It’s 9:30pm, we’ve just polished off some well earned fried chicken for dinner and are now relaxing in our room ready to ‘turn in’ for the day. And what a day today has been; a ‘real deal’ of a workout. It all started with our usual best efforts to make the ride ahead as difficult as possible by getting on the road 1hr and 15mins behind schedule after visiting the bike shop to pick up our spare tyres. On most days, an 11:15am start would not be a major problem, but today we were heading North West for 68+ miles against a WNW 10mph wind. Throw in several “Category 2” hill climbs reaching over 2383ft (that’s pedalling uphill for 3518ft in total), bringing our average speed down to sub 12mph…do the math. The harsh reality was that we were going to arrive at our destination after 6pm.
Faced with the prospect of endless hills, relentless head winds and cycling into the early evening, we focused on the positive stuff… the sun was bright, it wasn’t raining and it was warm. Better still, as we got into the hills and valleys of Kerr, Bandera and Real Counties, the scenery was breathtakingly stunning (check out photos). And, of course, after each killer ascent in a series of rolling hills, there will be a ‘flies stuck in your teeth’ descent; and at precisely 5hrs and 17mins into the ride we broke our maximum speed record, reaching and maintaining 44.4mph for all of 7 seconds…yee-ha! travelling at high speed on a bicycle without protective clothing can be dangerous and should not be condoned.
Despite the very tough day, we had a great time and are now ready to make the most of tomorrow’s rest day.
Us x
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