Back in the Saddle (Again)
“Hello, my name is Shannon, and it’s been one month since my last bike ride.”
This is a placeholder entry for today’s mountain bike ride with Justin at Hill Country State Natural Area in Bandera, TX. I’ll have more to include later, including our GPS track.
Total Distance Travelled: 10.17 miles
Highlights:
- We had a blast!
- No one fell (woot!)
- The weather gods were kind to us –
overcast, a little mist of rain and a nice breeze to cool us off when we were underway. - We had the entire 5,369-acre park to ourselves!
It sucks that Justin had to work long hours all this week, but it did mean he got a rare full-day Friday off, allowing us to reincarnate our old “free Fridays” — outdoors activities on a weekday (and the earlier, the better!), thereby avoiding being shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow outdoors enthusiasts on weekends. Enjoying the great outdoors loses a little something when you realize your favorite park has a higher population density on weekends than some cities!
From an email Justin sent out this evening to our biking friends and family:
After several reschedules due to rain (and one due to just not being able to get our tails out of bed), we finally did our mountain bike ride at Hill Country State Natural Area. What a ride it was, too! The park was literally EMPTY. It was just Shannon and I and we loved every minute of it. You could hear a pin drop. The only sounds were our mountain bikes jingling and jangling over terrain and the abundant birds that filled the air with their melodies.
The 10 mile ride included some technical sections, some heart-pounding climbs and breathtaking views around every corner. This is an amazing place to experience the thrill of off-road bicycling!!
Looking forward to sharing this park with my fellow bicyclers! It rocks!
– Justin
PS: The smallest last photo was taken by Shannon with her RAZR cell phone as I braked heavily near the bottom of a long descent.
