Mar 28-30 - fleche # 2

It's all a blur, other than the fleche itself. 

On Thursday I rode my bike over to the Avis location nearby and rented the Impala.  The bike nicely fit into the trunk, sans wheels of course.  I then drove north to Jacksonville, crawled for 1/2 hour or so to get around a massive backup where a large coach-rv had crashed into the back of a large pickup truck, getting to my destination in downtown Jacksonville around 5:30.  I then loaded up the bike and rode to the hotel, which was about 9 miles away.  I tried to follow my printed Google directions and got lost then input the destination into the Garmin and sorted that out. 

Our group was at two different hotels due to a mixup by Ruth but they were fairly close together.  Don, my room-mate, was picking up the Orlando crowd and their bikes at the train station and arrived at the Comfort Inn about 1/2 hour after me.  We then headed out to dinner at a restaurant 5-6 miles away meeting up with a cycling crowd there that had gathered.  I really didn't know anyone but hey ... the meal was good and I was sitting with our small group anyway.

A fleche is a team ride with 3-5 machines.  Keith and Ruth were riding a tandem together so we had six riders.  Bill Erwin was part of our Fleche team last year.  Don and Ed were newbies and also new to the sport of Randonneuring this year.  They'd already ridden 400's for the year, so the distance wasn't a problem, but the Fleche "process" was new.

We headed out in the morning at 7am, as planned and we finished at 6:45 a.m. the next day.  Our first Control was 25 miles east of the start, at Jacksonville Beach.   We had breakfast at a Waffle House and then continued south.  Don had a cleat problem (wrong cleats) so we stopped at Bike Fitters in Ponte Vedra and remedied that.  BF was where I went a few weeks ago to get the new insoles, which, by the way, seem to be working nicely.

From Jacksonville Beach we continued south all the way to Cocoa.  We had a few more Controls / food stops along the way -- Ormond Beach, Titusville and then Cocoa.  It seemed like we were eating our way down the coast.

We hit Ormond Beach around 4pm, eating a late lunch at a TGI Friday's.  Our next brief stop was at my house, where we topped up water bottles and said hello.  From there to Titusville, now dark, we stopped at the Burger King.  In Cocoa we found a restaurant and lingered until 11:30 knowing that we shouldn't arrive at the Denny's in Kissimmee before 3am.

It cooled down between Titusville and Cocoa and we donned our heavy clothing.  It then warmed up and I, for one, was dripping by the time we got to Cocoa.  That turned out to be a luxury as we headed west to Kissimmee -- we froze as the temperature dropped to 37F according to Ruth.

We got to the Denny's at 3:10 -- perfect -- and left there at 5am.  Denny's was our "22 hour" Control.  We had 25 miles from there to Maitland and we finished up at the First Watch restaurant at 6:45.  It opened at 7am; we had breakfast and dispersed.  I waited for a short time for Allister who picked me up.  I let him drive, not trusting myself.

I have to say that our Fleche team was a bit of a mis-match this year.  Keith and Ruth were so strong on the tandem that they were always pulling ahead.  Don and Ed were younger; had no trouble keeping up with the tandem.  I was dragging at times and Bill was happy to follow me.  I just checked his waiver -- Bill is 72 ! 

I wouldn't have spent so much time at the Controls by myself; would have opted for slower riding.  That's what we did last year -- I controlled the speed a lot of the time.  Keith and Ruth have gotten used to a very fast pace on the tandem; Don and Ed are quite used to club rides at a fast pace. 

All that said, it was a good ride.  However, I won't do a Fleche next year.  Remember those words -- !!

Back home with Allister, I had a shower and then later in the a.m. a short snooze.   The place was hopping with everyone around !  I had another hour snooze late afternoon and we then went over to the SYC for dinner. 

Today ... Mass shortly ... Easter Egg Hunt at the club at noon ... Easter Dinner here at home this evening. 

Allister and Carol are planning on heading north tomorrow; we plan to go boating.  We'll see how all that works out !

Onward ...