It’s the Friday before Labor Day Weekend and even though it’s Ark building season, the motorcycle riders are tearing up the roads and blowing out my eardrums. To make matters more interesting my path to Leakey (pronounced LAKE-E) took me through Twisted Sister territory.
There are three of them and I can see their common heritage – dangerous curves, steep grades, little protection and a siren call that beckons those with a motor between their legs to go heavy on the gas. Far to many have tried to tame them only to end up with a case of the forever gones.
I only got a partial taste of one, but it was more than a enough to give them all the respect they deserve. There were two big hills going to Leakey and I had to take a lunch break between them to recover my senses. The first one was 13% and straight up. It takes an amazing amount of concentration to pedal 370 pounds of man and bicycle up something like that at 2.5 mph.
I paused when I could hear my heart in my head. It portends an interesting time for me in Big Bend where the climbs are longer and steeper. Ha ha.