NB's Comments:

The plan was simple... drive up to Wichita Falls, TX... ride 100 miles... drive home.  It's the details that sometimes elude me...

First, by the time we decided to do this, there were no hotel rooms available.  I guess when 12,000+ cyclist descend upon a small town like Wichita Falls, the available hotel rooms aren't so available. 

I also forgot what a haul it is to Wichita Falls... 376 miles... one way!  UGH!

Anyway, I picked up shaggy at round 14:30 on Friday afternoon.  We threw his gear in the car and the bike on the back and headed north to Wichita Falls.  The ride was completely uneventful except for a few stops for road food.

We arrived at the convention center just in time to pick up our packets and catch about 15 minutes of the vendor show where I purchased a new triathlon seat and a T-shirt for a dollar.

We set up our tents in an open grassy area beside the convention center around 22:30, and I cussed all the people making too much noise and prayed the train that kept blowing its horn all night long would run off the tracks and burn!

Needless to say, I was not well rested when my Timex Iron Man woke me up at 05:00... I'm assuming I was not too pleasant either.

We tore down camp, moved the car to a spot closer to the race start and pedaled to the starting line with the other 12 gazillion people for the flyby of the T38s and the singing of the National Anthem.  And with that, we were off around 07:15.

The first three to four miles was a tad tricky... entirely too many people... but eventually we broke free from the crowd and got underway. 

We had to be at Hells Gate by 12:30.  Hells Gate is the place where you have to be get to finish the 100-mile ride... if you miss it, you have to do the 100K ride... about 62 miles.  We had no plan of missing it... (we passed through it at 10:30).

We were clipping along pretty good in a reasonably paced pace line when a quicker pace line zipped by at about 25... 26 mph.  shaggy and I dropped out of the slower line and hopped on the end of the quicker line.  I reckon the speed was too much for some folks, because it wasn't long until several folks dropped out.  The next thing I knew, it was me, shaggy and some huge muscular dood pulling us along.  This big fella would yell, "ON YOUR LEFT!" over and over again as slower lines would pull to the side and cuss us... "Slow down!"  Yeah, whatever...

We were with this dood for about eight miles when shaggy starts yelling something, but I couldn't really hear him...  I eventually heard "FLAT!" and with that, we pulled to the side and went to work on his bike... both of us not too pleased we lost the tank that was pulling the train like he was...

We were 27 miles into the ride when we changed shaggy's flat.  While he had the tools out, I went ahead and tightened up my handlebars.  Seems the specified torque for the stem bolts wasn't enough to stop the bars from rotating.

Aside from this stop, we hadn't stopped at a rest stop yet, so we pulled into the first rest stop at about mile 31.  We refilled water bottles and Camelbaks with cold fluids and got back on the road again...

Our next stop was at around mile 53.  We stopped for more fluids and a little something to eat.  I think my computer said I had burned around 3,000 calories at this point... some food would be good.  Cookies, sugar donuts, watermelon, bananas, pretzels, etc.

Around mile number 70, stuff was starting to hurt.  Specifically, the ball of my right foot was just plain hurting; my legs were a little sore and my back didn't seemed to be too pleased with my choice of "fun."  I was glad to pull into the rest stop at around mile number 75. 

We planned for that to be our last stop, but my mangina was beginning to hurt, so I dropped the front into the smaller gear for one of the hills.  But after the hill, I tried to shift back into the big rang, and of course, the POS wouldn't go.  I kept pedaling for a bit like this, but at mile number 91 I was getting a bit pissy because our speed had dropped because I couldn't get the bike into gear.  shaggy and I jacked with it for a bit, but we were unsuccessful in fixing it, so I finally just said I'd finish it out in the wuss gear upfront.

We crossed the finish line after 101.81 miles.  The time was about 5 hours and 4 minutes of riding time.  If you add the stops, the total time was 6 hours and 13 minutes. 

In summary, it was 101.82 miles, and it took us 5 hours and 4 minutes of riding time.  I'm pretty pleased with an average speed of 20.1 mph considering my stupid front derailer went on the fritz again.  I really like the 33.8 mph we hit on one of the down-hill sections.  But the most interesting statistic was burning nearly 6,100 calories!  And as such, we stopped at the Armadillo Grill in Bowie, TX, and I woofed down 3 eggs... grits... a ham steak... 4 French toast halves and two cokes. You gotta love places that serve breakfast all day.

That was that... aside from the six-hour drive home... but fortunately, shaggy drove the entire way while I napped and fiddled with the radio. 

And by the way... shaggy has talked me into the Iron Man in Cozumel in November of 2009. 

Stay tuned...