Tim Danner

Because New Year’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, my employer elected to give us Presidents’ Day off rather than January 3^rd. I decided to spend the day on a solo bike ride. For Christmas I received a copy of Best Bike Rides in Texas, with a foreword by pre-Tour de France Lance Armstrong.

For today I chose #38, the Washington-on-the-Brazos Challenge, which is a 42-mile loop starting and ending in Chappell Hill (a tiny town on 290 between College Station and Brenham) and passing by Washington-on-the-Brazos state park. The book describes the terrain as “gently rolling hills.” I suppose that would be considered accurate, but as my cycling thus far has consisted entirely of ultra-flat coastal plains it was definitely a Challenge for me.

Today’s ride also impressed on me the benefits of riding in a group. When it got windy, I wanted nothing more than to be able to tap my hip, say “out,” and drop back behind a double paceline of fellow travelers/windbreaks.

I had hoped to get out from under the Houston gloom, but it didn’t work. The weather was just as overcast out there as it was here. You can’t escape February that easily.

Even so, the ride was much more pleasant than how I spend most of my Mondays.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 4:13 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.