WOW!! What a great ride!

The MS150 is a 2 Day, 150 Mile (162 Actual Miles) annual bike rally benefiting the National MS Society. This was my first year to do this ride and what a great ride it turned out to be!

I was Riding for Plano Cycling and Fitness - Team Ticket. Which turn out to be the largest team in the History of the tour, 380 riders on our team alone and a total of 2890 riders altogether.

Day 1: We started on the Morning of May 6th at Rough Rider Stadium in Frisco at 7am. It was a staggered team start. The first days ride took us from Frisco, to Pilot Point, over the Lake Ray Roberts dam, then onto Sanger, Krum, Justin and Finishing at the Texas Motor Speedway for a total of 79 Miles. The weather couldn’t have been better. 83 degrees with overcast skies and an 8 to 10 mph tail wind for most of the ride. The ride support and traffic control were outstanding.

It took me 45 miles to find a group that was keeping a similar pace. I had just stopped at the lunch stop for a quick bite and was merging back in to traffic, when I hooked up with a pace line of about 35 riders. Most of the riders were with "Team Texas Irish". We held it together to the finish and maintained an average speed of about 19 mph.

When we arrive at the finish, a little after noon, I quickly gathered my gear, set up camp and went in search of the free beer. The Ticket tent had all kinds of snacks and drinks. I hung out there for about 30 minutes and then decided to take a shower before the lines got too long. After getting cleaned up, I hung around visiting with the other cyclists, grabed a bite to eat from the Hooters tent and enjoyed the Bands that were playing nearby.

Later that evening we were treated to a nice fire works display, I then decided to call it night.


Day 2

I woke up around 5:30am, packed up my tent, had some breakfast and made my way to the track. The ride started with a lap on the speedway and then onto Hwy 114. From here we rode to Hazlet, Rhome and Boyd with a lunch stop in Paradise. We then rode back to Boyd, Through Newark and Saginaw, then onto the Finish at Sundance Square in Fort Worth, for a total of 83 miles.

This route was much tougher than the previous day. A lot of rolling hills on the first half, primarily between Boyd and Paradise. That part of the ride took a lot out of me, I was feeling pretty worn out by the time I reached the lunch stop. I took about a 30 minute break, grabbed some food and headed back out to finish things up. Being familiar with the roads around Saginaw, I knew that the toughest climbs were still ahead. So I eased up a bit to save some energy.

As expected the hills along Boat Club road were killers. I made it up the first couple sets of hills with no problem, but about halfway up the final (largest) hill the guy directly in front of me went down, almost taking with him. He dropped his chain while trying to shift and fell to my right, causing me to swerve to the left and into traffic. Luckily the car behind us was paying attention and slowed just enough for me to get by. I stopped briefly to make sure he was alright and then continued up the hill and to the final rest stop. At this point I was getting my second wind and was feeling great. Maybe it was the food, the last rest stop or the fact that I knew the toughest part was over…… whatever it was, I was feeling stronger then I had all day.

The ride into Fort Worth was much faster than I had expected. About a mile from the rest stop I got overtaken by a 5 man/woman pace line. I got onto the tail end and we kept pace at about 23/24 mph. We were having a blast until about 3 miles from the finish when one of the cyclists, again directly in front of me, hit a pothole which sent her front tire into a 2 inch crack in the road and she went down hard. I grabbed the brakes and swerved to the right while the guy behind me made a few impressive evasive maneuvers to avoid the two of us. We stopped while her husband, who just happened to be a Paramedic, check her out. She had some road rash on both shoulders, and a really bad headache (She cracked her helmet) but otherwise she was ok and wanted to finish out the ride.

The ride into Sundance Square was incredible! They had Houston and Main Street barricaded while loads of people lined the streets and cheered us on as we crossed the finish line. My first priority upon arrival was to find the Food/Beer tents. Once they were located, we had an awesome post ride meal, provided by Razzoo's, grabbed a couple beers and enjoyed the live funk band playing in the background.

Great ride from beginning to end!

Thanks to all my Family, Friends and Co-workers who supported me on this ride. I was able to raise just over $1400 and had a blast doing it. I hope to do it again next year.

Totals:

Total Miles: 162
Ave Speed: 17.02 mph
Total Number of Riders: 2890
Total Amount Raised: 1,256,300