Space Race 2009!

The Space Race on Sunday April 5th near Nasa. Ride Website is at
http://www.spacerace.org/

We actually took off from the Gulf Greyhound RaceWay and cycled past all the dogs in their kennels.

It was a warm, muggy day and we were not far from the coast. Unpacked the bikes and its amazing what one an fit into a small car......
I'm riding a Cannondale six 13 which has a compact crank and am still getting used to the feel of this bike. We were out of luck with the weather half way through. Went for the 80 mile ride but the wind picked up as it got later in the day and it was rough......The rest stops were few and far between. Almost 16 miles between two on the far end of the loop and the first one had run out of water so they were filling up bottles with
ice which was all they had......
I was emptying bottles at the rate of 3 every hour toward the end of the ride and started to struggle. We looped back to Restop 6 - The Wee Mart whch was part of a gas stations seen here in the picture and it sure was crowded...

Lots of wildflowers out and the weather was pleasant though. We got back in time for some cold hamburgers - The ride was sponsored by McDonals and they provided participants with free hamburgers at the end of it. Ronald McDonald was at the starting line to wave us on...
This was Restop 3 on the way out which became Restop 6 on the way back in (see last picture)


The ride organizers were overwhelmed by the number of riders and the volunteers did a good job trying to keep up with the crowds. It took us over 30 mins trying to get off the Freeway even though we left in plenty of time the first riders had already left when we finally rolled in to park the car. They were directing over 6 lanes of traffic into the parking lot at the Greyhound Race track. Turned out to be a good place to start from because of this.



Here we are at about Mile 58 toughing out the wind though it
doesn't look like it. I ran out of water on the last 3 miles in and
could really have used another drink. It was that hot and I was drinking a lot more than I had on previous rides to make up for it. Ended up feeling reasnably sore that night and a bit creaky the next day but all back to normal.......

Restop 6 on the way back in! The Wee Mart. The ride stop was out of food, so I nicked in and bought a packet of trail mix, 2 peanut bars and a packet of salted cashews. Shared these with my fellow riders and felt a lot better afterwards as I had cycled about 30 miles with only some munchies that I had brought with me to keep me going. A huge sag truck was taking about 30 riders and their bikes home. Looked a bit like a border crossing deportation.... :-) We sailed off into the wind and almost felt like joining them. Still it was a good day out......when we finally got in....