‘Do you like mountain peaks or passes best?’
‘Passes. They lead somewhere.’ - Islandia by Austin Tappan Wright
Cycling in the Covid-19 era: no rallies, no pay rides, no races, no tours...no motivation. What to do?
Well, some 50 years ago a couple of French cyclists first formed the ‘Club of 100 Passes’, a brotherhood of riders who have climbed a minimum of 100 passes, five of which were higher than 6562 feet (2000 meters). The organization continues to this day, and their cycle sport is called ‘pass hunting’.
https://www.centcols.org/
Participants hail from all over the cycling world, but most are in Europe and Japan. There are a few folks in the USA that hunt passes, and the boutique cycle company Velo Orange even offers a bicycle model named the Pass Hunter.
https://velo-orange.blogspot.com/200...unting_20.html
Well, that’s nice and all, but here in America pass hunting would be a Colorado thing, right? Texas is surely just too darn flat for a Texan to ever dream of joining CentCols. Well, don’t be too quick to dismiss the Lone Star State. Remember, France is one of the Six Flags of Texas! CentCols’ ‘rules of the game’ as to what qualifies as a ‘pass’ are simultaneously more restrictive and more permissive than you might imagine. I applied their definitions and requirements to the USGS database for Texas and found 76 qualifying passes in the state. Yeah, 76.
Okay, to join CentCols you’d have to pick up another two dozen passes (including the required 5 high passes) by journeying to the distant and exotic lands of Oklahoma and New Mexico, but you’d gain bragging rights for having ridden every qualifying pass in Texas!
These 76 Texas passes, or ‘gaps’ in USGS parlance, are all on public roads*. Some are paved and some are gravel, so your climbing bike and your gravel bike can both get out for some adventure.
All the Texas passes are toward the south and west in the state. The furthest east is
Sugarloaf Gap in Bell County actually Cedar Gap in Harker Heights (which I think is also the only Texas pass with a segregated bike lane running through it), the furthest north is The Narrows in Knox County. Furthest west by a long way is Smugglers Pass on Transmountain Drive north of El Paso, and furthest south is the macabre named Dead Mans Curve pass, in the tunnel in Big Bend National Park. Graham Gap is on a public road through Fort Hood military base signed “Danger - Overhead Artillery Fire’, which will be a fun story to share with those French 'Col-lectors'.
I’ll be looking for CentCol’s membership patches at HTH in a few years!
Tom Shaddox
*Several of these passes and gaps are on the grounds of Fort Hood military base. These roads might be closed to the public at various times.
Fun fact: El Paso isn’t a ‘pass’. The name comes from a time over 400 years ago meaning ‘the place you cross the river’.
Yes, of course, you can copy this for your club newsletter. Now saddle up and get out there!