MS 150 rolls on

What Part am I on... 4?  Yeah, it was a long ride.

When it came time for the big day (or two, in this case), I packed my bags, my bike, my helmet, shoes, snacks, water bottles, and other accumulated gear and headed south to Austin. I decided to take the shuttle to Houston so that I could just drive straight to Waco after I finished the ride on Sunday.  I loaded my bike onto a truck, and got on a bus. We waited a whole hour for the bus to fill up before we could head on south. As we drove that long road to Houston, it really hit me that I’d be riding my BICYCLE all the way back to Austin with my own two legs. What an incredible feeling! When we arrived, my dad picked me up and then we collected my bike before meeting Ben for a Carb Load at Russo’s.

That night we got everything situated and ready to go for the next morning. Our team had planned to meet at the Brookshire Brothers in Katy and start from there. I don’t remember exactly what time it was but it was still dark out, and really really COLD! Dad dropped us off, and once the sun came up we all hit the road! At 7:58 a.m. we arrived at the first rest stop. I checked the weather and it was 39 degrees!

No wonder my hands and arms and feet were numb! The rest of the day we spent pedaling from break point to break point, snacking on all the wonderful snacks along the way. We had lunch at like 10 a.m. so we were pretty hungry by the last stop in Fayetteville!

 

Most of the ride was really smooth, with the wind at our backs and a perfect 70 degrees (once it warmed up!) – except for the last 10 miles heading into La Grange. Those last 10 just happened to be into the wind, and boy did we feel it! I thought we’d never make it. But 85 miles and nearly 6 ½ hours later (not including stops), we rolled into Camp St. Mark!  

After dinner, a shower, a massage, and a second dinner (yep) we settled into our sleeping bags around 8 p.m. and got a pretty good night's sleep in our Team Simmons tent! (Thanks to some ear plugs, an air mattress and being really, really tired.)