In which the author rides his first 100k populaire and hurts himself a bit.
Sometime during the early afternoon of May 13, 2017, I find myself lying on my left side in wet gravel, straddling my bicycle, feet clipped into the pedals. I am on the west side of the low-water crossing of Flat Creek, on Fizthugh Road, southwest of Austin, Texas. My left foot, in its shiny new cycling shoe, seems determined to stay attached to the pedal no matter how forcefully I wriggle it. A line of cars and pickup trucks idles on the other side of the creek, waiting for me to get up and out of the way. My friend Jeff Newberry has already crossed and is waiting there too, on his bike. I’m not feeling all that dignified.
I eventually get my foot free, pick myself and the bike up, and make my sheepish way across the creek. I check myself for damage. It doesn’t seem too bad; I have a few scrapes and an odd, tight feeling in my chest. The bike is fine, if a bit muddy.
Jeff and I inch our way up and out of the steep stream valley, talking over what has just happened; Jeff coasted right across the creek with supreme confidence. I had decided to pull over and wait for the vehicles on the other side to cross first. When I noticed that they were also waiting for me, I clicked back into my bike’s new, unfamiliar pedals and immediately lost my balance in the loose gravel. Jeff had instructed me not to worry about the cars and follow him right across, but I hadn’t listened.
At the top of the hot climb, Jeff kindly offers me the bottle of ice water that he has been saving to dump on his sweaty head at this moment. I rinse the gray mud from my cuts and scrapes and we push on back towards Austin.
I don’t walk away from my slow-motion creekside crash that easily, though. For a week or so, I am in agony from a bruised rib whenever I laugh, sneeze, or turn the wrong way in bed. I try my best not to do any of those things until the pain goes away. I do what anyone else would do – take things easy and let myself heal up.
A week later, during a multi-day 1000-kilometer event, Jeff collides with an angry dog and cracks a couple of ribs. He picks himself up and keeps riding. That night, he patches up his damaged bike in a motel room, using borrowed parts. The next day, he rides over 100 miles.
That level of determination is one major difference between Jeff Newberry and myself. Our dog-avoidance strategies also differ. I always try to outrun the animal, while Jeff tries to scare it away by riding straight at it while shouting. I’ll accept Jeff’s advice on most cycling-related things, but will go my own way regarding loose dogs until one manages to catch me.
Out on Fitzhugh Road today, Jeff and I have distinct but related goals. Jeff is a ten-year veteran of the sport of randonneuring, a form of organized, non-competitive endurance cycling. He is breezing through a minor requirement for earning a RUSA cup. I am making my first attempt at a 109-kilometer populaire, by far the longest distance I have ever ridden in one day.
As it turns out, we are the only two people who have registered for today’s ride. I spotted it on the Hill Country Randonneurs’ website a month earlier and asked Jeff about it. I have never ridden further than about 30 miles in a day, and why I think I have it in me to ride 68 hilly miles under the Texas sun is anyone’s guess. Jeff, however, thinks I can do it with a bit more training. He tells me to start going for longer distances on my weekend rides, and gives some pointers on nutrition.
As Jeff explains to me, and as I later discover for myself, the leap from being able to ride 30 to 60 miles on a bike is more difficult than going from 60 to 100. After those first 30 or so carefree miles, your body starts to run out of fuel and you must eat something or you will become hypoglycemic (AKA “bonk”), which is no fun at all and can be physically dangerous. The problem is that the human body tends to resist eating food and keeping it down during hard exercise. Digestion slows as extra blood is routed to working muscles, so keeping yourself nourished and hydrated on long rides can be a challenge. Indeed, inability to eat is a surprisingly common cause of a rider not being able to finish a brevet.
Bike fit issues also become much more bothersome after a few hours, so a big part of the game is getting your gear to work in sync with your body. However, if you are reasonably fit, your bike fits you, and you can keep yourself well through eating and drinking, your legs can carry you for incredible distances on a bicycle.
My entry-level road cycling kit is minimal. I don’t yet own a single cycling jersey. I have ridden my bike around Austin in street clothes and with platform pedals for years, but have recently decided to gear up for longer distances. A few weeks before today’s ride, I bought a set of clipless pedals for five dollars at a yard sale. Then I went over to REI and purchased a pair of the cheapest cycling shoes available and a pair of padded shorts from the clearance rack. The shorts don’t fit so I order another cheap pair online, which works better. I carry my snacks and tools in a rear pannier that I usually use for shopping and commuting. I don’t have any sort of bike computer or GPS unit.
On the morning of the populaire, Jeff meets me in the parking lot of a Valero station at the intersection of State Highway 71 and Thomas Springs Road. I drove here in my van. Jeff, who doesn’t drive, rode the 15 miles from his central-Austin apartment on his bike. He hands me my first-ever brevet card, I sign a waiver, and we’re off and rolling through the Texas Hill Country.
And I do mean “Hill Country.” Despite the widespread notion that Texas is mostly “flat,” our route includes almost 4,000 feet of climbing in just under 68 miles, or a bit under 60 feet of climbing per mile. At least moderately hilly, if not mountainous. None of the climbs are all that high, but they can be steep (most notably the “Fitzhugh Wall” on the east side of the low-water crossing).
Our route makes its way from the Valero station for about four gentle miles to the intersection of Fitzhugh Road and US Highway 290, which is where the real fun begins. The first seven miles or so of Fitzhugh often have too much traffic for comfort, especially in the afternoon when the road’s string of craft breweries and other trendy businesses (including a distillery and a “stunt ranch”) get going, but this morning it isn’t too bad yet. The narrow, curving road descends, climbs, and descends, making an especially tight turn just before crossing the Barton Creek bridge and climbing up and away from it.
West of Ranch Road 12, the road is mostly free of traffic. Jeff fishes around in his handlebar bag and offers me part of a brownie as we cruise along. My energy bars are languishing behind me in the pannier and I make a mental note to buy a handlebar bag. Jeff asks probing questions about what I’ve eaten so far today and what I’ve brought along to snack on. There will be no services at all until we reach the ride’s halfway point in Johnson City, 30 miles down Fitzhugh Road.
Jeff is good company on the road; we’re of roughly similar ages and both came of age in the 1980s listening to punk rock, playing in DIY bands, and generally styling ourselves as countercultural types. We have read a fair number of the same books, seen many of the same movies, and like trying to inform one another about the latest interesting thing we heard, read, or watched. We might be the only two randonneurs who have spent any amount of time during a brevet discussing the music of The Necks:
I don’t feel 100% prepared, but at least I’m riding with a veteran randonneur who also sort of gets me as a person. As we approach the steep descent to the Flat Creek low-water crossing, Jeff launches into an instructive spiel about the best way to get across:
You’re going to come screaming down a twisting descent. Get your speed under control. The road will curve around to the right and you’ll go over a surprisingly tame cattle guard. Then you’ll come to the big drop off to the low water crossing. Brake your way down all the way to the edge of the water. With your feet at three o’clock and nine o’clock, release your brakes, trying not to splash, and roll through the water, ratcheting pedals from three to four as needed to maintain your momentum. You don’t want to pedal a full stroke or you’ll have wet feet. Let your momentum carry you through, then gear way down on the other side so you can climb up with your butt planted in the saddle. If you raise up out of the saddle, your wheels will slip and the road is slick. You don’t want to do that.
I follow the instructions and make it across just fine. It’s an out-and-back route, so we’ll cross it again on the way back from Johnson City and I’ll fall and hurt myself then. Shortly after the creek crossing we cruise past the entrance to Pedernales Falls State Park, a place I have visited many times on day trips from Austin (in a car).
Jeff monitors his Garmin, keeping me apprised of our average speed. During a brevet, randonneurs are expected to maintain a minimum average speed of about 15 KPH (9.3 MPH), including stops. Not a challenge on a ride like this, but it becomes a big deal on a 600 kilometer brevet if you want to bank some time for sleeping. At the moment, however, this all goes a bit over my head.
The turnaround point is a gas station in Johnson City, hometown of President Lyndon Johnson. We get our brevet cards initialed by the clerk, then sit outside the store drinking sodas and eating convenience-store pizza. A man and woman in house slippers pad over from a nearby motel. The man asks about our ride and is astonished when we tell him we rode from Austin and are about to head back. I feel a little bit like a badass but know we’re only halfway finished too.
A group of about five college kids on bikes training for the Texas 4000 charity ride appears. Jeff takes the opportunity to evangelize about randonneuring, and tells me to go ahead and take off. I hop on my bike and start back towards Austin on a long series of rollers, and Jeff reels me in after about ten minutes. Fueled and rested, I’m feeling surprisingly fresh as we re-trace the hilly 30 miles back up Fitzhugh road. I’m in a great mood as we begin the descent for our second visit to the low-water crossing, the scene of my ignominious tumble.
The ride feels a bit tougher after my zero-speed crash, but I still think I can handle it. Since Jeff and I have plenty of time to spare, we pull into a gas station taqueria at the end of Fitzhugh Road for lunch. After a round of tacos, chips, and salsa, we complete the final four miles to the starting point. We have ridden the 100 kilometers in six hours and five minutes, including rest stops. Not fast, but there was never any big rush. I sign my brevet card, give it to Jeff, and go home to join RUSA and see a doctor about my ribs.
