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07/25/1998 - Goatneck 100 - Cleburne, TX - S. French
40 miles - 14 mph (or so)

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Here are our lasting memories from the Goatneck 100.

• Great shirts!
• Saw Kim at the end. Talked with her for a while. She was very excited, this being her first organized rally. She had biked very fast and looked ready to bike another 40 miles!
• Saw Mike and Pat during the ride and biked with them for a short while. Mike was one of the folks who had suggested that this ride was one of finest. He was right.
• We drove down to Cleburne that morning after pre-registering. It was an easy, 1-hour ride to Cleburne down the tollway, I-35, Highway 67 straight into Cleburne. We passed the antenna farm in Cedar Hill that broadcasts the local television stations. We marveled at the number and height of these antennas.
• The ride was beautiful with incredible scenery reminicient of the Hill Country down near Austin. There were long vistas from almost every part of the ride. The vistas, however, were across brown fields where corn and cotton were supposed to be growing. It was too dry and hot for anything to grow well there so all we saw were miles of brown grass blowing in the breeze. Very beautiful, but not a good thing for the farmers. We passed Texas white limestone, prickly pear cactus, and a limestone quarry (where I got limestone dust in my contact, ouch!).
• The route was rolling hills all the way.
• We thought the 100 mile people were getting screwed up at one point when they joined our 40 mile route. Turned out they had done an out-and-back that started and ended that that point (rest stop 4).
• There was an unusually long distance between rest stop 4 and rest stop 8 (adjacent rest stops on the 40 mile route).
• We stopped at Luby's on the way home. The perfect lunch spot after biking!