One of the nice things about bike riding is the opportunity to ride along beautiful places. Well, TeamOne members (Diana, Jodel, & Z) road along the Palm Coast Scenic A1A on Sunday, November 6, 2016, in support of the Spoonbills & Sprockets Cycling Tour.
The Ride
The team members started Sunday early to drive to Palm Coast, FL. The day started out overcast with the promise of rain, gusts of wind, and gorgeous views of the coast from Palm Coast all the way up to St. Augustine. Hurricane Matthew had left his mark, to be sure, but the Florida DOT made sure that roads were swept up in time for the ride!
The TeamOne riders started the day off with clouds, a light to medium intermittent rain for the first part of the course, and of course a “breeze”.
The plan was to ride 67 miles. The riders started at 8 am. After almost half way through a warm up of 2.5 miles, a team member had a flat!! The normal chore of removing the tire from the bicycle rim turned into an extreme sport. The riders had all the correct tools — that tire just didn’t want to be removed from the rim. Not to be beaten by a mere tire, Z got the tire separated (with only a few words of encouragement 😉 Not one nail, staple, or other indicators of why the flat happened could be found. Luckily, SAG support stopped by with a full-size tire pump and volunteers ready to assist. The tire was changed (in some rain), filled to somewhere between 90 to 110 lbs of pressure quickly with the help of SAG’s floor pump, and the team was back on the road.
The break while fixing the flat, after the warmup was a little long, and so the riders restarted their device’s mileage count over. The three members got underway at a good pace. After another 5 miles … a different team member got a flat — FLAT #2! In good spirits with the music still playing, the riders stopped and proceeded to fix the flat. Again, there was not an indicator of what caused the flat. Of course, the rain started again a minute into fixing the flat. This tire was a little easier to separate from the rim. This minimized the time it took to change the flat. Unfortunately, SAG didn’t come to the rescue with a floor pump. Z and Jodel took turns pumping the tire with a portable pump. This provided them with a great shoulder workout for the day. Success! Now the team was again underway.
Now that the two flats were out of the way, the riders enjoyed the scenery along the route. St. Augustine was only a few more miles away. The group pushed on, only stopping at St. Augustine for photos with the Lion statue at the base of the bridge.
The ride back was difficult. Even when it seemed the wind was coming from behind, there it was blowing from the side and front! The SAG Station was just up the way, though. The volunteers there were amazing. They had the usual Gatorade, water, snacks and plenty of enthusiasm to keep riders motivated. More photos were taken, some snacks eaten while hydrating, and the team was back on their way with only 9 miles remaining until they reached the starting/finish point. Remember they had planned on 67 miles. Now they were planning 40 due to lost time with flats and increasing winds.
Pushing along with the wind, they maintained a good pace. At the starting/finishing point, the team decided they had done their 36-miles (which includes the +2.5 miles they started with) and called it a day, in time for lunch. The universe and the riders were in synch. While storing the bicycles and upon inspection of rider #3’s tires (the one that did not have a flat that day)… there were 2 pieces of steel embedded in the tire. This would have been flat #3 if they had continued. The tour coordinators mentioned there were 15 flats that day in the first 36-miles!
Lunch was provided by the Hammock Beach Resort. It was not only beautiful but also tasted wonderful! There were vegetarian sandwiches, potato salad, pasta salad, chili, turkey, pulled pork, cookies, and brownies. What a spread!! After lunch, the members were able to enjoy a tour of Marineland courtesy of the Spoonbills & Sprockets Cycling Tour. It was a bonus for participating.
To say the ride was hard is an understatement. Yet the scenic route and camaraderie among the riders made everything a stellar day.
The average speed of the riders was 17.6 mph. With gusts of up to 20 mph that didn’t let up, this was something to be proud of. Sometimes the stats don’t show the real effort it takes to ride. If you ever would like to know just ask one of the team members, they can tell you straight up how it really was.
Event Day Statistics
Let us talk about some facts and figures about the wind that day according to Weather Underground … If you take an average man’s weight (180lbs), the minimum (7mph) – maximum (14) – gust (20mph) wind velocity for the day, along with average speed (17.6mph) and use Aerodynamics principals this is what it takes in effort to maintain 17.6 mph average over the varying wind speeds.
Maintain 17.6 mph Average
This is the course charted by one of the team members who participated in +36-mile route.
Photos
If you would like to ride with us next year bookmark our Spoonbills & Sprockets Scenic A1A Cycling Tour event page.
Ciao,
TeamOne
We can’t thank our team members enough for staying active in our community!!! 🙂
This was a great ride!! Even though it was so windy, the scenery more than made up for it. And even though there was evidence of Hurricane Matthew still around, people were not at all deterred from this ride. The organizers did an awesome job on this. But I do have to say that 2 flats in the first few miles was crazy, and even crazier was the discovery of an impending flat on a 3rd bike! I can’t wait to do this again next year — it is already on my calendar .
I echo hale kiana’s comments … it was a great ride!!! The wind was a little stronger than typical but it was bearable. The flats were disheartening but we didn’t let that deter us. Onward into the gust of wind !!! 😉