Day 59 was just like the brochure said it would be.  There was a light breeze, blue skies, fluffy white clouds, shade trees along the road, and good shoulders on most of the way.  The route meandered through green pastures with rolling but not steep hills.  The conditions were almost too good to be true.

Just before entering La Grange Texas I encountered this road sign.

No Way. I”m turning around and heading back to San Diego.

I put the hammer down and rode as hard as I could, trying to make miles before weather might spoil the day.  At 10:15 am I had logged 18 miles and took a cracker break just before entering La Grange.  At 11:30 I took a sandwich break after logging 32 miles in 3 hours.  I kept on pressing and by 12:30 pm I was over 45 miles and treated myself to a pint of Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate ice cream.

My crew showed up and caught me in the act again.  I said I had 45 minutes to my magic 2:00 pm quitting time and I would try to ride until then.  The result was a new high in a day for the trip to date.

A couple riding on with touring cycles came down a hill from the west while I was heading down a hill going east.  Neither of us seemed to want to lose our momentum, so we didn’t stop to chat, which is the usual custom of touring cyclists.  However as they passed by one of them called out we heard of you.

Stats for day 59: I rode 54.22 miles at an average pace of 12.8 mph, Max=17.7 mph, Ascent=2003’, Descent=1841′, Max elevation=423′ , Min elevation=155′ , Ave heart rate=114, Max heart rate=145, Ave temp=80, Calories burned=1457, Total trip miles=1703