The Space Race is one of our favorite rides to do each year. This year we decided to try to get Vanessa's first century ride. We woke up at 5:00 to get down to Gulf Greyhound park. The ride started at 8:00. We got there about 7:00 and had to pick up our packets. Once we got there, I started getting the bikes ready, while Vanessa got our packets.
About 7:45, we headed over to the start line. They were starting the ride based on rider speed. They had 20+, 18-20, and below 18. When we lined up, another group of FMC riders came by. Since they were also planning to ride 100 miles, Vanessa and I decided to stick with them. The ride started with the launch of a model rocket, and off we went.
The ride headed south, then turned into the wind. Luckily the wind was not very strong at 8:00. After about 10 miles, we then turned south. We were moving along quite nicely. The pace/group we were in, was rolling along around 19-20 mph. We turned south and kept the pace up. We skipped rest stop 1 and headed on to rest stop 2. At one point, we were riding along with a group which was spread out, and not real easy to pass. I was off to the right of the rider in front of me because she was not real steady. Suddenly, I hear "oh crap, glass". I have just enough time to look left to see that there is no where for me to go. I then say, I guess it is time to see if the tubeless tires are worth it. The glass was small pieces from a broken windshield. It went over half way across the shoulder of the road. Luckily no one flatted, so we kept rolling along. At the rest stop several people were checking tires. I found two signs of glass cutting into the back tire, but no signs of glass still in the tire. I also did not see any signs of sealant, so it appears that the tires rolled nicely over the glass.
After the rest stop we were a group of 4 heading out to complete the 100 mile route. By this point we were all 80 or 100 mile riders on the course. We continued to head south. Through rest stop 3 and 4. Shortly after rest stop 4 we turned Northwest. Which happened to be directly into the wind. So after plugging along at 17-19 mph we slowed down to 11 mph. From mile 50-83 we had a nice head wind or cross wind to deal with. When we got to rest stop 7, we were informed that we would be turning to ride the most direct route back to the finish line. We ended up with 95 miles, got in at 4:30 pm. Which made for one long day.
