Ride Report: Tour d'Italia (Italy, TX)

For a couple years, I've been hearing that Lone Star Cyclists' annual Tour d'Italia is one of the best-organized, most fun rides around, so Turtle and I were really looking forward to a day of small-town charm and scenery. Unfortunately, after 39 straight days without a drop of rain, the weather forecast for the day of the rally called for 60% chance of strong thunderstorms for the entire weekend. Turtle decided that although she wouldn't melt in the rain, she didn't want to risk the possibility of having to drive home in a downpour with our bikes exposed to the wind and rain.

So we went to plan B. Turtle would give this one a miss, and I would go ahead and give it a shot—but only if I could somehow manage to fit my bike inside my car.

After some experimentation, I discovered that, by removing the seat from my bike and sliding the passenger seat of my Civic foward a bit, I was able to fit the Corsa and all my crap in like a jigsaw puzzle and it would be protected from the elements.

On the way to Italy, the sky began to brighten. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds a couple times, and I thought of how disappointed Turtle would be if the weather turned out to be crying wolf (as it likes to do, in Texas) and she missed a sunny ride. But not to worry, because by the time I arrived at the high school for the start of the ride, it was sullen storm clouds as far as the eye could see.

But still no rain.

I was running late, so I ended up having to park a couple hundred yards from the registration area. By the time I'd walked there from my car, walked back to my car, assembled my bike, rode to the start, remembered that I'd forgotten to pin my bib number on my seat back, rode back to the car, rode back to the start—well, I didn't get to start with the main group.

And it had started to spit, but not much.

I headed out onto the route all by myself and decided that since I wasn't really going to be part of the group, I might as well hammer. Which, of course, meant that I caught up with all the really slow riders who had left a bit earlier. The promotional materials for Tour d'Italia claimed that all the routes but the 62-miler were flat, except for one good climb. Judging from the number of people I saw littering the rolling hills along the route, I wasn't the only one whose idea of "flat" differed from that of the ride organizers. Oh, there was nothing really vicious, but I was having a tough time keeping any momentum because of all the people who couldn't go on and simply stepped off their bikes to stand in the middle of the road while they sipped water and caught their breath.

I've never seen anything like it, especially in light of the fact that the route was out and back. There were riders coming the opposite direction, as well, with motorists driving down the middle of the road to avoid the idiot cyclists who refuse to keep to the side. I just want to scream at these people, because not only are they taking their own lives in their hands, but they're creating a lasting impression (read: "resentment") in the minds of drivers who will subsequently try to crush me under their wheels, despite every attempt I might personally make to follow the laws and be considerate of my fellow vehicles.

But I digress.

By a couple miles out, it had started to rain lightly, but I pressed on. By five miles, it was raining harder, and the pavement had changed from rough blacktop to worn, smooth blacktop that was collecting water into nice little puddles. By seven miles, riders coming from the opposite direction were urging everyone to turn around. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what they were saying. Some of it was lost in the rumbling of thunder.

I turned around and hammered back the way I'd come, sometimes as briskly as 32 mph down the rollers. In fact, I hammered right out from under the rain and on to dry pavement. I wavered but held to my decision all the way back to the car, where I disassembled my bike and had just placed the last piece of the packing puzzle when the sky opened up and poured cats and dogs and buckets of frogs.

15 miles with a 15.3 mph rolling average, and I didn't even get far enough into the ride to be able to tell you how the rest stops were. As I drove home in the rain, I took some comfort in the thought that my lawn would be getting a good watering, but as fate would have it, none of the storms ever made it as far north as our place.

Ah well. At least the T-shirts are kind of cool.