David King's Tour Journal
TOUR du ROUGE - Day One 82 miles to Beaumont
We started from the Humble Civic center this morning at 8:00 am. The weather was the perfect temperature, overcast, and a mild wind. The 57 Tour du Rouge riders pulled out first with our red, white and blue Tour jerseys. Even in a sea of the matching jerseys, I was able to locate Roger, one of my assigned riding buddies whom I had just met the night before. The 70 one-day riders pulled out behind us. We worked our way east through Atascocita and intercepted 1960 just west of Lake Houston.We had barely gotten across the bridge when one of the one-day riders made an erratic move and took down David Chenault - sending him face down in the pavement of the shoulder. He ended up getting several stitches and was able to get his bike fixed - the good news is, he will start Day 2 with us tomorrow.
Before we had gone too far, I hooked up with a group of riders that seemed to be riding a pace I'm comfortable with. One of the riders was Mayor Bill White - he rode with us to Dayton. After that, the rest of us pretty much stayed together the entire day's trip - me, Roger, Jon and Kendell. Our route bounced around on back roads that kept us off of 1960 as much as possible. Once we got to Dayton, we were pretty much on Highway 90 for most of the balance of the day. We had a few miles of chip seal shoulders, but overall the roads were fairly good.
We stopped for lunch in Devers at the grade school. The principle of the school was also a one-day rider and he pulled in right after we did. Of course the cheerleaders went crazy when their principle pulled in. Lunch was good - boxed lunches from Jason's deli.
After lunch, we had about 35 miles left to go. The wind had picked up but we only had a very small stretch of headwind - mostly it was a very tolerable crosswinds. We started getting a little sprinkle about 20 miles from Beaumont. It was actually refreshing and was accompanied by a nice little cool front.
By the time we got to the outskirts of Beaumont, the rain had stopped. We made our way to the Elegante Hotel and checked in. While we were hanging around in the parking lot, drinking beer and snacking on refreshments, it started raining again. I went to bring my bike inside and while stepping up to the wet sidewalk, my cycling shoes slipped on the wet curb and I went down. I ripped a chunk out of my left knee and removed a nickel-sized patch of flesh from my left palm - but I saved my bicycle AND my beer!
For the evening entertainment, we all went to Gladys City - which is a replica of the original Gladys City and Spindletop of the early 1900's. They put on a good show for us, which included a re-creation of the big oil gusher in Jan of 1901 - the event that changed the course of history for the Beaumont area. One of the tour riders was even a part of the show.
Tomorrow we head south as far as we can go then make a left to Louisiana.
Day 2 - Beaumont to Creole - 81 miles
Left the hotel this morning and rode 3-1/2 miles to the Mod Space office for breakfast and morning briefing. We finally got on the road about 9:30 - taking highway 73 to the south towards Port Arthur and then Highway 82 to head east.
Our first exciting challenge of the day was crossing the ML King / Pleasure Island bridge 20 miles into our trip. I'm fairly certain it was only a couple of degrees shy of straight up! But the climb was followed by an exhilarating downhill to the first rest stop of the day. After the mosquitoes snacked on us for a while, we headed down the TB Ellison Parkway.
Ten miles later, we crossed the Sabine Lake Swing Bridge and entered Louisiana. Maybe next time we do this ride they will have the new bridge that they are currently working on finished and we'll have another lovely climb at this location. By this time, my group had grown to include Lynn, Bob, Stephen, Tommy, and Tracy as well as Roger, Jon and myself. Kendell was only a one-day rider so he had already gone back to Houston.
After crossing the lake, we had a 26-mile, shoreline road journey to the lunch stop. All along the beach you could see a lot of new construction mixed in with empty slabs and structureless pylons - reminders of the hurricanes that have bombarded this area over the last four years. For lunch, we had Mickey D's QP's, chips and fruit which were shipped in for a beachside stop. By now, we had also picked up Hal and Maria along the way to be a part of our band of riders.
Ten miles after the lunch stop, we crossed the Cameron Ferry and then 17 miles later hit the lodgings for the night - an American Red Cross tent city on Rutherford Beach. Complete with cots, blankets, shower trailer, and 85 million mosquitoes after the sun went down! Luckily they provided plenty of bug spray too.
After a feast in town at Sha-Sha's, it was back to the beach for the evening party. Afterwards it was time to install the Tour-provided ear plugs and hope the person in the cot next to you doesn't snore too loud.
The weather today was perfect the entire ride - overcast, easy to deal with wind, and good temps. We expect more of the same tomorrow.
Day 3 - Creole to Abbeville - 95 miles
Last night was the earliest I'd been to bed in months - too bad the 85 million mosquitoes also made it be the least amount of sleep I've had in months! What a night! We were all glad to hear that future Tour du Rouges would NOT feature a night on Rutherford Beach. We could not wait to get rolling at 7:00 this morning.
We made our way to Highway 27 after about five miles and we were flying north with a nice, friendly tailwind. My personal sighting of alligators along LA 27 was four: three floating in the bayous along the roadside and the headless, dead one on the road. Fourteen miles into the ride we got to climb another Intercoastal Bridge. Not as steep as yesterday's bridge but a good climb nonetheless.
After 28 miles traveling north, it was time for some major Eastward movement and we turned right on LA Highway 14. We had one rest stop at Bell City and then the lunch stop at Lake Arthur Park in Lake Arthur. Today's lunch was Subway sandwiches and other refreshments.
After lunch, LA 14 turned into the highway from hell - the highway to test if all the riders could keep their lunch down! All the riders just gave up on calling out "holes", "bump", and "crack!" For most of the 25-mile stretch, we had a pretty fair crosswind from the south. A lot of this area was under water after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and even had a foot of water after Ike. Our road-for-the-day reflected the effects of those storms. But, as rough as it was, it was nowhere near as bad as sleeping on Rutherford Beach!
After doing a little cycling sightseeing in Abbeville, I ended up with a nice 101-mile day. We've really been fortunate with the weather so far during the tour. We've had some strong winds, but nothing different than what we've had in Houston the last few months. The skies stayed mostly overcast and the temperature stayed nice.
After checking into our motels (Yea! No cots! No wool blankets! No mosquito spray!), we changed and then headed over to the Riverfront Restaurant for a fantastic pork chop dinner. The talk of the evening: we all survived the night on Rutherford Beach; we all survived LA Highway 14!
Tour du Rouge - Day 4 Abbeville, LA to Morgan City, LA
What a great day! We were scheduled for a late start today so I got up early and went out and put nine miles on the bike before the start so I could keep ahead of Alan Bazard on mileage. My plan was to add enough extra miles through the course of the day to get another century but that didn't work out.
We left the hotel and met up at Cafe Maria's for breakfast. It was definitely agreed by all that the dinner and breakfast (and the hospitality) with which we were rewarded from the folks at Abbeville more than offset a night on Rutherford Beach! We were told that we needed to have the Acadian breakfast dish, Couch-Couch (coosh-coosh) and "it would make us wanna slap our Mama!" I tried it, and although I didn't really feel the need to slap my Mama, it WAS good! We were all totally stuffed after eating breakfast. But, we only had to pedal 17 miles until the next breakpoint - at the Tabasco Factory on Avery Island.
The break at Avery Island consisted of a talk about the history of Tabasco and the McIlhenney/Avery family, how the pepper sauce is made, a short film about Tabasco, a tour of a portion of the factory and, of course, a trip through the Country Store/Gift Shop. While at the store I sampled different sauces as well as Tabasco ice cream and, for a REAL sinus-cleaner kick, Tabasco cola. Every rider that sampled that, easily averaged around 45mph for the next ten miles! (OK - maybe that's an exaggeration)
Due to all the fun things on the agenda for the day, it was around 2:30 when my group got to the Lunch stop at Franklin. For lunch, they had us set up along the banks of the river and served us an assortment of the biggest croissant sandwiches I think I've ever seen. And, among other things, fantastic homemade cookies.
Awesome bridges today - two! Plus one that was almost awesome.
The group that I've been riding with since Monday consists of a core group of 10 riders. One from LA, one from NM, one from CA, and 7 from TX. We've been averaging 16.5 mph and totally enjoying the tour. Today is the first day that we've had an accident in our group and fortunately only ended up with one rider having a scraped up knee and the bikes didn't suffer too much damage even though four of us went down. The accident, along with two flat tires and a broken spoke put us in Morgan City about 5:00 pm. Thus, I didn't have time to go out and get the additional 14 miles I needed for another century. Oh well, tomorrow is a 98-mile day.
The evening dinner and entertainment was in Historic Downtown Morgan City. Dinner was a Cajun feast sponsored by the Holiday Inn and we had a Cajun Band that made sure we didn't stand still - or at least made sure our feet kept tapping.
Two more days to go and then I'll quit boring you with these reports!
Freewheelin' Dave - reporting from the Tour du Rouge in Louisiana
Tour du Rouge - Day 5
Today's trip from Morgan City to Gonzales, LA, saw 103 more miles added to my total miles ridden. After a filling breakfast at the Holiday Inn, we hit the road a little after 7:00.Our little group of 10 has become known as the S.A.M. Social Club. We're told that SAM stands for Slow-Assed Misfits but I think it's just that the other groups are jealous because they put less "social" into their ride and manage to get to the finish line each day before we do. Hey, someone has to show the Turtle SAG which way to go!
The first 25 miles or so today were marvelous. We pulled out of Morgan City with a healthy tailwind, wide shoulders and smooth pavement. Good way to start a Century day. It could have been a Metric Century day if it wasn't for the fact that we had to take a 40-mile detour in order to cross the Mississippi River. Seems that the LA version of TXDot (is that LADot?) wouldn't let us cross the Sunshine Bridge just because it was kinda dangerous - so we had to go about 20 miles southeast and cross the river using the Veterans Memorial Bridge. Although it did have nice wide shoulders, the expansion joints of the Veterans Memorial Bridge are not too bicycle tire friendly. SAM Social Club suffered three flats due to them - as did several other riders.
Prior to crossing the Mississippi River, our lunch break was at St Joseph Plantation. We were even entertained with stories about the plantation from an octogenarian who told us he has lived there all his life. - A beautiful plantation right next to the Mississippi River.
We stopped at the last rest stop just about nine miles from Gonzales. Within a mile or so after leaving the rest stop we ended the day just as we started - healthy tailwind, wide shoulders, and smooth pavement. The group they nicknamed S.A.M. cruised at 22 for the last seven miles!
American Red Cross staff from Baton Rouge attended our dinner for the evening. One of them commented how she had expected to see a bunch of worn out, tired people that have just spent five long days on bicycles. What they found instead was a happy and energetic group of cyclists and crew members - that were ALSO a little tired, worn out, battle scarred, etc!
Speaking of the American Red Cross, it's always good to remember why we are doing this ride. All along the tour route we have been riding through areas that have been affected by recent disasters. Naturally we've seen it in Houston and as we headed east, we've seen areas that didn't even get a chance to recover from one disaster before another one hit them.
For those of you that don't know about the many things the Red Cross does, let me mention just one of those things - swimming classes for children. The reason I mention this one thing is that it relates to one of the stories we heard when we were in Abbeville. As people were evacuating from areas ravaged by Katrina, naturally families were ending up being separated. As a bus load of children arrived at one of the rescue centers in Houston, one of the Red Cross workers that had been relocated from Louisiana to Houston recognized a 12 year old girl that she had taught to swim just a year earlier. As the young girl saw the Red Cross worker she ran to her and told her, "The water came inside my house, it was everywhere. I had to swim." The Red Cross worker was happy to hear that her swimming lessons probably saved that little girl's life. Then she heard the words that no one wants to hear, "My Mama, she couldn't swim." This little girl got on that bus knowing that her mother had just drowned back at their home. Hearing this story brought tears to nearly everyone's eyes at dinner that night. The positive side of this tale - because of several incidents just like the one I described above, as children take swimming lessons sponsored by the Red Cross, they are given a coupon to bring an adult back with them for free swimming lessons. They don't want to hear that "Mama couldn't swim," any more.
It's been some of the highlights of this tour to see firsthand where the results of our fundraising go. To meet the people. To hear the stories. To know we've been able to help.
I believe in this cause and I will continue to support and raise money for the American Red Cross. I will continue to support and ride the Tour du Rouge each year.
Freewheelin' Dave
www.active.com/donate/tourdurouge/DKing222
Tour du Rouge - Day 6 - New Orleans At Last!
Gonzales to New Orleans - and another 83 miles brings my total ridden miles for the six-day journey to 540.After another great breakfast, we gathered at the Mod-Space building for the morning briefing by Alan. Alan called me over and introduced me to Jason - the only One-Day Rider from New Orleans doing the last day's ride. Alan told him that he was putting him in the "fun" group - the one that was always going down the road singing and having a good time. Of course we welcomed Jason and assured him that we would let him pull us all the way to the finish. Funny thing is, I think he believed us. He spent most of his time either leading the pace line or sitting in the 2nd spot.
The first 20 or so miles were spent retracing our route in from the day before. Well, due to some missing directional arrows (that had been keeping us all spoiled at NOT having to read our cue sheets) we ALL missed a turn and got a few extra miles. As luck would have it, I was pulling for SAM Social Club during the missed turn and was duly thanked for the slight extra distance. But I was quick to point out that I was merely following the group a few hundred yards ahead of us - and THAT group contained the RIDE DIECTOR! Hey! If you can't trust HIM to know the way...
We experienced our first flat of the day about 12 miles into the ride. Within another ten miles we experienced our second flat - MINE. And that happened within a few minutes of me telling someone that I had been lucky so far and had not had a flat the entire ride. I should know that it's bad karma to say those kinds of things. I hit something that ripped open the side of my tire. Luckily we were able to patch the tear and it held so that I could finish the ride.
Our first scheduled stop of the day was at Lutcher Park in Gramercy at mile 25. Due to the fact that we had already enjoyed two roadside breaks, we decided to bypass the rest stop. This was totally unheard of for SAM Social Club! But we had set certain goals for the day - the main one being to NOT be the last group to New Orleans. We rode straight on through to La Place at mile 42 before we stopped to replenish supplies. As our group pulled out of the rest stop, we caused a few double-takes from cyclists pulling in. Seems that this situation was usually the other way around.
Up until the third breakpoint at mile 51, we experienced a sampling of all the same types of roads we had been riding the last five days - smooth, rough, really-really rough, wide shoulders, no shoulders... Within a couple of miles from rest stop 3, we pulled up on to the Levee Bike Path - 22 miles of smooth pavement reserved for bike and pedestrian traffic only along the top of the levee. Time to open it up and head for the lunch stop. As we passed a couple of New Orleans police officers, we tried to persuade them to set up toll booths for any cyclists that were following us - a Blazing Saddles kind of an attempt the slow down anyone threatening to overtake us.
About 7 or 8 miles from the lunch stop, Jon got a noisy clatter near the rear axle. We had to stop and fix it. While we were doing that, sure enough, here came Team Draft zipping past us. We quickly remounted and started pursuit. We flew down the path reaching speeds of 25 plus with a crosswind. Team Draft still pulling away. We slowed to a more moderate pace once we knew we weren't going to catch them. "Hey! This is a ride not a race," once again being the motto (as we just got blown away!).
To our astonishment, just as we were within a mile of the lunch stop, who did we see along side of the road? Team Draft! We pedaled our way into Audubon Park in front of several other groups. SPEEDY-Assed Misfits that we were!
After lunch, we all gathered for the 8-mile ride to downtown. We were all wearing our TDR jerseys and had a police escort through town. We experienced a fantastic reception from the people all along the streets. The media was all set up for the celebration at the downtown riverside. It wasn't long before champagne corks were flying and the bottles were being passed from hand to hand.
The evening was capped off with a banquet and a two-hour tour on the riverboat. Several presentations were made to the key people that organized and supported the ride. Every rider got a beautifully framed certificate with photos of the Tour. Afterwards, we were turned loose on the French Quarter to continue our own personal celebration.
As I bring this journal to an end, it's Saturday and I'm riding the bus back to Houston - the hangover about to let up. I reviewed the hundreds of photos of the last six days on my camera until the battery died. For now, I'll sit back, enjoy the rest of the ride home - and think about next year.
If you would still like to make a donation to the Red Cross and have it credited to my TDR fundraising efforts, please follow this link: www.active.com/donate/tourdurouge/DKing222
Respectively submitted for your enjoyment,
Freewheelin' Dave
SAMS Social Club:
Lynn - Westlake, LA
Bob - Baytown, TX
Jon - Houston, TX
Tracy - Houston, TX
Hal - Hobbs, NM
Maria - Stockton, CA
Stephen - Cypress, TX
Roger - Houston, TX
Tommy - Katy, TX
David - Spring, TX
Tour du Rouge is
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