Bar H

The Breaks at Bar H
What??

Moab to Austin is a long drive. Really long. We left Moab at 4 pm, drove until 1 am, slept in a truck stop (make sure the doors are locked!), got up at 7 am and drove until we arrived at 11 pm. Ouch. When looking at the map, we knew that we had to break up the drive somehow, and preferably with a bike ride. As luck would have it, the latest Bike magazine had a feature article about riding in tornado country, which includes an area in Texas north of Dallas. It was basically on the way, and neither of us had ever been to any part of Texas. With low expectations for the riding, we said what the heck, lets give it a try. We rolled into rural Saint Jo, Texas (population 500?) as two gringos in a big van looking for that gosh dern mountain bikin’ hootenanny. Luckily, the locals didn’t actually talk like that and were actually really helpful. Well, the second local was, the first one sent us 10 miles down the wrong road. But we did finally find the Bar H ranch and the bike park, named “The Breaks.” No, I don’t know why they named it that. But I did hear that you want to name your ranch something short like Bar H, because no cow wants to be branded “Uncle Jeb’s Cattle and Emu Emporium.”

The biking part of the ranch is “only” 1200 acres, which Nate promised me wasn’t that big. Dude, I’m from SoCal. If you live on an acre you’re pretty much Bill Gates. With only 1200 acres and 400 vertical feet to work with, we were a little puzzled at the claim of 21 miles of trails. We soon found that the way they crammed it all in was by making the trail go up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, uhhhhh I think I’m going to be sick. Believing that we were big tough bikers from states with real mountains, we headed straight for all of the toughest trails. They were littered with loose, sharp rocks that constantly threatened to throw you to the ground, rip open some flesh, laugh and then run off with your lunch money. Ahhh, high school memories. After riding the harder trails, we dropped back down to the easier trails, and, whoa, they were a blast! Smooth, twisty, little ups and downs tearing through the trees. Hard doesn’t always mean better. After racing around until dark, we whipped up our favorite dish (bean and cheese burritos fried in olive oil- yummmm!) and the hit the road for Austin, contented with some unexpectedly fun riding.

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