Tour de Braz

Today, Sunday June 12, 2011, I participated in my first organized bike ride in three years.  It was the Tour de Braz.  It was wonderful.  The weather was great.  There was no rain, of course, and little wind.  I actually started preparing last night.  For supper I had the traditional spaghetti supper.  I have read conflicting reports.  Some say the carbs are good fuel the day before a major event and other say it is of no real value.  But it is tradition.  This morning I got up early and ate breakfast.  I had cereal, a bagel, banana and water.  The ride started at Alvin Community Collage.  Here is the registration tent.  I had preregistered so I could skip this.  In fact this ride was a Father’s day gift from Candi.  Thank you, Candi.

After I got my map, tee shirt and water bottle, I had a second bagel and continued to hydrate.  Soon it was time to line up.  Here is a picture of a few people getting into position. 

After the mandatory welcome speeches and the singing of the national anthem we were off.  The one thing about riding is if you look straight ahead, it is sometimes not the best view.  That is unless you like to look at butts.  I don’t especially like it.

I rode the 50 mile route.  It was great.  I started near the front of the pack but I am not a strong enough rider to stay there.  There are advantages to riding in the front and there are advantages to riding farther back.  The better riders tend to be up front.  This is important when riding in a group as they generally know group etiquette.  However when you ride farther back, you have less trouble with dogs.  After chasing a thousand other riders they generally just sit at the side of the road and occasionally bark.  Near the end of the ride I took this picture of my instruments.  If you click on the picture, you get a larger view.

They show I was riding 17 miles per hour and had ridden 47.32 miles.  My cadence, how fast the pedals were turning was 67 revolutions per minutes.  My heart was beating 144 times per minute.  Your maximum heart rate is about 220 minus your age.  At 58 my max heart rate is 162.  You should keep you heart rate below 90% of max so I was right there.  In fact I rode hard.  My average speed was 17.5 mph and I burned 1700 calories.  But it was a great ride.  Now what is the next one?