Today, me, Casey and Nick rode the Peach Eatin Horse route in reverse. The weather was amazing, starting at 59 and ending at 72 with clear skies. The wind had heavy 20mph gusts that were never headwinds or tailwinds, but they made us work a little harder.
We were on a mission to feed our 2000lb pet draft horse, Sampson, but I made a new friend in Fiesty Spot at mile 8.4, who loves fig newtons, but won’t eat a gummie. If someone wanted to make it a 6hr day, you could stop and feed about 8-10 horses on this route. We got to visit 3, Spot, Sampson and the white horse opposite Sampson and his 3 guard donkeys.
When we got near Sampson, I totally missed the turn to go see him. We rode about an extra mile over several pretty big rollers. Everyone was not thrilled about adding a couple miles and reclimbing hills to go back to see him, but we all agreed it was well worth it. Sampson did a poor job of peeling his orange, dropping it on the ground a few times. He also enjoyed some fig newtons and a cliff bar.
Riding the route in reverse was fun because I was familiar with all the areas, but noticed a lot of things that I never did before, like the skeleton in the wheelchair in the middle of the lawn of a trailer. The elevation is misleading going this direction too, as there are some forever climbs, and a bunch of short, punchy ones. I’m gonna clean up some queues in the route and share it to https://alabamacyclingcalendar.com/routes/ shortly.