We started yesterday's ride with a rant from Kevin about Fox News. He' s been working out on the stairmaster at his gym and the giant TV on the wall in front of the machine is always tuned to Fox, so he's sweating away while staring at a glamorous blonde looking quizzically at an ugly white middle-aged male bloviator. Not too dissimilar to my own gym experience, except that I watch Family Feud with the sound turned down and try to guess what the question was based on the answers, almost like Jeopardy.This got me thinking aloud about a possible "Ask an angry Liberal" section on Fox and Friends, in which Kevin explains it all and the blonde replies something to the effect of " that's a very shallow analysis Kevin, are you sure you've thought it through?" This unlikely scenario had us all laughing pretty hard as we walked into Starbucks. I always wonder what the baristas think about the group of men in Lycra who show up for coffee every Saturday morning, all laughing like maniacs.
Anyway I must have been feeling my granola (home-made with pecans and maple syrup, since you ask) because I proposed a trip to Sealy. This was speedily agreed and off we went to take on our toughest ride for probably the third time this season.
I'd hoped that we could put the cold weather gear away until the fall, but we certainly needed it for this ride, I doubt we got out of the 40's all the way round. Lee the human lizard had been as low as four layers recently but was back to the full six this morning.
We're getting into migration time, and we often see some impressive birds on this route, particularly on the run down to San Bernardo, which Kevin has christened "Caracara Alley" because we've seen several there. Today we actually saw one in flight, an awe-inspiring sight. With a good wind out of the east on our backs we made it to the first break point (the feed store in San Bernardo) in record time, realizing of course that we would have to pay for the fun with a head wind through the Alpe de Sealy section. But that was 20 miles away.
The next section has a Tara-like estate, complete with a lake and a crunchy gravel drive. I don't normally get much of a look at it because it's half way up a long, fairly gentle climb, but the tail wind let me lift my head for once. Another feature of this bit are the hell hounds that have chased us with evil intent on several occasions. The last time we did this route I was wearing my helmet-cam, and I turned it on at this point in the hopes of catching the fun on film, but the mutts didn't materialize. Lee pointed out that since I wasn't wearing it today we would probably get charged, and if we did it would be my fault. In the end there was a truck passing us right on the dog corner so we couldn't make a wide turn. If the dogs had come out to play they would have had us bang to rights! Fortunately they were a no-show.
On to Cat Spring, where we take another break before the scary hills. As we rolled through the town, Kevin commented to me that the miles were just flowing by today. If I hadn't been so tired I would have squirted him with my water bottle. I felt ok but my legs knew they'd been working.
The Cat Spring Country Club was jumping that morning, with two actual customers to keep the grumpy proprietress busy. I actually managed to get a smile out of her when I paid for our waters. She couldn't remember what bill I paid with so I told her it was a five - no wait, it was a fifty. Another five or ten more years and she might actually say hello and goodbye to us.
And so to the hills. The order of the day was a kind of anti-Three Musketeers - every man for himself! Kevin and Lee screamed ahead on the first climb and I didn't really see much of them until the top of the last, where they were good enough to wait for me. Overall I did pretty well, using my gears intelligently for once. I was slow but didn't have to kill myself, and as a result felt reasonably good on the final run down route 36 back to Sealy. But I think that's enough Sealy time this year, boys.
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