Donating
Spares Needed!We stayed in hotel provided by the Southwest Transplant Alliance (an amazing place, I might add) 11 miles north of downtown Dallas. The schedule called for 76 miles today, but with all of the extra riding I did going to the various events in Dallas the past few day, I was actually plus 33 miles.
The day was calling for rain and thunderstorms with 20-25 mph winds out of the south…. exactly the direction I was going.
I had ordered a 36-tooth chain ring on Saturday and it didn’t come into the bike shop yesterday, so the plan was to try to beat the weather and ride to the bike shop which was south of Dallas, 27 miles from where we spent the night. My thought was to ride to the bike shop, get the part put on, and continue from there.
I don’t like messing with Mother Nature all that much, so with a gentle rain falling and the winds mostly manageable, I tiptoed out with the bike a bit after 9AM.
The route into Dallas from the north was very good and it seemed that all the buildings were sheltering me from the winds. I rode through the SMU campus, hit the Katy Trail (Dallas) for 4-5 miles, crossed over a pedestrian bridge, and was 7-8- miles from the B&B Bike shop in Cedar Hills before the openness of the suburbs allowed the wind to start giving me much trouble. I hit some rain but not all that much.
Got to the shop and the part was not there yet so I left the Specialized Rockhopper with the shop to install the chain ring when it arrived, got the Gary Fisher Paragon setup, and Lynn and I took off in the car 40 miles to the south. I took off with the wind and somehow dodged all the weather that was happening….including the golf ball-sized hail and we pulled into the shop with time to spare before they closed for the night with 70 miles of riding for the day.
A good day, working around the obstacles that presented themselves.
As we drove south to our motel near Abbott (actually, West, Texas) the skies let loose with heavy rains, and tornadoes were sighted in the area, but we were fine.
Our documentary crew decided it was too dangerous for camping (good call) and ended up in a hotel near us for the night.
