Tour De Donut 2010

Whew! Today Hugh, Mac, and I rode in the Tour De Donut. It starts at the Katy Mills Mall and goes out to Fulshear, Simonton, Sealy, Brookshire, and back to Katy. There are two routes, one that's 28 miles and it is actually a race. The riders are timed and at ever rest stop they get to deduct one minute of their overall ride time for every donut they eat. It's pretty funny, and Shipley's supplies the donuts. :) We chose not to do the race, and opted for the 57 mile ride instead. This is our first organized ride of the "season" and the longest we've ridden as well (we ride most weekends on our own). The weather was great. It was a little chilly to start off (47*) but it warmed up quickly.

The story? Well, we got onto this stretch of road that was made of chip-seal. Chip seal is really bumpy road, and you feel it non-stop when you ride the type of bikes that we do. The only issue was that this wasn't your ordinary usual chip-seal. This was horrible, awful, crappy chip-seal. Here's a snippet of the conversation that we had while on this road:

Hugh: "Awww man, this is that crappy rock-chip stuff."

Jenn: "You mean chip-seal, and yes...this is horrible."

Mac: "Rock-chip, chip-seal, rock-scissors-paper....it's bad."

Jenn: "Um...don't you mean paper-rock-scissors?"

Mac: "No, when I was a kid we played it differently."

Jenn: "Hmm...all I know is that this is hurting so bad that I won't pee straight for a week."

Mac: "HAHA....I might actually pee straight for once."

Hugh: "You guys are weird."

Just to explain, this is how most conversations go while we're riding. They don't always make sense, but we find them pretty humorous and it passes the time so we don't get bored. However, we are considering getting an iHome2Go which is a speaker for an iPod that we can legally ride with.

Well, on this so-called road there was a guy and his son riding behind me. Hugh was in front, Mac to his left and slightly behind and then me right behind Mac. The guy behind me looked over his shoulder to check the status of an oncoming car. Unfortunately, he was riding too close to me and clipped my wheel. He went flying and I did some interesting maneuvering. I managed to stay on my bike even though I did experience that flash of adrenaline that makes you cold all over. The guy behind me fell and hit the ground really hard. He messed up one of his knees and I think he might have broken his collarbone. I realize I'm not a Dr, but the bone was kind of sticking out. We stopped, I called 911 and then held his head still while we waited for the ambulance. The guy's son (13?) was really calm. I felt bad for the guy because he was obviously in a ton of pain. Riding can be scary sometimes. We wear shoes that clip into our pedals so if you're in a collision situation it can be pretty scary.

Alright...that's enough for now. Except for the crash it was a great ride. We kicked butt on our ride time and even in direct wind we worked very hard. The three of us are off to a great start this year!!!

Love-