Day 28: Longhorns

 It was a bitter cold ride out of camp this morning with the temperature only 38 degrees. We had on multiple layers and shoe covers and still ended up with numb fingers and toes.

The lush scenery of Texas hill country and the serenity of some quiet country roads helped make up for the frigid air temps. Leaving behind the high traffic and all the noise made it feel much more like a ride through Wisconsin, if it were not for the longhorn steers in the pastures.


We took our time today and enjoyed the rolling hills of the landscape. It seemed fitting we were in this mood as we stopped by our lunch stop.

It was a general store of sorts outside of Comfort, TX, owned by a young woman who said it was always her dream to own a store like this, but she had planned for it to be after she retired. Unfortunately, she suffered a cancer scare, and decided not to wait for retirement…time to savor things a bit and not take too much for granted.

A concept all of us need to remind ourselves of from time to time.





The bicycling was difficult with the rolling hills. Half way through our afternoon ride, which is always more difficult on a full stomach, we modified our strategy. Instead of working on the downhill (hammer) to accentuate gravity, getting us further up the next hill, and working to crest the hill, we applied our mountain strategy. We coasted down each hill and partially up the next before working (spinning) to reach the top. This worked better because we were only exerting effort 75% of the time. Hammer & Spin has been replaced with Coast & Spin.