This past weekend was Bike MS, a 150 mile bike ride from Frisco to Fort Worth. To say it was eventful is an understatement! lol
First of all, the City of Fort Worth cancelled all outdoor public gatherings due to the swine flu! Well the ride was supposed to finish on Sunday in Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth. After some scrambling, the route for day 2 was changed to be out and back from Texas Motor Speedway.
So Friday night was the Expo at the Embassy Suites… very awesome! Jack and I decided not to stay at the hotel this year since we had Angel recovering from seizures and Spaz recovering from his surgery.
Saturday morning started bright and early. Jack had to be at the SAG meetup at 5:45 AM, so yeah, very early!! lol I was lucky enough to be driving a loaner Toyota Highlander since Toyota was a sponsor. Woo hoo!! Once Jack was loaded up with his SAG driver, I headed out to the first rest stop. The day was full of driving between rest stops, picking up lunch and running it back to other rest stops… thank goodness for that Highlander and my GPS!!
All day long it was overcast and threatening rain. At one point in the afternoon you could feel the temperature just plummet! I was passing the Tour Director on the road, and the next thing you know she’s pulling up next to me and her driver is waving me to her car. I got in to find out that hail was moving into the area, and they were calling the ride. We had to clear everyone off the road. We were at the only rest stop with no shelter, so they immediately got moving clearing out that rest stop while I headed to the last one to help the SAG coordinator from that end. Not long after I got out on the road, it was raining. I felt horrible for those cyclists who were riding in the rain.
I got to the rest stop, donned my poncho (thank goodness I remembered to throw it in the car), and we directed cyclists to cover until we got the official word that the road was clear behind us. As I was heading back towards the finish, I came across about 50 cyclists huddled under an overpass. Police were with them and they were waiting for SAG vans to come pick them up. No one was willing to leave their bikes, so I left empty handed. The same thing happened a few minutes later at a Valero station.
It was such a relief when we finally heard that everyone was safely off the course. Now the question, with the threat of more weather, what would happen to Day 2?? When we left the Speedway there was a weather meeting about to take place, and on the way home we drove through a monsoon!
It wasn’t long after we got home that I got the phone call… Day 2 was cancelled. It was a bummer, but I knew we couldn’t put people out there knowing that we’d be having bad weather again.
Well, we woke up Sunday morning, and it was a great day! The sun even came out at one point! Apparently the weather that we were fearing came through faster than they thought, and passed through overnight. So we ended up with a nice Sunday, and got lots done… including cupcakes! :o)
Next year will even be bigger and better! And I think I may try to get my HAM license before then so we can be a better part of communications. But we’ll see!
~Heather
