Day T5: Rushing to Avoid a Penalty

February 9, 2023

Temple to Georgetown TX

The Airbnb last night was even better than the one in Waco, which was quite the surprise. It's not that it was any bigger or more luxurious for the value I got for the money, as by those standards it will be impossible to beat the villa in Waco. But this Airbnb in Temple Texas was exactly as advertised: a retreat. It was extremely comfortable and the host went to great lengths to pay attention to all the details. The part I liked the most was you opened up a gate latch and could store the bicycle in the back yard out of sight. There was even a hose so I could wash off the mud and all the other junk from the Waco misadventure.

I asked if I could use the washer and dryer, as I have acquired a habit of doing small loads of laundry every night. Not only did the host say yes, she even said to leave the bag outside the place and she would do the laundry herself. I wasn't expecting such service and told her no rush, just do it at your own pace and I'm leaving later in the morning anyway. Then I woke up and found a bag of freshly done laundry.

This I would say was the best Airbnb while the Waco one now takes second place.

I also liked these chill out sofas outside. The weather had changed remarkably today and would be sunny and hot all day.

The hardest part, of course, was leaving the Airbnb. This time it was especially difficult because I was extremely exhausted from the last few days. The plan was to "sleep in a little more" until 8am, then leave by around 9am. But that turned into waking up by almost 11am which was close to the checkout time. Although I must have needed the sleep, I was upset and frantic when seeing the time upon waking up because I had also made a dumb mistake of pre-booking a fitness class at 4:15pm that day in the next city of Georgetown.

The original plan was to have done a morning fitness class in Temple but since I was tired I canceled it last night. Then, right away, I booked an afternoon class in Georgetown the next day (today) with the aim of having plenty of time to bike the 40 miles to get there.

But that all went belly up with a late start and it was also too late to cancel the class because Orange Theory has an 8-hour late cancel penalty. If you cancel or change the class within 8 hours, you either forfeit the class or have to pay a penalty. In my case, since I had bought a class package in Vegas before the pandemic and this package didn't expire, it was extremely valuable and I couldn't afford to lose a class. There is likely no way they would offer such a deal now. It's not really about the money if I forfeit this class, it is about the fact that I'm grandfathering off an amazing deal that shouldn't have been offered in the first place.

All that motivated me to get cracking fast, but I still checked and double checked and triple checked to make sure I had everything before leaving.

Charming and especially the bells playing hymns on the street. But after now seeing 12 of these "First Baptist" churches on tour, it seems they could be more creative with the name.

As I got started, things were not looking good. I had basically 40 miles to ride and about 4h 30min to allow for a short buffer window of 10 min or so before my fitness class. That meant by my calculations I would have to average 8.88 miles an hour, or just over 14 km/h. My GPS map said that would be doable as it calculates everything on an average speed of 12 miles an hour.

The only problem with the cycling option on Google Maps is that it assumes you're doing the Tour de France. With my setup and the way I normally tour, I am slow. Such kind of speed just wasn't going to happen. To make matters worse I was facing headwinds, heavy traffic, and detours right off the bat. The original road was extremely busy and I was getting honked to oblivion. Not the usual friendly toots you would get in Laos, but the kind of honking to say "Get off the road" and I heard some choice insults to match.

Because of the closed road I had to detour to another smaller road and this tacked on at least another 3 miles. Finally I got to the service road beside the Interstate and then rechecked my calculations. I was now required to bump it up to 9.3 miles an hour, and I figured this was just not possible. The headwinds started picking up even more, and for the first 30 miles it was almost all uphill.

So at that point I stopped and called the fitness studio and explained. I told them I'm riding a bike and facing headwinds, can I please switch the class from 4:15pm to 5:30pm? They said sorry, we can't make switches within the 8 hour window. They said they could put me in the next class but it would still count as a late cancel.

I was furious at that point and told them ok then, I'll just have to push really hard. At that point my speed went up to somewhere between 11 and 12 miles an hour, and I figured maybe I'll just end up making the class.

And of course this came up midway. The best gas station ever with places to sit down and chill with a coffee. This is the way life works, when you want to chill there are no places available, when you don't want to chill, there are.

All along the way I had been making super quick stops at gas stations for soda in order to keep hydrated. If I was going to bike all out for a long distance, then hydration would be vital. This is another reason why I prefer to bike close to motorways. They are quite safe on the parallel roads and there are plenty of these places to stop and catch a break. It is the exact same with Thailand and other countries.

I also wanted to see if these places had any Uber gift cards. Sadly they did not. My backup plan was to call an Uber if I was falling further and further behind the required average speed, but since my payment methods still don't work with the newly acquired US phone number (Paypal will take awhile to resolve), then the only option without a credit card would be Uber cash which just wasn't available.

So it became clearer and clearer that, just like on Sunday night, the bicycle was going to be the only option.

This was a welcome sight. Up until now, most of the riding had been on chipseal which was slowing me down. Although the headwinds were still present, I knew I could gain some speed with better roads in the next county.

At that point, things started to improve ever so slightly. The road got better, the headwinds died down a bit, and the road stopped climbing that never-ending hill to flatten out slightly. I looked at the map and realized I was getting close to the top and it would be mostly downhill from this point.

Then I rechecked my calculations and showed that my new average speed only needed to be 8.6 miles an hour. That was after all the stops as well. This started giving me some hope that I might make it.

The routine would continue like this and it became more and more apparent that my average required speed was now dropping below 8 miles an hour, and that making the fitness class was looking like a definite possibility. But to get to this point I was already soaked in sweat and depleting a lot of my energy. I then began to wonder what this was all for, why do fitness classes if I'm already riding a bike or vice versa.

The main reason is to blast away at the remnants of this lockdown fat as fast as possible. Basically to obliterate those Shanghai lockdown effects forever. The biking itself would be more than sufficient to accomplish that if the tour was longer. But I only have a week. This requires little 'turbo charges' thrown in. Enter the fitness classes. Not only that, I am constantly watching the calories I eat to make sure I'm still in a deficit.

Thankfully the gas stations and the convenience stores have food labels that tell you exactly how many calories there are, and let me tell you: it's a hell of a lot more than you think. When you see 420 calories and realize that's an entire 30-minute treadmill session of the intense fitness classes I do, it really makes you think twice about whether you're going to buy that snack or not.

Of course just when I turned off the road beside the Interstate, the honks from the car drivers returned and this was so close to the destination. But at that point I could care less.

I checked into the class with 15 minutes to spare, and the manager said, "So you're the bike guy right?" I said yes. He asked, "Where did you bike from today?" I told him Temple and the entire front desk staff freaked out and looked at me like I was crazy. What else is new. They said, "And you're still going to do the class?" I told them of course, and I also mentioned, "That's why I called you guys over 4 hours ago and asked if I could switch to the next class, but whatever it's all good now." The manager said, "Oh wow, we thought you were just biking from around the block. We'll get you signed in." I then took a bit of a breather in the restroom and changed clothes for the workout.

They then realized after I told them I do cycle tours regularly and they also correctly pointed out they don't see many people with stories like this. Well that's good, then why couldn't you just change my class without a penalty? At the same time I made the mistake of pre-booking when the better option would be to book at the last minute.

The class was of course outstanding and thankfully it was an easier one than yesterday. Still the whole day was pretty messed up to say the least.

A good idea to take a long chill break at a coffee shop after that.

But not too long as I still have to get to the Airbnb before dark. Maybe it worked out for the best I rushed to do the earlier class. The drivers are getting scarier and scarier as the trip goes on.

The reward for all of this. The only other meal I had today was a breakfast burrito at 7/11 which ended up being eaten on the road.

Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 1,261 km (783 miles)

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