Day 282-283 May 7-8, 2017 Kerrville to Segovia, TX and a rest day.

Time to catch up a bit. We have been in the mid-Texas e-communication wasteland. Rarely, Margaret has been able to make a cell phone call. Neither of us have been able to text or download pictures. We are in San Angelo, TX tonight. I will try to bring you up to date as far as I can before falling asleep.


Day 282 May 7, 2017. Kerrville to Segovia, TX. Today's map: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/20955964

We will be in Texas Hill Country until we get to Eden, TX. Today started out with a bit of a down hill back into Kerrville, and gentle grades on Tex 27/39 to Ingram.





At mile 8 Tex 27 turned left, away from the Guadelupe River heading into the hills, and our climbing began.







Not everyone can make these climbs.


Miniature horses we saw along the way.


Shade and energy bar break at two hours into the ride. Notice the large tree with its massive amounts of shade.


Our climbing continued. Riding through terrain like this, I wish I had taken some classes in geology in college. Lime stone over sand stone?


If you look at the map, much of the latter part of our day was on a frontage road following I-10.


At mile 38.3, we came to our turn away from the frontage road on to Old Segovia Wulbs Road. Our first look at this road made us doubt the wisdom of this turn. Margaret got off the bike, and walked a couple hundred feet down this new road which confirmed our doubts. The road had deteriorating pavement, basically an old road returning to gravel. A unanimous decision was made to continue on the frontage road.

Effects of this decision were the following:
1) We added 163 feet of climbing, and 0.4 miles of riding.
2) We had a screaming down hill at 41.3 mph. We have never gone over 40 mph with the trailer.
3) A marvelous three mile descent reaching 39.8 mph, and the chance to pace some local deer at close to 20 mph.











What you don't see in these pics are the deer pacing us to our left, and wanting to cross the road.

We took a rest day in Segovia, did laundry and relaxed.

Day 281 May 6, 2017 Boerne to Kerrville, TX

Google lies. We climbed 1,524 feet today, not 1,100. Most of the steep hills were in the first seventeen miles. Today's route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/20807243

Leaving Boerne today.


Apparently there will be a quilt show in Boerne this weekend.


Nice sculpture leaving Bourne.


We have cleverly prolonged our time in the Texas Hill Country. By going from Austin south to San Antonio then north west to Eden, we have zigzagged our way through the hills. This has allowed us to wake up our climbing legs after months of flat country riding. Sure we meant to do this. Trust me.

Looking back after climbing a hill today.


Looking forward from the same point.


More hills on the way into Comfort, TX.


Crossed a nice stream, and then entered Comfort where we took an energy bar break at the Public Library.








We saw this plant again. Does anyone know what it is? At any rate, there was a hummingbird feeding off the nectar. We tried to get a photo, but the darned things are fast, and we couldn't.


 

More spectators.


We had a really good ride today, and finished with many miles left in our legs. But, with less than a mile left in our ride, Google Maps threw us a curve. The Google route took us up Washington St in Kerrville, promising only a 2.4% grade. Hell no.




We diverted two streets to the left, and found a real 2.4% grade.

Tomorrow we head north and west to Segovia, and our first rest day. https://ridewithgps.com/routes/20807504

Good night.

Day 280 May 5, 2017 San Antonio to Boerne, TX

I was anxious to get on the road today. During our layover in San Antonio, we replaced some of the gears. They were well worn and the bike road so much better with the new ones.

Our first stop was at the Charles A James bike shop to pick up an extra long skewer (the rod that attaches the wheel to the bike frame) Mark, bike mechanic extraordinaire, had found for us. It seems the trailer has taken its tole on another skewer; it needed a replacement.

 One thing I've enjoyed about Texas is the murals. They are everywhere. I took pictures of these two on our way out of town.

Two things struck me about our ride into Boerne, pronounced Bernie, construction traffic and hills. The weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, in the 70's, overall a perfect day to be on the road.

It was a nice ride, but virtually the entire route was under construction. An Uber driver in San Antonio told me 60% of the roads in the city were being worked on, and I believe it. We road much of the way on Frontage RD, which ran right next to the highway. All the overpasses were either new construction or being constructed.  There were also many huge new developments going in. We passed at least 6 of them in 30 miles. Texas is bursting at the seams. If you want a job in construction, go to Texas, there is construction everywhere!

 Our hotel, a really nice Motel 6, bills its self as being in the heart of Texas hill country. I'll say. In truth, we actually didn't have many hills today. It was more like hill, singular.  One 34 mile looooong hill. We started at 600 feet above sea level and ended at 1480. We earned our beer today.
Google tells me tomorrow were climbing 1100 feet but falling 850, so we'll get the coast part of the way. It is supposed to be another beautiful day, I'm sure it will be great.

One advantage to climbing is the scenery. Beautiful.

Days 276-279 May 1-4, 2017 San Antonio, TX

San Antonio has been a nice stop for us. We found an excellent bike shop, finally got our bike's rear gearing fixed. If you are ever in need of a bicycle shop in this city, go to Charles A James Bicycle Shop, 319 N Main Ave. Mark, a mechanic there, did a great job.


Mark is the shorter guy on the right.


San Antonio is about twice as large as Austin, at 1.4 million, and much, much, much flatter. In Austin I saw many bikes with little teenie granny rings, and great big rear cogs. In San Antonio, not so much. Overall, I think Austin was the more interesting city, at least for us. San Antonio does have the Alamo, which you should see because, Alamo. The river walk is also something special, both for scenery and restaurants. I suggest you visit both cities and judge for yourself.

Margaret and I loved the River Walk. To my mind, it is the best part of San Antonio. It took the efforts of truly visionary leaders to begin this marvel in the late 1920's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_River_Walk

The walk is just beautiful. If you visit, the boat tour of the River Walk is well worth the price.











The orange sculpture is the torch of freedom which was given to us by Mexico in 2002. Do you think they may be having second thoughts?


There is, of course, the Alamo. Other than the local professional basketball team (GO SPURS GO is everywhere), this is a major focus of San Antonio. The funny thing about the Alamo is that the view that you most often see is not the front of the Alamo, not the part of the building that faced the attacking Spanish. What you see is the back of the chappel. Almost the entire grounds of the Alamo are now occupied by city streets. Our tour guide told us that within two years the buildingd on those streets will be demolished, and the Alamo will be reconstructed.

We also went to the historic Market Square, a landmark Mexican shopping district.








Since we were in a Mexican market, I suspended my concerns about political correctness.


Tomorrow we ride to Bourne (pronounced Bernie, as in Sanders). Route: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/20806438

Talk to you later.

Days 275 April 30, 2017 New Braunfels to San Antonio, TX

What a difference a day can make! The morning of April 30th was almost 30 degrees cooler than it had been the two days prior with a high predicted of 70 degrees. We were anxious to be in San Antonio and curious how different the ride would be in cooler weather, so we got on the road a bit early.

Texas is a mixed bag when it comes to cycling. Road shoulders are the same width as a car lane which really helps when riding on a busy road, they do have roads with a designated bike lane and there are even a few bike paths in cities. Unfortunately, roads with shoulders tend to disappear without warning, bike lanes are few and far between, and bike paths are even scarcer. Heck, they don't even have sidewalks along most roadways!

As John's Texan cousins informed us while we were in Houston, Texas is built for cars. They obviously do not consult cyclists or even pedestrians when planning their roadways.

We were began our day on a bike path, however, if you look closely, you'll notice that there are no cutouts to merge onto the street. Cyclists have to detour down a homeowner's driveway or get off of their bike every time time the path crosses a street!




With the exception of the weather, the  ride was similar to the rides out of Austin and San Marcos. A lot of cows and countryside through the Texas hill country. We had more than a 1000 feet of climbing to do but without 90 degree temperatures, not only were we faster, but we had much more energy. Much to our relief, the difference was like night and day. We arrived in San Antonio full of energy and enthusiasm. We were worried that 3 weeks in GR had caused us to be horribly out of shape, but it turns out it is our thick northern blood that was the culprit.

A diesel maintenance station. Trains come here to get fuel for the road. 

The population of San Antonio is 1.4 million about half the size of Houston and much larger than the state capital, Austin.

It's home to the Alamo and, as we've been told many time a beautiful river-walk. We plan to take a tour of the city and will give you the complete story soon.

Days 274 April 29, 2017 San Marcos to New Braunfels, TX

The road kill cleanup crew.

More wild flowers were blooming. This time thistle.

Deciding the distance between stops is more art than science. We have to take into account the terrain, weather and distance between motels. As the bicycle pedals, it is 104 miles between Austin and San Antonio, an easy 2 day trip.


We could go 50 miles from Austin to New Braunfels and then another 54 miles to arrive in San Antonio. Being a little leery of doing 50 miles on our first day back from visiting family in Grand Rapids, we split the trip into three days. The way the hotels  were spaced out, that left a 17 mile ride into New Braunfels.

The trip into San Marcos had been exhausting, mentally and physically so a short day seemed like a good thing. As it turned out, the day topped out at 92 degrees with lots of hills, so having a 17 mile ride was much better than 52. We arrived in New Braunfels glad to be off the bike and ready for a burger and a beer.