Critz' Chili Century

(The Imperial Version)

While we were making final preparations, Slick took off riding laps around the neighborhood lake. We erroneously assumed it was his propensity for collecting points, as he needed a minimum of 102 miles to satisfy some arbitrary target imposed by Mr. Poppins (who was conspicuously absent). Mr. Poppins, now retired and generally assumed to be in his own point category--like 25,000--ostensibly decided to avoid being a bottom-feeder. He bumped all of those who thumped him in last year's 8000-point group to a 10,000-point category. He then created a 7,000-point target for himself and those in last year's 5000-point team, for whom he can prevail. However, Lil Bo Peep, who has not ridden in three months and is not retired, opted for the imperial century while are beloved Mr. Poppins favored the metric century, or was it a 50-mile loop?

Despite the layers of clothes that we all donned, no one was able to find a way to put Critz' map in a convenient location for reference. Critz stayed home to assist his wife prepare the food, leaving us with no one who was intimate with the route. In order to drive this point home, the route leader (the Flaming Goat) promptly missed the first turn. When the road narrowed to more of a trail, the group consensus was that we had missed the turn. Sure enough, upon the return of three or four miles, the missed road was found. Seems that the Goat misread the cumulative distance as interval distance. Of course, that would make it suspicious why the intervals kept increasing with each turn. In fact, Goat made the remark that he was really looking forward to the 26-mile section without any turns. Perhaps if he had perused the entire ride directions, he might have noticed that the last interval was 90.1 miles. Hmmm, wonder how long he thinks an imperial century is?

After completing the first hour of riding, layers of clothing were shed and tied onto body or bike parts. The suggestion was made to call Critz to "sag" the unwanted excess garments. Leaving Karen to mend to the cooking, Critz found us around mile 30 or so. More stripping of clothes occurred and at least one car driver seemed particularly interested in Tonto when he removed his fashion-statement, multi-colored Spandex leg warmers. She was scrambling for dollar bills in hopes Tonto would continue his public disrobing, but was disappointed when his biking shorts were not lowered. In the mean time, Slick was riding laps waiting for us to get done with the restroom, snacks, and strip tease show.

When we turned south again, the wind was noticeably stronger. Up ahead we saw a single rider. For the peleton, the chase was on. It turns out, that it was Tom who left after the group did, hammered to catch up, but unwittingly passed us while we made impromptu changes to Critz' route. He was glad to grab a wheel for a break from the headwind, but soon had a flat. We stopped after crossing the Brazos River. Eventually, we went back to see if he was OK. It was a fortunate mishap, because upon stopping we realized that the road heading north was the very road we needed to turn onto. Chances were quite high, that we would have pedaled right past it. Slick did no pacing during this stop, as he was the primary repairman. We had not gone even five miles on the correct road when Tonto alertly observed Tom's other tire looked flat. Apparently, Tom had neglected to pump up his tires at the start of the ride. He seemed to enjoy the second half of the ride more than the first 50 miles. No wonder that headwind seemed so brutal!

At the next intersection, confusion once again reared its ugly head. Critz' route was a scant 90.1 miles, necessitating the addition of miles somewhere along the route. Batman calculated that we had probably already added close to ten miles to get the imperial century, but Tonto did not want to come up short. We decided to ride four miles west then double back. Mike, a Cat 2 racer, had been incredibly patient, but had seen enough and opted to head back to the house. He made some thinly veiled reference to needing to get back by 3:30. Surprisingly, Slick didn't go with him, but chose to ride more laps during our decision-making process.

Confident that the full 100 miles would be completed, we turned north. The tail wind made the riding a breeze. Batman kept going on and on about his heart rate only being 124 as he and the Flaming Goat cruised along at 22 mph. In the process, the other five were inexplicably dropped and Sticky Vicki made it abundantly clear she really didn't care what Bat's heart rate was because her thighs hurt and that she wasn't a guy. Hey, her comment, not mine. Tonto couldn't stand seeing two riders with a gap over his group, so he pounded out a 29-mph pace to catch the two "breakaways." He was not particularly interested in Bat's heart rate, either.

The next rest stop came at the 99-mile mark. It was painfully obvious that based on Critz' map we still had 12 miles to go. In keeping with the daylong tradition, we bypassed the turn on County Road 59 and kept going north. The tail wind was nice, but the simple truth was that we needed to head east to get back to our vehicles. Suddenly, the shoulder deteriorated to pile of rumble resembling Afghanistan. We dodged loose rocks and humongous craters that would have done serious damage to a car. The Flaming Goat, on his knobby-tired hybrid, seemed to relish the adventure, but his sweetie (Lil Bo) did not share the sentiment.

At the next intersection, Batman called Critz for directions and gave Lil Bo Peep permission to sag while chastising Sticky Vicki for even considering doing the same. Armed with directions, we headed out to finish the final six miles into the wind. Lil Bo Peep hoped for a flat with tears in her eyes, but hung in there even when Critz showed up with a bike carrier. Sticky Vicki, out of spite, shunned Critz as well. Mr. Poppins didn't even attempt the Imperial Century.

We were welcomed by those who had finished the metric century hours before. They even left us chili and cake. Elapsed time to complete the 111 miles was over eight hours. We made sure to inform Slick that we spent nearly 1½ hours on breaks. The highest elevation, probably an overpass, was 125 feet and a total accumulated climb of 50 feet (almost as flat as the Brazos Bend ride earlier this year). The grub was great (thanks Karen and Critz!!). The ride was fun--maybe next year it will be colder for Critz.

-Batman