Hotter ‘N’ Hell 2012
While not literally hotter than hell this year, it was
windier than hell out there! We were
blessed with moderate temps in the low to mid 90’s and a bit of God’s own air
conditioning in the form of a nice cooling breeze that was reported to be
gusting to over 35 mph.
This was my first trip back to Wichita Falls, TX and the
Hotter ‘N’ Hell since 1991. Obviously a
lot of stuff has changed since then, the course, where I stayed, (Yay, no
camping out in a tent with the fire ants), the weather, and my bike.
This year I decided comfort was going to be a deciding
factor and I wanted a good night’s sleep the night before, this meant air
conditioning, a real bed, and a real bathroom.
This required finding a motel which was kind of hard to do when you have
over 14,000 cyclists coming in for the ride.
The nearest motel Vicky could find for me was in Lawton Oklahoma, 50
miles away. I will say though, it fit my
definition of comfortable.
Ride day for me started at 0’dark 30, (0300) in order to get
my morning routines out of the way, the van repacked the drive back to Wichita
Falls and be there in time to get ready before the start of the ride. Rain was threatening the area when I looked
at radar but due to all the cyclists devoutly praying it would go somewhere
else our prayers were answered.
I got into the starting area with plenty of time to get
things packed, repacked, repacked yet again, (do I really need to carry a spare
tire? What about that extra bottle of
pickle juice? How about more energy
bars? Do I really need to carry three
spare tubes?) Yes, I over packed as
normal, (good thing I wasn’t towing a trailer, I’d have stuffed it full of crap
also!)
However somewhere in my repacking my phone got lost and I
didn’t discover it was gone till I was in the starting group and ready to
go. I initially thought I’d left it in
the van so I wasn’t super worried, I should have known better as it had fallen
in the parking lot. It was picked up by
a nice guy from Saginaw who returned it Monday.
He earned himself lots of thanks and a couple $20 bills.
From previous experience on the Hotter N Hell I knew that
the start was going to be were the most problems were going to occur. When you try and pack 14,000+ riders down a
road, things can get a little "entertaining". Fortunately the start was well organized and the
start was staggered by groups so we avoided the overwhelming crush or riders
all trying to get going.
Lurking in my mind was also the other bane of the Hotter N
Hell, the sheer amount of water bottles, seat bags, bottle cages, pumps and
other bike bits that were going to end up littering the course. This year was no exception. By the time I got 30 miles in, the
water bottles on the road were becoming a real hazard and causing numerous
crashes. When that many people are
packed up that tight on the roads at that kind of speed, crashes happen. I did manage to snag a nice Camelbak
insulated bottle that was in a pull off next to the road, I saw plenty of
others I wanted to grab but they were out of reach and I was out of room to
carry stuff anyway. I swear one of these
years, I am going to pull a trailer just to pick up all the bike bits that fall
off/get dropped out there.
This is the route for the 2012 Hotter N Hell. The north running bits were fun, the south
running bits, not so much so.
The ride start surprised me as it was earlier than
announced, which is why I missed getting video of the start. Since we had started at the front with the
tandems and the pace setters there were plenty of fast riders to set in
with. At one point I’d found myself a
nice pace line and settled in at 21 mph or so.
I glanced in my mirror and see a recumbent coming up FAST. Turns out, it was Roy on his carbon wonder bike. I heard later the reason he was hammering
that hard and flying that fast was to get to a bathroom.
I continued rolling past SAG #1 in hopes of getting to SAG
#3 before stopping to avoid getting caught up in the crowd of 14,000+
cyclists. Unfortunately my own call of
nature was beginning to scream so I pulled into SAG #2 and took care of
business. I grabbed some more water a
bite of food and tried to get back onto the road, but it was wall to wall
pacelines flying by. After catching a
break it was back onto the road. This
stretch proved fairly dangerous due to some inconsiderate people who either
passed me a little to close or cut in way to early, I had to remind a couple
folks that the front end of a recumbent is usually where the feet and chain rings
are and that they would not be very happy running into either.
By the 40 mile point I had used up the water in my Camelbak
bladder and was down to my water bottles as had been my initial plan. This meant that skipping upcoming SAGS wasn’t
going to be an option as I would need to refill my bottles about every ten
miles. The SAGS were all well stocked
with your typical ride food, lots of ice, water, Gatorade, (red & blue
flavors) oranges, bananas, Clif products, (a sponsor), and in the later SAGS, pickles
and pickle juice. Lots of the SAGS also
had homemade cookies which I made sure to sample. The volunteers manning the SAGS were all
extremely helpful and polite. The best
sag though had to be Margaritaville as it had the most homemade cookies, the
watermelon, and was ran by the high school cheerleaders. I found the blue Gatorade, Clif shot gels,
Clif mini bars, watermelon, pickles and homemade cookies worked for keeping me
hydrated and fueled during the ride. I
also found out the commercial pickle juice, Pickle Juice Sport tastes flat nasty but
seems to work.
At one point during the ride, I overheard a couple of riders
approaching from behind. They were in
full team kit and flew by me at a high rate of speed. I decided, what the heck, let's burn another
match or three just to have some fun. I
grabbed the big ring and cranked. They
were more than a little surprised to have some old guy on a recumbent come
smoking by them. I think you can see on
my speed graph just where that occurred.
We had a nice conversation after I slowed down and let them
catch back up.
The course was new this year to the ride and incorporated a
few new features.
There were a couple
nice little hills in the course and two cattle grates which caused a spike in
my heart rate as we went over them, all it would have taken was one person to
fall and it would have been mass chaos.
The 100 mile group also got to tour through
Sheppard Air Force Base.
Going through
the base was an amazing experience.
They
had a nice aircraft display lined up for us to check out with friendly airmen
and lieutenants to talk to.
I did try
and work a deal for a pair of JATO rockets to sling under my bike as the wind
was starting to get to me.
Unfortunately
the three lieutenants didn't think so much of my idea.
Riding south out of the base we rode through
the gauntlet of airmen all out to cheer us on, seeing all these men and women
who volunteered to serve their country was inspirational.
My moving time for
the 100 miles was 5:59:43, I broke the 6 hour mark!
Overall, it was a great ride! I had fun, I didn't crash, and the bike ran
great! Next year, Vicky gets to ride
her first Hotter N Hell!
