The Swimmin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour

Last Saturday, before leaving for Blanco, Texas, I checked the local weather report: 15% chance of rain and moderately cloudy. Perfect! I started out for Blanco knowing that this was going to be a great successful bike tour. Mother Nature might have had other plans.

Texas Cycling puts on The Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour, or SBOBT, every year to help pay for the spring race schedule. Putting on tours can sometimes be painful and stressful, but its worth it in the end because it pays for our racing! Miguel and Josh were the main directors this year, and I (K. Day) was helpful hand.

Saturday night we drove out to Blanco. The weather was moderate, with a feeling of crispness that is always evident in the Hill Country. We brought around 25 volunteers to help. As soon as we got there we started putting out signs for the tour and filling up water jugs for the morning. The signing is the most difficult job, and involves riding the course and putting signs up so hopefully no one will get lost! After putting out most of the signs, Sean, Joseph, Michael, and I stopped in Sisterdale at a local food place to have some of the best burgers of our lives. They had a live band going as well, and we wanted to stay all night. Soon, the responsibilities of the team got in the way and we had to put out the rest of the signs. That night we had a fire in the Blanco High School parking lot and sat and talked. Everyone soon retired to their tents or cars: it was going to be a long day tomorrow!

Sunday came too early for me, as we had to wake up at 6:00 am. I slowly emerged from my car and found that people were already arriving to ride. It was a cool morning but the air was still thick with humidity. Not a good sign. After eating a bagel, I quickly got to work making sure all the rest stops had water. Right before I got back to the start of the race, I saw the first couple of drops on my windshield. Whitney looked at me warily and something about how bad it would be if it started raining. I remember saying that it wasn't supposed to rain and that it wasn't raining on other parts of the course where I was. I soon ate my words.

Just as the lead vehicle pulled out of the parking lot with riders in tow, it started to rain more heavily. And then it started to pour. I drove to the first rest stop to see what could be done. The volunteers were huddled up underneath the awnings they had set up and were shivering. "Are they still coming?" one of them asked me. Oh yeah they're coming! As pouring turned to torrential downpour, Miguel decided that we needed to get people back to the start as soon as possible. I dumped everything I had out of my Jeep and started driving toward the group of riders, looking for people to pick up and SAG back to the start. By the end of the day, we quickly got everyone off the course, most by their own bike power. We set up the BBQ so the the riders could get dry and start eating.

Even though the rain didn't make the ride as good as we had hoped, I think it was still a success overall. No one was seriously injured. Everyone got BBQ and beverages. Everyone seemed happy. Josh and Miguel did a great job of organizing everyone to SAG and make the best of a rainy situation. I think that's the best you can do in any predicament. The whole team came together and completed their jobs successfully. If we race in the spring like we organize events in the fall, look out MSU!

As Miguel put it, it was the best Swimming Burnt Orange ever! Check out the great pics that Cameron took here.