Today the first day of cycling Hell Week. Hell Week started 16 years ago and is known being able to ride 100 miles per day for eight days in a row. Over time, shorter rides have been added as well. Todays choices were an A ride (99.4 miles), B ride (56.4 miles) and a C ride (46.1 miles). I opted for the B, since I want to get some riding in each day, but don’t need to push the 100 miles/per day training. Todays ride was fairly easy since it was unloaded without my gear and I had fewer headwinds.

Yesterday, I cycled over to pick up my Hell Week materials. Nick and Becky Gerlich have organized this event as well as a number of other Hell Week theme rides. As of this morning there were over 300 registered so a fun event with other cyclists. I left this morning for a 9am start. Lots of people out and about and without much fuss we were off. All of the A, B and C rides shared the initial departure route and also crossed over each other a few times later. We bunched up some at the lights but slowly spread ourselves out along the way. There were some gentle hills to cross and many folks passed as I slowly climbed the hills. Lots of little winding country roads and not too much on the bigger highways. We passed briefly onto TX 16. Here a local police officer was telling folks to ride on the shoulder. Unfortunately, the shoulder was a lot rougher than right side of the travel lane, but we didn’t have long before turning to the next winding road.

Some gentle hills to cross until we turned south towards Stonewall. I had been here yesterday, and stopped briefly at the store for more refreshments. This was one of those sections where all of the A/B/C routes intersected but each going slightly different ways. From here backtrack and up a road known as Grape Creek. This area was rustic and very beautiful. A few sharp hills but it was worth it going along the countryside. At 43 miles back to the larger road and then mostly along those major roads back to Fredericksburg. Overall, it was a fairly easy ride since I wasn’t carrying all my gear along. 59 miles today.