Tandem Madness at the Lance Ride

Tom and Ron on the tandem.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....The Lance Ride on the new course this year was great. But hard. Not as hard as the knotty cramp in my leg during the Waco ride, but hard nonetheless. On with the tale.

After following the line of ants-with-bike-racks driving out 290, we arrived in Dripping Springs, were efficiently told where to go, and unloaded at the middle school. The weather was perfect for a bike ride. Overcast for most of the morning, nice temperatures, mild winds. The roads would turn out to be clean, rest stops ample, volunteers friendly, and plenty of cheerful law enforcement support from Hays and Blanco county. We warmed up with a 6 mile ride to our start, chatted with friends, and waited for the festivities to begin.

The ride started at a brisk pace. Riding in the frontest group was a challenge - the Livestrong Challenge I guess. With a police moto lead vehicle, a sag wagon handing up energy bars, and a support/rear guard vehicle, our Lance-pack was probably 40 riders to start. The early pace though was certainly not a gentle “Let's ride with the celebrities” pace, as people were steadily stripped off, down to about 20 bikes. This group included the man himself, Mari Holden(Olympic Silver Medallist, World Champion, Six Time National Champion, Ride for the Roses veteran rider), Kevin Livingston(6 time Tour de France Rider, US National Champion), about 4 of the Team Six riders including Karl Haussmann, and Will Ross(in San Jose kit). Some of the other friendly folks in this pack included John(competing in the world duathlon bike/run championships next week), Peter (sporting his 2007 California state champion full kit), Jessica (apparently an Austin pharmaceutical rep who buried most of the other riders), Steve(full Discovery kit), and others I did not recognize including at least one other pro-racer looking type Lance was chatting with. And oh yes... Ron and Tom sharing a bike. No other tandems. And where was the VC crew Tom P. promised to pop out from around a corner?

I'll begin with the obvious. It is hilly between Dripping Springs and Blanco. Not grind-it-out-for-half-an-hour hilly, but rather up-down-up-down-chase-the-little-single-bikes-up-the-rollers hilly. Again, this was not a polite “ride with the stars” pack, but rather a hold on and don't get dropped in the sprints out of the corners. When the pace became reasonable, I think it was Lance yelling to the 2 front guys pulling, “Girls, can you pick up the pace?”

The cattle guards were a little intimidating. Not that cattle guards usually bother me. But dealing with 25 or 30 cattle guards at a brisk pace, in a pack, introduces an element of concern. On the tandem, jumping the guards is typically not a viable option. Luckily, no one in our lead pack went down on the cattle guards. The only casualties were some water bottle launchings.

Not the same can be said for the sole wet low water crossing on the 90 mile route. We hit it as a pack, and chaos ensued. Slip sliding and wham three people were in the drink lickety split. No one was hurt. We were mainly surfing the back of the pack for these first 15 miles, so I took the hint to stop when the dominoes started falling, and Ron and I waded swiftly though the riverlet. You would have thought the pack would have stopped to regroup for the fallen riders, or taken it easy on the climb out from the low water crossing; however, if you thought this too long you also would have been left behind by everyone remounting, worrying about being left behind, and racing on from the turmoil.

Lance drifted back to the security vehicle after this, probably to have them to place a flagger at the water crossing. When he jammed back to the front while we were climbing a pretty pitch, Ron asked if Lance was breathing hard. Ha ha ha Ron, afraid not. Similarly, Mari Holden took a casual monster pull on the front for 15 minutes, chatting away the whole time.

My fear in the pack was overlapping wheels with Lance, taking him down, and running him over with 350 pounds of tandemness. Ron's fear should have been Lance noticing the Kurzawa-esque biking shorts while Lance was riding his wheel, but luckily Ron didn't know about the shorts until a friendly and quite attractive woman pointed it out at mile 78 or so while we were climbing a hill.

Things let up a bit around the 30 mile mark. The hills had toasted us nicely, but the pace seemed to back off a click, and we could relax slightly. I think we averaged 20.1 hilly mph over the first 30 miles. We had gotten into somewhat of a rhythm, working towards the front of the pack on the flats or downhills and drifting backwards on the climbs. I tried to avoid blasting ahead on the descents with the tandem, but on some of the steeper straighter ones I could not help myself. We coasted past the pack with a line of riders in tow but we honestly didn't pedal off the front of the Lance pack. (The tandem is a powerful force, a force that can be used for good or used for evil....) Actually in the first ten miles of the ride we did some ferrying of dropped riders back up to the pack, but I doubt they stuck if they were being shed that early.

Suddenly, at mile 35, the wind came out of our sails. Cruising along, the celebrities all turned right and headed for home on the 60 mile course. The remaining riders (us and 5 singlebikes) felt abandoned on the 90 mile route. The group of 5 put their heads down and went to work. Ron and I were depleted, and watched as they rode away leaving us to soldier on alone. We did have a nice personal police escort watching our back for several miles after that on FM 32, and a support vehicle that came by a couple times. Thanks!

We had a lonely ride from mile 35 to mile 69. We suffered at times, out of gas. On the bright side we took a couple natural breaks. There were 5 riders in front of us, and in this whole segment we only saw four riders pass us; we couldn't latch on. Down the road we caught two of these riders and left them behind. At another rest stop, we passed a couple more refugees of the lead group.

The routes merged at mile 69, and things got interesting. We were picking up our pace a bit, and whammo. Suddenly Squadra Cassi came blasting by, looking sharp, with about 12 jammin riders flying in formation, with 2 hanger-ons. This is a team from Mexico; it helps speaking Spanish in the peloton. Ron and I grabbed on, feeling energized. This was a relatively flat but twisty section of the course so we used our tandemhood to its advantage. For 5 or so miles our group snaked its way along. However, the trouble as usual for the ride in was catching the short-route traffic. Around one tight corner we were boxed out, gapped, and couldn't catch back up to speed again. Rats.

And then promptly bump... sis...sis...sis...sis. How do you get a pinch flat on a little rock with the front tire at 115 PSI, after banging uneventfully over cattle guards all morning? We pulled over, changed the tube, and dispiritedly got back on the bike. Where is the neutral support vehicle with the spare tandem wheel when you need it? We muddled and moped our way back in the remaining miles. We got into camp, chatted with our new acquaintances from the peloton, scarfed some food, headed home, and napped.

We averaged about 19 mph. All in all it was an exciting day. We had fun, rode hard, met some people. See you at the Outlaw Trail 100.

-Tom McMinn