Hotter 'N Hell Hundred 2008

This past Saturday was this year's Hotter 'N Hell Hundred.  It claims to be the largest organized century ride in the US.  This year's rider total was 11,260.

I used to ride the shorter distances (10 and 25) when I lived in Wichita Falls in elementary school.  Since living in Austin, I've been going back and doing the full hundred.  I think that this weekend was probably my fifth (maybe fourth?) time doing the hundred.  It was probably typical as far as elapsed time: 5:44  (17.6 mph average).  Much slower than my best there (5:01, 20.1 mph average), although it was unusually cool that year (80s).  This year was pretty standard temperature wise (upper 90s), with perhaps a bit more wind than normal (or at least than I remember).  The local Wichita Falls paper has a story with much better pictures than I'll paste below: Helluva race

 

Looking back, at the start on Scott Street.

Colleen and I stopped on the bridge right after the start, keeping an eye out for Austin on his handbike.

 

Colleen's friend Austin, who rode this handbike (!).  Jen and I met him a few months ago, when Austin was in Austin for a wheelchair rugby tournament that Colleen brought us to.  He was playing on Mark Zupan's team!

It is probably a bit hard to see in this grainy Blackberry camera picture, but this is showing a group of T-38s from Sheppard AFB that fly right over the column of riders along Scott Street to kick off the ride.  A cannon is fired off somewhere, the jets buzz the crowd, and off we go!