Photos by Luke Batten and Carolina Gil-Pelayo
Words by Luke Batten
TSH Visits the Rio Grande Valley in search of sprinkle watts and meets an amazing group of women in the Rio Grande Valley racing bikes for Corazón Racing + Interview
During the last couple of years we’ve been sending more and more packages of cycling gear to south Texas. It peaked our curiosity (yes we get excited about seeing our jerseys in photos and on rides!) and by looking at tags on social media we learned about a group of women in the Rio Grande Valley wearing TSH. Matching kits, early morning rides, you could just tell there was a burst of athletic and creative energy going on. We had to meet these women!. We reached one of the riders, Stephanie Treviño and started chatting about making a visit.
Stephanie Treviño
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The Rio Grande Valley
This was our first time to south Texas and the entire time we were in the Rio Grande Valley we were trying to get our bearings. In fact Carolina and I got lost a couple times. The closest either of us had ever gotten to the RGV was San Antonio which is 3 hours away and in terms of the scale of Texas, closeby! Our first day we told Stephanie and her boyfriend Adam that we would meet them in McAllen at our Airbnb and we ended up driving in the wrong direction to Edinburg for 30 minutes! As the women of Corazón Racing will tell you the region is pretty flat so the only obvious (to us) geographical marker one could make out was the Chase Bank in McAllen which is the tallest building around.
Getting lost does have its benefits because we wanted to scout the area for some photo shoots that day and with the team on Sunday. Later, Adam and Stephanie gave us a tour that stitched together the towns of McAllen, Pharr, Mission and Edinburg. In between old downtowns, strip malls you find the regions history emerge with large citrus farms, and ranches. Irrigation standpipes dot and canals criss-cross the landscape in surprisingly beautiful ways. Coming from Chicago we got lost in trying to discern every store in every strip mall. As we admired a 1000’s storefronts and wind-toppled Sheriff campaign signs, Adam and Stephanie guided us to some quality tacos and drinks. My favorite place to visit was downtown McAllen as there are so many shops to look at and Stephanie even pointed out the store where she got fabric for her Quinceañera dress.
Corazón Racing
This team threw a potluck for us on Saturday and Jessica Martinez’s husband Edgar made an incredible surf and turf BBQ that Carolina and I are still talking about. Add some home-made salsas, rice, beans, tortillas and potato salad and a custom TSH cake and we had a great time. Our connection with the team of course was initially based around cycling and sprinkles but with Carolina and I both coming from Mexican-American families, the dinner and atmosphere (music!) had us both feeling warm and fuzzy all evening (maybe the mezcal cocktails Catie made were helping too?!?). At the end of our trip Stephanie said she could not believe we came down all the way to south Texas and Carolina and I could not believe how lucky we were to connect with this team. We are beyond grateful for their generosity and welcoming us into their homes! (check out the interview with Team Director)
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More Photos
