Springtown Suck, er, I mean, Spin.

My thoughts from our ride on Saturday were. “Well, the wind is a nice touch”, and that was just about the only “nice” thing I can say about the ride.

Tommy and I went to the Greater DFW area for the weekend to go to a friends wedding in Wichita Falls. We went to my parent’s house on Friday night to drop off the dog, see them for a bit and then hit up an organized Century Ride that I will affectionately call the Springtown Suck.

The Springtown Suck was intended to be our last century before the big dance, but since it sucked so bad, we didn’t finish and now we still have another long ride to complete. But in good news, I did get to take my first ride in the sag wagon. YAYY.

First of all, the roads in the Fort Worth metroplex suck. They suck a lot. I have never ridden on roads that suck as much as these roads sucked. I must be some spoiled brat about my roads, but seriously, we just don’t ride on roads that bad…ever. There are potholes, chip seal, no shoulders, awful drviers, fish tailing 18 wheelers, gravel, roadkill, you name, these roads have it…the one thing they DON’T have however is someone to actually design roads that don’t suck.

Secondly, the course was hilly. Really hilly. And we all know I suck at hills. And I wasn’t in the mood for hills. And I had run 19 miles the day before. And I was tired. And the roads sucked. And mostly, crappy roads just zap the energy right out of you…between that, the hills and the lovely headwind (that I swear we biked directly into the entire time), I was done. D.O.N.E. Done.

Of course, the roads, the hills and the wind are not the ride organizers fault…so this ride was not dubbed the Springtown Suck for reasons beyond their control. (Although, as a cyclist, I would take an activist approach to get those roads repaired, but that’s just me!).

The Springtown Spin was dubbed the Springtown Suck because it was the most terribly organized ride I have EVER been on.

We stopped at the 23 mile mark to pee, grab a snack, and refill water bottles. And thank goodness we stopped there, because the next aid station wasn’t until mile 53. And then at that aid station, they were out of water, Gatorade and snacks. They didn’t have enough snacks for the people on the 100 mile route. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

I brought about 90 ounces of water with me on the ride, I would have brought more, but that’s all I can fit on my bike. But after about 50 miles, I was out. Completely out of water. I brought enough snacks to get me through the day, but I usually like to eat the cookies and tasty treats provided at an organized ride, because “Hey, I paid for cookies, I wanna eat cookies”. But there weren’t any snacks at all. Sooo, I’m still not certain what my entry fee paid for. Because it couldn’t have been for the police officers “directing traffic…because those guys barely got out of their car, nevermind actually stopping traffic for us.

After the wonderful aid station at mile 53ish, we got back on our bikes, pissed off at this crappy ride…fully expecting to have to stop at a gas station to buy our own Gatorade and snacks. But we didn’t find an gas stations. Finally, we got to an aid station at about Mile 65. They had water refills, but no snacks…because when you ride 100 miles, all you really need is water. Electrolyte replacement is a myth.

And then things got really good.

I passed the station without stopping, but Tommy stopped. I passed him, but slowed down into an asphalt parking lot…or I thought it was asphalt. Turns out it was 3 inches of gravel. I wiped out. Awesome. Luckily, I wasn’t going very fast. I hurt my shoulder and got some road rash on my leg (ugh!), but all in all, I am totally fine. I won’t be swimming any time soon, but I’m okay. However, after the first 65 miles of terrible riding, I was done. I was tired, I was semi-hurt and I just didn’t want to ride anymore. So I just sat there.

I guess Tommy thought I was really hurt because he rode over to me really fast, hit the gravel and flew over his handle bars. It’s a good thing he has a head though because his face was there to break his fall. He landed face first into the gravel, scratched up his face, messed up his shoulder and forearm really bad, and road rash all over his knee. He looked like he lost a really long fight.

The best part about the Springtown Suck though, is that none of the volunteers at the aid station bothered to get up to see if we were okay. And then when I asked if we could get sagged, she laughed at me and asked what I would do with my bike. Are you freaking kidding me? He just flew over his handlebars. Use your brain.

We still had a little bit of water left and we were able to at least get most of the dirt out of our wounds on our own, and then convince the girls to call someone to pick us up. Well, the finally did call someone, but they told them to go to the wrong place…so we waited for about 45 minutes before anyone came looking for us.

The medic finally showed up with his kit of bandaids, which was helpful since you know we were scratched for head to toe. We convinced him to give us a ride back to the start (he didn’t really want to) and that was that.

Worst ride ever.

I will never ride in the DFW metroplex ever again. If I ever move to Dallas, I will give up cycling. I have now biked 140ish miles and all 140 sucked.

Springtown Spin can suck it.