Two months ago, heck a few weeks ago, I would have crashed in the situation that we were in when we came up to merge. It was an intersection of cars in every direction, and a swarm of bike riders coming from the opposite direction. We needed to take a right and merge into the stream of riders who were taking a left from the opposite direction. To complicate matters, there was road construction at the intersection.
I remember what Mommy Bear said to me at lunch on Thursday, “You can do this, you just have to stay focused. Don’t worry about anything other than riding your bike.” Focused I was. I came up to the intersection, and I must have said it twenty times, “Merging! Merging! Merging!”
I went into line with the oncoming cyclists just as I would if I were merging into traffic during rush hour on my drive to work. I was off! It made me happy to see three familiar faces as I merged in. Rather than rattle off three names, I simply said, “Good Morning FMC!” I got a good morning shout back. I had energy, and I was ready to ride, but I still lacked the mindset that I needed to get to the finish line.
We cruised passed the first rest stop, and we stopped at the second. I had fallen behind my fellow riders. I waited with Family Guy for awhile, and we finally decided that the others had already left the rest stop. Cowboy’s fan and Canary are both pretty tall, and they are generally pretty easy to spot, and we did not see them. We took off ourselves from the rest stop.
At some point, Family Guy stopped along the side of the road.
“Are we stopping I asked?” As I was going by.
“I am.” he said. Stopping on a bike really isn’t my strong suit, stopping and riding upstream was not an option for me, so I pedaled on. I got to the lunch stop in Bellville, and found myself in rush hour-like traffic.
We coasted on our bikes, barely pedaling. I could not believe how well I was navigating the situation without falling down. I wasn’t clipped into my pedals. On previous rides, I had extreme difficulty pedaling when I wasn’t clipped in. Apparently, I finally mastered this.
Bellville was the MS150 lunch stop, but I did not stop. Another awesome thing about our group was that Cowboys Fan’s family had a ranch along the course, and they were generously providing us lunch. This meant no crowd and no “sweaty handled” food, which was awesome.
Except, I missed the stop.
I got to the little town of industry, and texted Cowboys Fan, and he confirmed my fear that I had in fact gone to far. I was too far down the road to turn back, so I kept on going. Along the way I passed by one of my co-workers. I was happy to see her. She looked at me and said, “I didn’t know that you are a cyclist.” I thought to myself, “Neither did I.”
It was with in a mile or so of that moment that the feeling finally flooded me. I was going to make it to Austin. If had to walk my bike with two flat tires to get there, I was going to get there. What a feeling! The feeling filled my grumbling, empty tummy, and I rode on.
The highlight of my day is up next…