Jeff helped to put together a group for a 100 mile ride. He has a friend in Plano that is doing Boulder and he came over to meet us at Andy Brown at 5:30am. We picked up Lee on Lakeside Parkway around 5:45am. Lee had two friends who are doing Boulder and we picked them up in Flower Mound. We should have known it was going to be a strange day from the start. At 5:45am some jack ass through a full beer can at us and hit Jeff in the elbow. I saw the can explode on the concrete and thought it fell out of the truck. Not so much. Once we picked everyone up I heard something rattling in my rear wheel. I stopped to check it out and the rattling seemed to stop. Lee thought my spoke broke but I didn't immediately see anything. We were heading out west to Justin and then around the motor speedway before heading home. We stopped in Justin to refuel and the sound was back in my rear wheel. I started checking spokes and sure enough, one was broken. I was 41 miles into the ride and decided to head back to Coppell. My wheel was wobbling slightly and hoped to get back without calling for a ride. I had one person in the group head back with me. A more direct route should get me home in 35 miles. I turned on Faught road out in the middle of nowhere and heard some rustling on the side of the road. A pit bull popped out and started chasing me down. I wasn't going real fast trying to conserve the rear wheel. This was not good. I had to torque the rear wheel and get moving. That dog was keeping up with me at almost 20mph until he got tired and fell off. Not good. Wheel was no worse for wear. I limped back to the bike shop in Coppell. It was getting hot. I decided if they could fix the wheel quickly, I would carry on. It took them about half an hour to fix my wheel. I was 73 miles into the ride. I needed to refuel but didn't want to go home. The temptation to stop might be to appealing. I went to a gas station close by and refueled. The wind had really started coming up, probably 15-20 from the south. I went south towards the airport until I had enough mileage and headed back. Very slow going into the wind but it was nice coming home. I did well considering the heat and did not feel too bad when I arrived home. 101 miles but I didn't finish until after 1pm. I really didn't want anymore. I couldn't let the last long ride of my race prep suffer for a damn spoke.
http://connect.garmin.com/modern/#activity/539952471
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