Piney Woods Bike Ride

I went to East Texas last week. I contacted the Angelina Bike Club to see if they had any organized rides on Saturday. I was planning on joining them for a ride. It turns out that there were several of them that were planning on riding. At first, and I am not sure why, I was reluctant to go with them, even after I contacted them. Not sure if it was an apprehension about meeting new people, new route or possibly not being up to par with their abilities. All reasons are silly. Silly or not,, I went to bed on Friday evening hoping that the ride would get rained out. Saturday morning arrived and it was a beautiful day. Not too hot,, no rain and gorgeous blue skies.

I hooked up with the ABC guys on Saturday morning at Lufkin High School. They turned out to be a great group of guys. So,, any fears about that were quickly put aside. We planned on a 60 mile ride. So off we headed towards Zavalla Texas. The road was perfect,, it was a fairly new road so there were no potholes or rough spots to worry about. Once we warmed up,, they started picking the pace up. We had a great pace,, one that actually worried me because I was fearful that I could not sustain that pace for very long. I remembered what Maurice told me about being uncomfortable on the bike and to push myself. So,, that is what I did. It was a hard ride but man it was fun. At about mile 17, two of the riders had to turn around so it ended up with just three of us. We had a great pace line going and we rotated through the line, each taking a turn at pulling. We were cooking along,, through some beautiful landscapes,, covered in huge pine trees that stood out so amazingly. At the half way point, we had about 27 miles under our belt and the average speed was 19.8 MPH... as we headed back towards Austin, I though we would slow down a bit,, but we didn't. We kept hammering back to town. When it was all over, we covered 55 miles and 19.5 MPH average speed. That is an awesome pace for me!! I really enjoyed going that fast for that long. I was beat when we got back to town. I could tell that I pushed myself really hard.

Here is the best part,, after the ride,, I stopped by Smoothie King for a Smoothie (what else would you get at a Smoothie King?) and it was great. It really hit the spot. Simple pleasures.