Rode another 62 miles today, this time was in Hermann. This one was a bit easier, and I’m not sure exactly why. Could be recovery was all I needed, or the fact that I was on a lighter bike, or even just that riding the day before like I did helped out with getting me ready to ride hard again today. All I know is this ride was better, and I liked the course. The hills were way steeper, it seemed, especially Devil’s Backbone Hill – it reminded me of Wren School, but mushier and more curvy. The ride down the back side was totally worth the rise.

We started off going 12 miles down the Katy Trail – which was mushy and totally not fun. Rode north a ways, then hit the first hill. I was near the front of the 7-man group, which was where I stayed the rest of the day. Along comes a car, which stops at the top of the hill – another rider to work with! Guess he woke up late or something? It stayed flat for a while, then we hit a downhill, crossed a low water crossing, and I got us almost lost with my Garmin. Turns out the road we were going to take was an abandoned, private road, so we took a bypass and wound up reconnecting with the old road. Guess tech can’t take us everywhere!

Another climb up Cemetary Hill, and the downhill after that was amazingly fast. Hit 42, no problem. Made it back to the Loutre River and Mineola, and started a long slog up the hill to Danville, where we had a nice rest stop at the Sinclair station, then kept on East into the nice headwind. I was definitely cold along there.

There were 3 separate flat stops, so this weekend we had enough bad tubes and then some. So I made it to 200km for the second weekend in a row, can’t complain about that! On top of the riding, I got home and checked the 15-day forecast and it looks like it just may warm up in time for Froze Toes, and with 50 pre-registrants now, we’re looking great!