I considered taking a camera. But at the last minute thought it to be extraneous. If I were to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere without some important piece of equipment, I would curse myself for taking along something frivolous. As it was I traveled very light with two changes of socks and underwear and one shirt besides what I was wearing. Most of the ride was at night and under stress so taking photographs would have been difficult. So there wasn't much point to a camera.
The following is a picture of the bicycle in nearly the same configuration as it was for the ride.
Here is the front and back of the one page trip plan. It has the trip route in terms of waypoints and distances. Combined with keeping note of the time to estimate speed (do not have a cycle computer), this provides reasonably accurate navigation. At night, road signs are invisible. You could pass within five feet of a sign and not see it at all. So estimating the estimated time of arrival at a waypoint is very helpful. The trip plan is inside a plastic envelope for protection from moisture. It also lists bicycle shops, motels, the AMTRAK train schedule from Austin to Dallas, and some telephone numbers of friends. I didn't have a wireless phone though so these would not be very useful and besides all of the people were either out of the state or away on vacation. Still, it made me feel better.
For about a year I had been considering cycling from Dallas to Austin in less than 24 hours. But it didn't become real for me until I was stuck in the Denver airport last Thanksgiving and happened upon an article about John Stamstad. He's simply an incredible endurance cyclist. And he rides a mountain, not a road bike. His most impressive accomplishment is winning the Iditasport Extreme, 350 miles in Alaska in 65 hours without sleeping. This article shamed me into serious preparation for what is really an easy challenge.
John Stamstad can maintain 85 percent of his maximum heart rate for five hours while staring at a blank wall. For me, my criteria was to maintain about 80 percent for three hours while watching television with breaks every half hour for water and food. With only a few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I didn't have enough time to train for better physical condition. So I peaked at 80 percent for three hours about a week or so before Christmas Day.
My employer shuts down over the Christmas holiday and last week of December. So this was a perfect time to make the ride. Unfortunately, it is nearly the coldest time of the year in Texas with long nights. But a weather window opened for Christmas Day with temperatures down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit at night and light variable winds. It was also a few days after a full moon so night illumination would be better. From experience I've found that moon light makes an enormous difference when cycling at night.
Two days before Christmas I ate as much as I could hold down. Just lots of complex carbohydrates. The day before Christmas I ate bread and lots of fiber. So on Christmas Day I was able to clear out my intestines. I've had the experience of painful cramping on other long rides. This time, the preparation seemed to work. I had no intestinal upset. Further, I really did not need to eat very much during the ride itself. There was never any threat of a bonk despite eating only a dozen or so energy bars and a few liters of Gatorade. Note that Powerbars are designed for warm climates. They become quite hard when it is cold. Balance bars remain quite pliable though when it is cold. However the wrapper of the Powerbar is quite strong and can be used to patch tires. As it turned out, this was very significant on the ride.
Over the course of the ride, drivers were extremely courteous. I was very surprised. Only two or three drivers manifested any horn honking road rage with my presence on the road. The vast majority simply passed me. This was easy for them as I took lightly traveled farm roads and state highways away from the interstate highway linking Dallas to Austin. I wasn't wearing reflective or day glo clothing. But the bicycle had two rearward facing red LED blinkers and two 3 inch amber reflectors mounted just above the rear tire. This combination allowed drivers to see me about five to ten seconds before reaching my position while traveling at highway speeds.
On the front and sides of the fork was reflective tape. This is in my opinion more important than a headlamp for safety. It is mounted low enough that automobile headlights will pick out the tape at a distance. Another factor is that a bicycle headlamp alerts dogs to your approach. I found that it was safer (or at least less nerve wracking) to ride with both of the headlamps off. There was just enough moon light through the cloud cover to see the road most of the time (although the clouds reduced illumination, they also kept the temperature above freezing so I wasn't complaining). With the lights off, dogs would only become aware of my presence a few seconds from reaching their position. And although I was moving too slowly at 11 to 13 miles per hour to out run them, the dogs would tire after ten or twenty seconds and abandon pursuit.
Dogs were a major safety issue on this ride. A mechanical failure in the proximity of large dogs would be an undesirable situation. On major roads no more than two or three will be in chase at any one time. Most are small but a few are large enough to knock you down. Two dogs were absolutely silent with cut vocal cords. On a previous ride there were about a half dozen dogs in pursuit. That was due to a lapse in judgement on my part in taking a small road as a shortcut. Those are hazardous as dogs may come from several directions at once. On larger state highways and farm roads, that does not happen.
There was only one mechanical the entire ride. On FM 93, a mile or so past a convenience store and perhaps 70 miles still to Austin, I moved over into the smooth shoulder of the road as I imagined an automobile's headlights behind me. That happened all night, a sort of optical hallucination where I thought a car was approaching when there was nothing there. There must have been a piece of metal or glass in the shoulder as the front tire blew out. I had never had a tire blowout before, only innertube flats, so it was surprising. In three ways I was fortunate, though. One, the failure did not happen while being chased by dogs. Two, the failure happened while approaching a sodium vapor street lamp so there was lighting other than my flashlight and headlamp. Three, I had a Powerbar wrapper with which to patch the gash in the tire. The gash itself was bad, at least a half inch long slash completely penetrating the tire. As the tire itself is only 1.4 inches, this is a significant size. But the tire did hold for the rest of the ride.
It took about 45 minutes to repair the tire. That's a long time. But a lot of that time was spent trying to lever the tire off with my fingers. At that time I noticed a sharp pain on my scalp. I thought it was frostbite. Of course that was impossible as it was not cold enough. But I've found that sleep deprivation combined with physical exertion causes a reduction in reasoning ability. From this point onwards, my head hurt at that spot on my scalp. Later I discovered that it was not frostbite but a friction burn. A strap from the helmet mounted headlamp battery case was inside the helmet and had rubbed against my head. This created a spot the size of a nickel that is devoid of hair now.
Once I arrived in Georgetown, I knew that Austin was within walking range if necessary. The first major landmark was Southwestern University on my right. It was now morning. There was a paved sidewalk with grass next to it.
What is interesting is how I gave up at this point. The body still had strength. There never was a blood sugar deficit or hydration problem. But I was very tired and falling asleep, even while riding or walking. But even taking this into account the reason why I dismounted and started walking on the sidewalk while still a good 20 miles from my objective is some feeling of psychological relief. It was daylight, quite a nice day. There were no more dogs. Back to normality from unnerving strangeness. That's quite a wimpy thing to say. But like many people I lead a very sheltered life in reality. So the combination of riding in darkness and being chased intermittently by dogs all night was spooky even though there was no real danger.
The final 20 miles was full of navigational errors and frequent use of a map. I suspect that sleep deprivation was affecting cognitive function. The previous 200 miles had been on large roads with simple navigation. So I am not sure if I had been impaired for many hours and just did not notice it.
Bicycle 1998 Specialized Hardrock Sport MTB
Tires Tom Ritchey Slicks, 26" x 1.4"
Lighting 3V RayOVac swivelhead flashlight; 6V RayOVac headlamp
Spares Two spare innertubes; two Rema patch kits; AA, AAA, D batteries;
3V Krypton bulb
Luggage Small duffel bag on rear rack and medium lumbar pack
Hydration Three 710 ml water bottles on the bicycle frame
Food About a dozen energy bars of mixed brands, jar of peanut butter
Clothing Cotton thermal lowers; 50/50 cotton/poly sweat pants; polyester
shirt; wool sweater; nylon windbreaker; medium gloves good down
to near freezing; synthetic socks; running shoes
Defense 10 seconds pepper spray; 2" multitool knife blade
Dallas Area Rapid Transit Ledbetter Station, Dallas 1:30 pm 12/25/1999
South Lancaster/St Hwy 342 16 miles
Merges into US 77 proceed south 7 miles
Becomes Elm St
Waxahachie
Turn right proceed southwest Rogers/FM 66 12 miles
Maypearl
Continue FM 66 16 miles
Becomes Main St
Itasca
Turn left proceed south St Hwy 81 9 miles
Merges into US 77 proceed south 2 miles
Hillsboro
Turn right proceed west St Hwy 22 20 miles
Laguna Park
Turn left proceed south FM 56 19 miles
Becomes 4th St
Valley Mills
Turn left proceed east St Hwy 6
Turn right proceed south St Hwy 317 44 miles
Belton
Turn left proceed east FM 93 8 miles 2:30 am 12/26/1999
Academy
Turn right proceed south St Hwy 95 25 miles
Turn right proceed west St Hwy 29 16 miles
Becomes University Ave/12th St 8:00 am 12/26/1999
Georgetown (approximately 20 miles north of Austin)
Turn left proceed south Church/FM 1460
Turn right proceed west Palm Valley Blvd/US 79
Turn left proceed south Mays St/US 81
Round Rock
Falling asleep; weak; ride/walk; navigational errors; use map a lot
Austin, northern part, Motel 6 on I-35 service road around noon 12/26/1999