Mid South Gravel 2020

July 10, 2020July 10, 2020 / paluxypedaler / Leave a comment

a.k.a #MudSouth

To whom it may concern, we are very sorry for the delay in publishing this post; however, without further ado it shall commence shortly.

Wow! The Mid South effect ( i.e. life being wacky cray cray) has already had, what four months and counting, to wear off but crazy stuff just keeps happening! Foremost, (and the elephant in the room) Covid19. I hope you all are healthy and this will provide some entertainment for your quarantine time. Seriously, after four months of sitting at home I should have gotten plenty of posts done but, um, no.

Day Zero Packing

Running around like little ants, what did we forget this time? Well, lets go find out! Below pic: New, awesome sign that we couldn’t figure out how to pack in the camper. There’s only so much space and that thing is not really light!

Day One Arriving

Thursday, day one of the weekend, we woke up, then went right back to dozing while Dad drove. Past the border, past Turner Falls, past Shawnee, past Perkins. Oh we’re getting close now. And then you turn onto this Boomer road (I think that’s funny) and you enter a town some three hundred miles from home, but you know it well. It’s home to our local bike shop. I mean yeah it’s home to some forty thousand other people and a state college, but for me? It’s just got bikes, friends and good roads to ride bikes on with friends.

It’s warm, sunny, hot even, who would guess how crazy this weekend would turn out, right? But already there had been news of this “corona virus” across the world, Bobby hugs had been “canceled”, “social distancing” was encouraged, no hand shakes, keep apart six feet. What? Who’s heard of that? Little did we know…

While there, Dad and I got to test ride a Moots. WOW! Talk about DIFFERENT from my Crosscheck! We stopped by the book store. Someone BEGGED for some glasses and had a BIG smile when we went up to get our volunteer packets (even though she didn’t show it here).

So yeah, skip past greeting all our friends etc, thanks to our friend Jon for letting us park our camper at his house. That evening he and Dad went to the beer release while Lydia talked me into watching a VERY cringy Angry Birds 2 movie. While peeking on Dad’s pad to watch peoples’ Instagram stories of what was going on down at Iron Monk, Lydia goes, “Bobby’s dressed up silly” :p , yep that’s him.

Day Two The Run

The weather shifted big time during the night because when I woke up I was sure today wasn’t related to yesterday. Cold. Grey. Wet. We ran over to start to pick up our stuff for the rest stop before heading to the corner of 58th and Washington St. waiting on runners.

We cooked a big breakfast, hung out with some cool people (all the way from Canada) and cheered on a lot of crazy people in tank tops while we were freezing. In general, we had a blast. It would have helped it we had a little back up so we didn’t have to pull 12 hours. Some people were disappointed that no one brought the beer out to our station but, obviously I wasn’t very worried about that. I thought maybe it could a been a little warmer (I’m from TX) but nothing too major.

By the time we got back to Stillwater that evening we were looking to put plan B into action 😦

Plan A: Dad and Lydia on Tandem, Ruth on Crosscheck.
Plan B: Dad on Single Speed, Ruth on Crosscheck
Plan C: Dad on Single Speed
Plan Z: They canceled or there was a tornado to make even Dad stay off the bike.

The weather was not looking too good for tandem operation. Lydia was very sad but she knew it wouldn’t have worked well. Thank you very much to the Mrs. Dawson for agreeing to keep Lydia all day. I know she had fun.

Day Three The Ride

Wake up after not really sleeping to more rain. I had option C of course, me not ride but… What am I kidding. I’m not going to at least TRY?! I couldn’t just sit still on the FIRST Mid South Gravel could I?! NO WAY!!! After eating something of a breakfast, debating for an hour on what to wear and then sitting for half an hour because of lightning delay, we finally went down to the start. We dropped Lydia off @ District and lined up near the back, still raining. Bobby gave one of his energy packed screaming speeches and we were off. Rolling out I rode past Bobby who yelled at me “you can do it!” I told him I’d try. That was my promise to him and myself all day. TRY

Thanks to 241 and Venny Jane Photography for these amazing photos!

It’s kinda all a blur now, everything that happened… It was so crazy. At the beginning we were all clean and then we weren’t as soon as we hit gravel. So far it was good. We did not have breaks, but no one else did either. And then it started to dry up and get tacky. Of course I didn’t remember to re-set my Garmin so I didn’t really know what mile we were at but I remember the bridge at mi 14 with all the chunks of asphalt and the bobcat (literally a bobcat just ran by us) and Brethren Hill around mi 23. I made it up again with A LOT of weaving around. I was pretty sure I was going face down in the mud every other second but I didn’t, somehow. Dad gave it all he could on the single speed but had to get off and walk at the top so he just kept yelling at me the whole time. Athlinks now says we took 4:13 min to get up it!

By the time we were close to Perkins I started calculating and was like um it’s already been more than 5 hours, we are so cut. But we weren’t, cut off was at 3:00 pm and it was like 2:45 pm. Really close. Lydia met us in Perkins. Dad did some bike work. I ate a bag of chips and re-stuffed my bag full of food and headed off again.

We rode and rode and walked 10X and then rode some more! By the Oasis we had been going for like forever but, I was still feeling OK and knew if I just re-set my brain the I could make another 20 mi. RIGHT…

MUD BATH FOR 10+ HOURS = A VERY MUDDY LITTLE GIRL

I was @DistrictBicycles the other day and found where I had signed in green Sharpie *The Smiths* on the big sign behind my head

After eating a rice cake, some king of scrambled egg with maple syrup and soy sauce, a bag of chips and a soda I was ready to hit it again. The last 20 were the hardest, coldest, slowest, most painful miles of the whole day. We walked so much, so so much. It got dark and the mud had built up in my shoes so when I walked it was like stepping on a rock in the same place every time. I hadn’t gotten rid of any cloths at Perkins and I was still chilled, Dad had got rid of lots of cloths and was cold. All day he carried my bike while I pushed his. That was the biggest help. Mine is twice as heavy yet too small for him to carry over his shoulder like most people do. His is twice as light as mine yet too big for me to carry so I just pushed it most of the time, thankfully it’s a little more forgiving than mine.

The Finish

It had been a long day I had dragged myself past the corner where we had set up an aid station the day before and thought “OK you can do 5 more miles” When I hit the pavement I was a horse who could smell home and food. In fact Dad even told me to slow down. When we turned onto seventh… well let me just show you what it was like…

Well they won’t let me upload videos unless I upgrade to premium by giving them some moo-lah so here: https://www.athlinks.com/event/131213/results/Event/907954/Course/1784039/Bib/1001 Scroll down all the way for the vid. In pictures it was like this.

by @241 Photography = really good photos

First thing Lydia says to me is “we ate enchiladas” and I’m like oh I could do enchiladas right now. Instead I sat down at District and ate a half a dozen of the sandwiches and fruit that was for the workers (Sally and Crystal said I could :). After, well I just sat for a while and then I took something of a shower. Later I went to bed and slept in my coat because I was freezing! Dad went to Finnegan’s with Bobby but I don’t remember anything else.

The After

This is my and everyone’s first Mid South Gravel but of course some of us have completed the LandRun 100 too. Here is My chart from these past three years. Notice how I keep getting slower?

Year	Time	MPH	Overall	Mileage	Age	Bike
2018	7:45:13	13.68	275/ 773	104.0	13	Tandem
2019	9:53:11	10.44	849/1053	103.2	14	CrossCheck
2020	13:40:19	7.57	338/ 402	103.5	15	CrossCheck

Our Bikes…

They had seen better days, pretty much everything that moved got replaced. Mine sat in the garage for quite a while longer than Dad’s though!

Next Year

Next year? Who knows. Lord willing we will return, hopefully not so much a battle of mud because Lydia REALLY wants to go. And now I’m out of words and have to end which is always the awkward part where I usually leave you with some Spanish saying or a post script. Today I’ll tell you what Lydia told me, two things actually. 1) You should have stayed with me instead of riding: we ate Mexican, Bobby screamed and Trevor danced, and there was a guy with horns on his head. 2) No matter what, unless Daddy says I can’t or it’s like ice outside I want to ride next year.

The Maypearl Loop and The Renegade Rambler 2020

March 22, 2020 / paluxypedaler / Leave a comment

Hello people… Mid South Gravel training is in full swing down here for us and I have the pictures to prove it. We only have TWO WEEKS left on the clock!

Maypearl TX ~ 65 mi ~ 4:37h ~ Average 13.9 mph Rather heavy on pavement on the first half but very pretty gravel on second. It was a very windy day and I did a lot of drafting to keep up with dad or I’d have been a LONG way back.

And if you are wondering, they are trying to build a Tesla Coil in Milford.

Farmersville Tx, 106 mi, Again a windy day! Black dirt roads and a part on the NETT. This is The Onion Shed where we started and stopped. There was also a social 20 mi ride Friday evening (pic below).

Farmersville is the trail head and we figured we would just go out and back on it real quick for the group ride but turns out…

There was water… water + dirt = mud… mud + Ruth = falling in it… But it was still fun.

Saturday morning, we debated on what to wear all morning but by the time 8 O’clock rolled around the sun was coming out and I dressed about perfect.

We started out on the NETT for a few miles and then turned off. If we would have followed the route the night before we would have stayed much cleaner, but oh well. Pretty soon we caught some friends about mi 22 in Leonard and I took of a layer of clothes because the sun was warming up quickly.

We only took one wrong turn but turned around pretty quickly. It wasn’t too hilly but enough with the wind! For the last 30 or so miles it was just straight in to it and I slowed down so much we were crawling. First day out with my new Cantu kit and gotta say I like it a lot 🙂

First 100 mi of the year in the books. 106mi ~ 8:23h ~ Average 12.7 mph.

Mid South here we come… ¡Hasta Pronto Amigos!

Gotta Love Gravel Hico Tx Sign-Up Link

February 20, 2020 / paluxypedaler / Leave a comment

Hey, I think I mentioned in my last post that Gotta Love Gravel is adding a ride in Hico Tx April 25th 2020.

Earlier this week we nailed down the course for the long route (about 66 miles)

A non-profit run/ride in small town with tacos and beer at the finish line. Whats to say no to? If you are interested here is the link to the signup page https://runsignup.com/Race/TX/Hico/FlacasCleanH2ORun Hope to see you there!

Team Smith 2020

February 6, 2020 / paluxypedaler / Leave a comment

Good morning people, it’s time for me to get motivated to stick all the miscellaneous stuff I didn’t post from 2019 into one big long(ish) rather rushed blog. It has to be rushed because otherwise I’ll lose my attention span and stick this in the draft folder… while trying to save stuff from the draft folder. So I’ll quit wasting time and just go for it.

Oklahoma Freewheel 2019

Support and Gear~SAG

Hello June! Hello Freewheel! Sadly we couldn’t make it for the whole week so just went up to help for the weekend.

Lydia and Jeremiah tagged along for the weekend.

Thursday, we were in Okemah home of “Woody” Guthrie. And I only know that because of this picture after this stuff gets hazy but you don’t really need to know what happened except that we tented in 20 year old tents and it rained that weekend.

Pics #1 A rest stop in Mason. #2 “The Steak Police”. #3 A statue somewhere. #4-7 Dr.Jordan. #8 Cheering a rider #9-12 Miss purple. #13 Smiles. #14 The Pioneer Woman’s Mercantile. #15 A barn.

Oh yeah I forgot about that guy! Dr. Jordan lived on the route and we stopped in his drive way for a lunch spot and he comes out and asks if we were from Freewheel because he rode one of the very first ones on this bike waaaaayyyyyyyyyy back in the year who knows when. His garage used to be an old school house and a friend of his who is an artist and deaf painted these murals for him.

Missouri Mud

On our family trip to MO in July Dad took his bike and left us to play on the back roads with the Beargrease. But turns out maybe I’m glad I stayed home, look at all the water!

The Texas Time Trials

Every year at the end of summer a group of crazy people come to our tiny town in Texas either trying to qualify for RAM, or wreck them selves. Or wreck themselves while trying to qualify for RAM. There is a fine line between the two 🙂

So short history from my knowledge of The TTT… It was in Cleburne TX who knows how many years ago, for who knows how many years. When it was moved to Glen Rose (in 2009?) Dan Driscoll somehow roped dad into it. Then two years ago ( that makes it 2017?) Dan turned it over to Andrew Willis/Holland Racing and that’s how it is now. For the more complete version of that try https://texastimetrials.com/history which says it started in Oklahoma?! Oh well gotta learn something new today.

So anyway dad is still involved in it and volunteers every year along with all of us. We mark course and then sit out on one of the turns each evening ringing cowbells and yelling. Oh and we have a spaghetti feed at our house on the Thursday before it starts to meet new people.

We hang out all weekend having fun (at least I do) and yeah. Not too many pictures for this one. We did ride it once backwards on sat morning, but we can ride that course any time we want so it’s not quite as exciting. I don’t know if I could stand looking at the same scenery 19 times around and around. And it’s not flat or easy in any way. Lots of people don’t know just how hilly it is…welcome to Glen Rose:)

Paluxy Pedal & Gotta Love Gravel.

Ok so not the biggest ride of the year but it is OUR ride of the year. Which means I have the least pictures of it. Paluxy Pedal is our local Saturday T-Shirt ride in Glen Rose TX that supports a local charity “The LDL Foundation”.

Route options: 29mi 38mi 53mi 60mi

Pics #1-4 Are Start/Finnish/Registration. #5 We got a NEW jersey this year #6-9 I took off and rode.#7 Rex #10-11 One of the rest stops at a course split. A few shout outs to: CrazyWater and BikesInc (in the photos) for supporting us and to Dr. Jenifer Cullen our ride director and the whole committee for pitching in all year to make this work. Oh and I can’t forget Rex ! Snap a pic with him to get a chance to win the photo contest and some sweet prizes!

This year we (even though most the leg work was done by dad) added a gravel ride. #Gotta Love Gravel starts in Walnut Springs only about 12 miles out of Glen Rose.

Route options: 35mi 50mi

Pics #1 The Director. #2-3 The start. #4 LoriGray Photography. #5 Holly and Scott. #6 Eugene. #7 Kerry.

Shout outs to:Keith Grey (yeah another Keith) and Scott Helm for marking course. Lori Gray (married to the other Keith) for bringing your camera. Eugene Mazzurana for helping route the course and take photos. Greg Smith for roasting the hot dogs. And my dad for EVERYTHING else!

And these are just SOME of the MANY photos from that night. It was great to meet all of you and there will be another one in 2020 with the addition of a Gotta Love Gravel ride on April 25th 2020 in Hico.

We finally get to 2020 now !

Well Dad posted a rough schedule of what we’ll be riding this year: I don’t know what it includes..

And he’s already knocked off 2 of them Chainring Massacre and OK Gravel Growler without me (music lessons on Saturday mornings kinda get in the way of somethings)…We are still training for Mid South… 6 Weeks… Eeek! W are signed up to help with registration and a runner rest stop on Friday. Hope to see you there or somewhere this year and may you cover many miles and smiles in 2020! Ciao 😉

El Camino 105

November 13, 2019 / paluxypedaler / 1 Comment

~El Camino ~ The Way~ The Path~ The Road~

Lydia and Keith Smith ~ September 28th 2019 ~ Palestine Texas

An interview with Lydia Smith

By Ruth Smith

(i.e. Big sister little sister banter 🙂 )

Ruth; OK girl, what was the first thing you did?

Lydia; We got there, and then sat there for an hour, like literally an hour, it was yeah about an hour. And we advertised for our ride.

Ruth; And what was your ride?

Lydia; Paluxy Pedal and Gotta Love Gravel.

Ruth; What else?

Lydia; Well we talked to people.

Ruth; What did you eat?

Lydia; I ate at Sonic, I got a Sprite and a burger.

Ruth; Where did you sleep that night?

Lydia; We slept in our camper.

Ruth; How early did you get up the next morning?

Lydia; I don’t know… Ruth there’s a big problem I don’t know when I got up.

Ruth; Well I don’t know either.

Lydia; Well then what do I say?

Ruth; I don’t know! What did you do after you got up?

Lydia; Oh you don’t wanna know… wait wait wait don’t say that… I put my cycling cloths on… wait wait wait did you actually just say that?!

Ruth; Yes keep going, what did you have for breakfast?

Lydia; Ummm I think I had cereal… yeah I had cereal.

Ruth; Do you know how many other people were there? (Lydia quit taking selfies with dad’s ipad… and take off his glasses)

Lydia; Well I don’t really know, I just know I was there, and there were a lot of people there.

Ruth; So how was the start?

Lydia; Was ummmm I was shaking a lot, wait no no no don’t put that in there, I was very scared. But it was soooo loud it was like Wahoooooo!!! Wait go back and read what I said and tell me if it sounds stupid.

Ruth; Never mind that, was it cold? Hot? See anyone you know?

Lydia; Umm well at the start it was just a little bit chilly but that’s because the sun wasn’t up yet. We meet lots of dad’s Instagram followers um who I don’t really know.

Ruth; Yeah so how was the first bit?

Lydia; It was quiet and we were going kinda fast.

Ruth; Did it take a long time to get to the gravel?

Lydia; Umm maybe like… one hour ? (in Lydia time) well there wasn’t really any gravel any way just a little bit but they called it gravel.

Ruth; So what was it?

Lydia; SAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ruth; So this, what rest stop was this at?

Lydia; Well it was at the first one, where we almost fell over

Ruth; What did you eat there?

Lydia; Oh ummm, my chews, I didn’t get anything because it was just a water break.

Ruth; What happened in these picture? Why aren’t you on the bike?

Lydia; Ugg we had to walk… ’cause the sand got thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker and thicker and THICKER and THICKER and THICKER… wait no not that thick but pretty thick. And one time we even tipped over!!!

Ruth; ( I think she meant deeper but thicker works too) What about your face in this picture?

Lydia; *Sigh* I was very very tired.

Ruth; Did you eat and drink a lot?

Lydia; Ummm yeah. There was fruit chews and umm a bar and water, mix, mix and water actually.

Ruth; And here is your finish line pic. You look dirty and tired was it really hard?

Lydia; Well I wasn’t dirty, daddy was dirty.

Ruth; Oh right you were perfectly clean. Were you hungry?

Lydia: Actually I wasn’t that hungry. Well I mean I didn’t feel hungry but I was hungry.

Ruth; So did you eat anything?

Lydia; And then after we ate hamburgers before we went back to our camp ground we stopped at a gas station and we got some ummm cheddar popcorn and ice cream bars.

Ruth; Were you tired? I got a picture of you fast asleep on the couch in the camper.

Lydia; Wait Ruth now can I say something?

Ruth; Go ahead.

Lydia; Ummm and the after I got out of a warm shower I laid in my bed and feel asleep for two hours (Lydia time). Ok now go back and read it to me and tell me if this is dumb.

Ruth; OK I’ll read it to you but it’s not dumb, it’s cute.

Lydia; (after I read it to her and she laughed the whole time) It’s funny.

Ruth; Good now I just need to go back and edit. One more thing, I found these pictures anything to say about them?

Lydia; Um well that one of us was the first picture at the start you were trying to find. And um after the bike ride dad’s socks were sooo dirty and plus it was his new socks!

Ruth; So can you please tell me why you rode 105 miles in one day?

Lydia; Well I don’t really keep track of how many miles I ride, but I kinda knew I was doing something 100, but I didn’t really know, and my mom didn’t know before the night before that I was doing 108, she thought I was doing 40 or something.

Ruth; So you and mom didn’t really know you were doing 100 at all? Was it worth it? And would you do it again?

Lydia; YES!!! Next year I wanna do Land Run!

Ruth; Anything else you have to say before you go?

Lydia; Umm huuu … I don’t know.

Ruth; OK thanks for your story sis, you can go play now. So there you have it, my nine year old sister has stuck out 100 miles on a bike and wants to do it again. If she can so can you! When dad gets home I’ll get him to clear up some of the details and how long it took etc… But today was a pretty fun blog.

*Lydia comes back* “Ruth, will you read it to me again?” *Sigh* OK…

P.S. It took 9hours something.

Hotter ‘N Hell Weekend 2019

October 8, 2019 / paluxypedaler / 1 Comment

Wednesday evening (Aug 21) Team Smith packed up and headed up to Wichita Falls for the weekend and the back of the van looked about like this…

Can you see where this is going? We arrived and set up the camper around eleven at night and collapsed in bed. Of course the next morning we were up and at ’em again on a nice 30 mi ride.

And yes there’s three shadows in that picture. The third one is my little pocket rocket. With a big grin as always :p

And we just had to get a picture here. How could we prove we were there if we didn’t?

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to mention that we actually had a job here too, not just riding. We were supposed to be promoting the Paluxy Pedal. So that after noon we had to set up our booth.

We spent all afternoon handing out flyers and talking to people and chatted with other vendors that evening at the vendors meeting. The next morning we decided to try the trail out to the lake. We started out in the wrong direction and found ourselves headed back the way we came but we got there eventually. At least we got to see the falls while we were going the wrong way. Well not really wrong but opposite of the lake.

As you can see the trail is really pretty and lots of those little bridges. Only suggestion, don’t try to ride it on a long bike such as a tandem with a trailer because there are a few sharp, tricky and blind turns. And I would have a nice pretty pic of Lake Wichita but I forgot to get one. I did though get the mural on the dam though. On our way back to the camper we made a pit stop for dad to get a coffee and Lydia a huge chocolate muffin.

If you like coffee, muffins, scones and books try Eighth Street. Dad had to pull me out of there before I did a purge to their take a book leave a book collection. I only left with two books but that’s two more than we walked in with. I have no pictures from that afternoon but we were very busy. As soon as the expo opened at one people started to come in the doors. By two when reg opened things were getting into swing. Two ladies from our committee came to help and when they left they took Lydia home.

The next morning I kinda wanted to sleep in but no luck. Everyone outside was up by five and so were we. Eventually we made our way down to the starting line and since we are a tandem we got front row spots.

By seven we were off and made it to Iowa Park before we saw the fly over. We set off to do the Chupacabra challenge which is 100k in the morning on road and 100k that night on gravel but when we got to the turn off dad turned left and we did 100mi.

I think we did pretty good for not planing on 100mi. We finished it around noon so that’s only a little more than 5h which is 20mph, faster than we normally make. That afternoon we did a lot of eating and resting till that evening.

It was good until this one part near the beginning where it was all lose and chunky and we had to walk and then it was nice after that.

We rolled in around eleven twenty I think which makes it about 4:20h. Over all about a 170mi day. more than I’ve ever done in 24 hours but I was on a tandem and it’s really flat around Whichita. In all a great day and I slept pretty well that night too. Oops almost forgot… the professional photos of the night (I couldn’t decide which was better).

Yeah so that’s it. I don’t know why the photos loaded all blurry but I’m too lazy to try and reload them all. Just this last week was The Texas Time Trials, two weekends from now is The Paluxy Pedal. This weekend is The El Camino and at some point I might finally finish the half started FreeWheel blog (from June!). So hopefully I’ll get some more blogs out soon. But judging on how it normally goes you’ll be lucky to have one before the year is out. Maybe by then I’ll have figured out how to properly use word press 🙂

P.S. We got into LandRun100!!!!!!!!!!!! Dad and Lydia are going to try tandem this year!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.P.S. Don’t ask why this has been a drafts for weeks and never posted.

Hillsburo Hustle and more…

April 16, 2019 / paluxypedaler / Leave a comment

So here is a update blog about what we have been up to.

After LandRun we took Lydia and ourselves out on a “recovery ride” where Lydia got to test out her new trailer bike.

My Gravel Advocate jersey is finally starting to fit her.

I think dad was the one testing things out more than any thing, even if it is “her” bike (which I think is really more like a unicycle). For like a week after this she was complaining that her butt hurt and didn’t want to ride with us. Meanwhile I was thinking “I’ve been doing 60-100mi, so after just 40mi? I’m feeling great!

Next my cousin Cody came. When we have time, we try to take him out on a ride with us.

He is always excited to go riding with us, but usually comes back complaining (like Lydia) of a sore butt. How can it get any better than starting out on the back of a tandem? Even more on gravel!

Hillsboro Hustle

Saturday morning we drove over to Hillsboro while it was raining and SUPER windy wondering if we were even going to get the bikes out of the car. But by the time we got there, the rain had stopped and it had warmed up some (even though it was still super windy). Lydia said she wanted to ride; how do you not ride if she will? (I mean how would she ride if we didn’t but minor detail.)

Here is the only picture of me with my jacket on before I gave it to Lyd. We assumed that she had brought hers, but she forgot. She got really cold in the wind, especially since we got rained on rather hard for a few minutes soon after we started. Also, above pic is Kadatz. This place has acres of stuff… like these combine corn heads.

Here are dad’s pictures from the ride. We had intended to do the 60ish mi loop, but when we got there we decided on the 45ish mi because of the wind. Did I mention the wind? It followed us everywhere! In front of us, from the left, from the right, but never behind us until the last few miles.

Pictures by Spinistry (first set).

And the second set.

And here is their finish line picture. (Guess I missed mine)

But here is one with me and Lydia.

Other Cool Stuff

So one day we were out riding and this guy was in the back of his truck and he said he caught something and did we want to see it. We were like well yeah, Ok. and it was a …

Porcupine!

We guess he had trapped him the night before in a snare and brought him along. But my question is… what are you going to do with it? Meanwhile with all the warm weather we have been having, all of the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes have been coming out…along with the buffalo.

So yeah, that is all I can think of for now. Next blog will be who knows when and until then…Hasta la vista.

LandRun 100

March 31, 2019 / paluxypedaler / 2 Comments

We had lots of fun this weekend with lots of great photos, which I will try to roughly put in order for you. Starting now …

My sister Lydia really wanted to come with this year but she is not quite tall enough for the tandem just yet. She was kind enough to send us plenty of texts and video cheers all through the weekend.

Elliot and Emory Wintle and I Thursday evening.

Here is the only picture I can find from Friday. We just ran around setting up bike stands and talking to everybody all day.

Trevor Steward MC extraordinaire on the stage behind me

Anyone who was there for the start could tell you it was not warm when we started, 27 degrees to be more or less exact. If you are from Texas and not used to colder weather, i.e. us, it was freezing, but I’m sure the man we met from Michigan was having a great time.

I don’t really remember when/where these first two were, but it was somewhere in the first half. The one on the right is by Crushing lake. Too bad we don’t have a picture of the steep slippery rocks we climbed( actually I walked) by the lake also.

Dad had fun on Brethren Hill …

I didn’t have quite as much … but we both made it. And now that I’m done it’s great to say I rode it, even if I was tired for the next 20 miles after.

Once we got to Perkins, out of the crowds, the sun came out. We swapped bottles and swapped trash for food etc, and we hit the road again. I felt better which was good because of what I had heard about the course the day before (the back half was worse [or do I mean better?] than the front half). Oh yeah thanks Kevin Lee (Spinistry) for being our drop bag service this year.

Here are more pictures of the middle of nowhere. I do remember getting off and walking because of the big crack in the road (middle photo). Also I walked over the old wooden bridge that was out (wish we had a photo). Later, we found out we weren’t actually supposed to cross.

This was one of the few places there was actually any water or mud. All I could think of while I rode through this was tomato soup. Then I thought about how in the cartoons, if you get sprayed by a skunk then you take a bath in tomato soup (which doesn’t really work I don’t think). Why couldn’t you take a bath in red mud? Does anyone else let their mind wander when riding and come up with weird stuff like this?

Here Neil Taylor caught us, or did we catch him? Well, I don’t know but we’ve got picture proof we saw him.

This was the “oasis” stop by Vittoria. It was right after we turned off the highway, got off and walked because of … something, rode under the highway we just got off of, on something (I don’t even know if you could call it a path) … and there it was. I was really hoping to find a soda or at least a cold water at this stop. Turns out my choices were warm water, a beer or a shot (the last 2 don’t even really count as choices for me). So I just ate a Payday with dad. After dad drank a beer we left again on the “I don’t even know if you could call it a path” until we once again found gravel. As soon as we found gravel it turned to sand (above right picture).

After what seemed like a long time we started seeing these signs and I got a bit excited.

So here is our pic on Salsa’s 2019 gold chaise lounge. What do ya think? Is it better than 2018’s red one?

Even MORE pictures of me. I really needed to take a camera with me so that these blogs aren’t just filled with me. That or take dad’s camera away from him.

And finally after a long time of sitting here I am getting to the end of all the pictures from this very long day.

Keith Smith ~ 9:53:12 h ~ 10.44 mph ~ 850/1053 overall ~ 713/861 Male 7/8 Men’s Fat Bike.

Ruth Smith ~ 9:53:11 h ~ 10.44 mph ~ 849/1053 overall ~ 124/176 Female 2/3 Women’s 19 & Under.

So we were standing over by a food truck (big surprise that we were hungry) and my name was called. I missed my podium pic but here is one with Crystal and one with Bobby.

Summary

We had a great weekend. We met and talked to a lot of people. It was my second LandRun, and I still haven’t ridden in mud (yay). I hope to be there next year, but that is too far away to tell yet. I did get this posted within the month of the ride (even if it’s the 31st). Actually too soon to tell… I still have to get it proof read and then hit “Publish”. If this made the final cut and you are reading it then yay the “Publish” button was hit.

Team Smith 2019

March 11, 2019 / paluxypedaler / 1 Comment

Hola! Guess what? We have been lazy! Last time we posted was Mar 4, 2018!

Today, over a year later, we are going to see how much of last year we can remember.

So, first was LandRun100, 2018 (which in 2019 is this week, yay!).

We were handing out Paluxy Pedaler stickers and patches on the morning of the picture, but I can’t remember if it was Friday or Saturday.

Saturday morning, bright and early, we started off with vests, arm-warmers, and other stuff which we ditched at Guthrie (half way). Thanks, Brenda Christian for lugging our stuff for us.

Above picture: It was at this point that, after looking back, we decided my father was done. Good thing we didn’t know at the time. This was only mile 80.

2018 was a dry year for LandRun, so our finishline pics did not have us covered in mud like others have in past years…(a good thing for our white jerseys). We made it in 7:45:13. Our average was roughly 13 mph and we were ranked fifth tandem…(275th over all). Of course, all of that is according to the website, so who really knows.

Sometime during that weekend we picked up this set of custom rims with a generator hub for dads cutthroat.

The next ride I can remember doing was…

Texas Gravel Championships

It was a nice warm day as you can tell from my kit.

This ride was delayed from May to July because of rain. The weather was nice, but it did get hot that day. We saw this pretty red barn, had fun with shadows and even lost some water bottles on the washboard.

We got placed in a “miscellaneous” category with fat-bikes and single-speeds, and I don’t even remember what rank we made in that group. 100mi in 7:13

The next ride I can think of is…

Ranchero 100

We did ride in between July 2018 and March 2019 but not any gravel events. We did do some road events in between then which I hope to post on later. This year I (Ruth) have mostly been trying to ride my own bike to train for LandRun. Therefore, Ranchero was my first solo 100 miler.

Of course packing proper nutrition is important and eating it is equally important. Only packing it with you will not get the nutrients into your body! (I didn’t quite eat enough!)

We took the camper down and spent the night in Hearne, TX (the start/finish).

I got a nice new long sleeved Spinistry jersey, but I covered it all day with my jacket. It was slightly misty when we started and warmed up to about 50 degrees. There was a lot of dampness and fog all day.

When we ride together, dad tends to ride the fat-bike and it evens out our speed pretty well. Otherwise, I’d never catch him. We finished 103mi in 8:04. I’m not sure but I think he was the only person in the 100mi fat-bike category.

So………….

That’s all I can think of for now. Next week or month or year, SOMETIME we will blog about 2019 LandRun. Someday I’ll blog about the Texas Time Trial and Paluxy Pedal. Eventually, we’ll blog about all the rides we hope to do in the future. But I’m not sure if it matters because I don’t know who actually reads these (Especially our first ones with like near nothing to read). If you did actually read this thank you very much. 🙂

P.S. I like ( these ) thingies.

P.P.S. If you are at LandRun100 this year we should have some Paluxy Pedaler and Gotta Love Gravel patches, stickers and shirts for sale.

Gotta Love Gravel 100

March 4, 2018 / paluxypedaler / Leave a comment

Our first 100 before land Run 100, in 6h, 45min, moving avg 15 mh.

Tracks coming out of Morgan.

Cool old rail-less bridge.

Meridian state Park hill ” ouch “. Ditched the arm warmers at the top.

We were coming down a hill and hit the brakes today.

The shake down ride went pretty good, used 6 bottles, 2 sodas, 3 bars, 3 gels, and 2 chews. Put on the aero bars and they helped out some. Had about 4000ft of climbing. Top speed on a couple occasions was over 35mph. The roads are in pretty good condition. Have to watch out for washout, ruts and pots holes from the recent rains. One of the worst low water crossings they installed four culverts, hopefully they will stay in place this time. The others were about bottom bracket depth.

PaluxyPedaler

Author: paluxypedaler