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.
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!
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 🙂
Course marking
Nasty potholes
Playing Jokes
Left to Right: Grandpa, I Anna, Esther
Right to Left: Lydia, Jeremiah and I
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 😉
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…
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.
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!).
Day before show off, clean and ready.
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.
Salsa’s red couch. #chasethechaise
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.
PaluxyPedaler 