At 9am on Wednesday, December 30th I rolled out of my driveway on my Trek Valencia and embarked on my second bicycle tour. My destination, Wimberley, TX, was about 50 miles northeast of my home.
I planned the route using Garmin’s Mapsource program on my PC and downloaded the route to my Garmin Edge 705 so I’d have the benefit of turn-by-turn directions. This arrangement worked flawlessly. I also successfully implemented several lessons learned from my first tour.
Like my first tour, I came away from the experience with several key “lessons learned” including:
- Need to know elevation profile : A lesson learned from my first tour was to reduce the first day’s mileage so I’d have some energy left to explore my destination once I got there. The route to Wimberley was about 15 miles shorter than my ride to Fredericksburg. Unfortunately, a good portion of my ride to/from Wimberley involved climbing some big hills and a few monster hills. One hill about 30 miles into the trip was so steep and long that I spent most of the climb in Zone 5 and even hit Zone 6 on my heart rate monitor. As a result I found myself, once again, pretty spent by the time I arrived at my destination.
- Make it a three day tour : While reducing mileage is one strategy, another would simply be to stay two nights at my destination. A day of travel, a rest day to explore and a return ride home.
- Plan tours with more notice : I got to share the ride home with my brother-in-law and nephew. Sharing the experience with others is a lot of fun. I need to provide friends and family with several weeks notice to increase the chance they can accompany me.
Several things worked really well on this tour including:
- Planning the route through towns where I had lunch options, could refill my water bottle, buy drinks/snacks, etc.
- Most of the roads were bicycle friendly – road like Smithson Valley and Bulverde Road had light traffic while busier roads like Hwy 3159 and Hwy 306 had large, wide shoulders.
- The Mountain View Lodge where I stayed was incredible – a great value for the price and literally a room with a gorgeous view. The establishment was also bicycle friendly as they allowed me to keep the bike in the room with me and even offered at not additional charge a nearby, vacant room as a place to keep our bikes if we wanted more room.
The experience of this trip proved, once again, that bicycle touring is a ton of fun. It amazes me that you can travel so far on a bicycle.
Here’s a photo gallery of images from the tour providing a brief glimpse at my latest cycling adventure.
I'm in Mississippi now but grew up in TX. I have enjoyed "visiting" these towns again with you. That looks like a ton of fun.
There is not much "hill country" in Mississippi.
Thanks! Sometimes I wish there was LESS hill country in Texas but then I think of how gorgeous all those hills make the landscape and just start my slow climb to the top.
Take care!
[...] Bicycle Tour #2 – Wimberley, TX – Lessons Learned from http://www.bikegurus.com At 9am on Wednesday, December 30th I rolled out of my driveway on my Trek Valencia and embarked on my second bicycle tour. My destination, Wimberley, TX, was about 50 miles northeast of my home. [...]