Tour de Cure 2007

This past weekend was the 2007 Tour de Cure bike ride from San Antonio to Austin. Here is my recap...

Saturday morning broke nice and early and Carri and I headed over to the start line. At the start line we met up with my friend Dave who rode with my team "Wedding Crashers" this year. After the Star Spangled Banner we were off at about 7:45 AM. Within the first 2 miles Dave realized he had put his front tire on incorrectly and his speedometer was not reading, so we pulled over to fix that issue. That was just the start of Dave's issues for the day. Dave has been in the process of moving and has not had much time to train and with work and the move he has been burning the candle at both ends so his energy was really low. We did get to ride together for the first 25 miles or so until the 50/80 mile route split. Dave decided to do the 50 miler while I was gonna stick to the original plan of riding the 80 miler. After making the split it was time for my usual day one wrong turn. The past two years I have somehow missed one turn sign and added some mileage to the route. This year it was a wrong turn that added a short 3 mile out and back to the course. Besides that the winds and the temperatures were low for this time of year and I finished the 83 miles at about 12:30 averaging a little over 18 mph.

After the route met up with my pit crew of Carri and Dave and found out Dave was not feeling well and was gonna head home instead of riding Day Two. A real bummer but sometimes sleep is the thing that will cure what ails ya. Of course he did come out and did raise money for the ADA and that is what really matters. After heading to the hotel and catching some zzzs it was time to head over to the Saturday night celebration for dinner and to see if I was the top fundraiser for Central Texas.

The Saturday Night Celebration is always a fun event and a nice way to relax after a long day of riding. This year the entertainment was hula girls and a Hawaiian band. Very interesting choice but also tons of fun. Unfortunately, I learned I was not the top fundraiser for Central Texas and finished in second place with $4,100 raised. The first place fundraiser came out of nowhere and raised a whopping $6,500. He is however being investigated by Operacion Puerto for potential illegal doping (a little cycling humor). As always I thank everyone who donated towards the cause.

After the celebration it was back over to the day one finish line/day two start area to help Carri set up for the start of Day 2 as she is the start line coordinator. We stayed there until about 10 pm and it was too dark to do anymore work for the evening. Back to the hotel to help her make a few more signs for the morning and tell her to go to bed since she was getting up at 4 AM to head back there.

I was up and over to the start by 7 AM and even with all her worrying the start line area was fantastic. Carri has done an amazing job the past two years with the Day two start and her efforts are not only greatly appreciated by me as a rider but I am sure the ADA staff could not do this event without her. Way to go babe, you rock!

Another fantastic riding day, low winds, cool temps for this time of year, 82 miles with no incidents is a good riding day to me. Finished at around noon with an average speed of once again roughly 18 mphs.

Great job by Carri with the Day Two start area, amazing support from my family and friends, and large buckets of money for the ADA to continue the fight against diabetes. Sounds like a great weekend to me.