem to the meeting place for a club ride and all but 2 of the group did not ride but went to breakfast, to cold and windy. We did about 40 miles with wind gusts to 30mph.

Michele thought for a minute she had lost her driver as I dreamed of a warm breakfast.

We decided to take off Friday and go camp at Palo Duro Canyon this weekend, since it was going to be cold and windy we would ride mountain bikes down in the Canyons. This worked out nice and we hiked and biked roads and trails and were covered up with wildlife. The mtb trails are great and you can find rides for any level of rider from easy to very technical or you can ride the road out of the canyon(several miles of 10% grade). Due to the high winds on this road I did not do the climb out of the canyon but I will return and do it. My favorite trail was the Lighthouse Trail.

This was our first time here and it was a pleasant surprise, nice campsites out of the wind and clear sunny cool days to hike and bike. In the picture below I took an over the shoulder shot of a herd of deer, we saw hundreds of deer and wild turkey as well as a coyote And I will depart with another over the shoulder shot of another small group of weekday riders.


Palo Duro Rocks

Dennis

Almost Sailing

I was invited to go sailing with Bobby on the Bobcat, we prepped the boat, lowered the lift and the motor would not run. This motor is just like my old Tohatsu twin 8hp, and like mine it has been trouble free until now. At any rate we put it all back together and went to eat at Soul mans BBQ and did not actually sail even though we still had a good time.We did manage to get in several bicycle rides and I have still been working on my running. We went back to our favorite Fairfield State Park for the weekend and while on a ride I saw some wild pigs in the woods and turned back to Michele and said pigs and pointed, my intention was for us to stop and watch them but Michele apparently thought they were chasing us and sprinted off into the distance.

Happy Valentines Day Michele, these are just a few wildflowers that someone else had picked and left on the picnic table on the nature trail. She did get real flowers but they are at the house.

We had a great time camping and getting chased by the pigs, while the lake is now very low I seem to always catch a bass or two here. Michele sat in the sunshine and read a book while I fished and disrupted her to take a picture every once in a while. In a couple of weeks we plan on going to someplace new to us, either Goose Island on the coast or Colorado Bend in the Hill Country.

Dennis

A new Toy

Since we had sold our sailboat Michele and I had been looking at camping trailers, we like to camp and have always done so in our tent. After doing our research we decided that a camping trailer would fit the bill for several reasons, most importantly because we can store it at our home and anything larger would not allow that. We also like being able to be a lot more comfortable and it extends the weather window considerably.We looked at several and missed out on several because I always like to negotiate price. We finally purchased this 2001 Coleman Westlake and did OK on the price. When we arrived to look it over it broke a lifting cable, after looking closely I decided I could repair this if the price was reduced since otherwise it was in much better condition than others we had looked at.

Three hours of work and $50 later we head out to camp in our new RV and find everything works. It was nice to have heat, air, refrigerator and running hot and cold water. This unit also has a shower and toilet that work well but are not quite what you have at home. Most campgrounds have bathhouses, but these certainly will work if we need them. Our dog Sprocket immediately took over ownership but does allow us to use it.

We got in plenty of bike rides on the park roads at Fairfield State Park and I also did 28 miles of hard mountain bike trails and encountered 7 wild hogs out in the woods. In the pic above Michele is on a youth model mountain bike we borrowed from a friend to see if it fit her better than the full size ones. It was a good fit and she really likes this Trek MT 220 so we may just have to shop for one. We also started riding the tandem again training for the German fest Rally in April.

We will be home this weekend and ride with our bike club www.gdbclub.com and plan another trip in the new toy. While home we met with a lot of family at El Fenix to celebrate several birthdays including my own. As I write this we are getting some much needed rain for our garden. The onions and winter green are just starting to take off and as the weather warms we will keep planting in our garden that is much larger than last year.

Dennis