The ride organizers decided to drop part of the course due to flooding. We started at 9:00 and the rain started again right about the same time. No lightening so we all proceeded in the very wet conditions. I did ok until after the "big hill". I stopped shortly after to wipe the rain and sweat from my face. The following section was a very steep decent. My favorite part of the ride. I was about 2 hours into the ride at this point and the rain had slowed down somewhat. Started down the hill and noticed my front wheel was wobbling some. Never did that before, what was going on? A little farther and I could hear the tire making road noise. Uh oh, looks like a flat. Still going pretty fast and had a hard time slowing as the road and my wheel was still pretty wet. I finally got slowed but the road did not have a shoulder to stop on. Ok, where is the bank the widest, my tire is pretty flat now and I'm afraid if I don't stop soon, the tire is going to stop me. This is the first time I had changed my on flat (except in the bike shop where they held a class on tire changing). Got it changed about the time the sag wagon stopped to help. No help needed here. I stopped at the last rest stop to use the bathroom, but the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. The crowd was light due to the weather and I was almost the last one in but I passed one guy barely a mile from the end.

The had a nice meal waiting for us at the end.


I averaged a better pace than last year. I think if the other 7 miles that had been cut were included, I would have averaged an even better pace so everything was good.