BDSBLSDCBR

This past Friday I did the Big Dave Spring Break Long Slow Distance Century Bike Ride or the BDSBLSDCR.

I actually just named the ride to make it seem more important than it is. My cycling buddy, Big Dave is a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington so he is really the only one who gets spring break. Big Dave and I have done quite a few self paced centuries on the bike to get some base miles in for the season.

One of the more famous ones was the failed attempt to ride our bikes to Houston years ago during spring break. We attempted a ride over few days over spring break. We failed, due to the head wind and rain, but we got 103 miles in one day and 70 or so the next.

Our goal this year was to ride up to Dennison and back over spring break. That also came apart on us for all sorts of reasons. We settled on doing a Century this past Friday. We convinced our friends Liz and Justin to join us.

I have been riding with Liz for many years; she is one of the most consistent riders. That proved to be very helpful on this ride.

So four souls set out on the DWG to Dallas White Rock Lake and back century on a beautiful 45 degree morning. Big Dave and I have done this route before and wanted to make one tweak to it. Little did we know how much tweaking we would end up doing.

The route took us through Dalworthington Gardens, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Cedar Hill, Desoto, Lancaster, Wilmer, Hutchison, Dallas, University Park, and Irving.

The tweaking I did to the route truly backfired. There is a section that would have taken us down Buckner Boulevard, which is a quite busy road in Dallas. Upon review, I turned us way too early and we ended up in a rather rough area of Dallas. In fact, I turned us way too early. So we headed west again, then north and finally to downtown Dallas.

Our millage to downtown Dallas was about where we needed to be at White Rock Lake. I called Bob, a college buddy, and he directed us to White Rock Lake. (I actually had to call a second time, but we got there.)

After a visit with Bob and his children at a refueling stop at the 7-11 next to White Rock Lake, we decided to ride round White Rock Lake anyway. The goal after the stop was to follow Dallas Bike Route 270 off of the Lake Trail back to downtown Dallas, then follow the Super Bowl Ride route back home. Somewhere we lost route 270 and ended up on 280. 280 cut us through some of the most expensive homes in all of Dallas. If the economy is hurting anyone, it was not these people; there were all sorts of construction on very beautiful houses. We ended up by Dallas Love Field and Bockman Lake.

The group concluded that we would take the quickest route home. Justin, who works in Dallas, suggested a route. (I would also note that Justin kept us from getting us to lost most of the time by having us follow DART rail tracks) He took up us on some ungodly hill at mile 90 something, but got us to Fort Worth Avenue. We all did take our turns at the front, to fight the head wind home. But of course, Liz went to the front once we got on Forth Worth Avenue and kept the base steady.

We got 116 miles of really quality riding. It has to help the base for the season.