March 30th, 2010
On Saturday morning, I left my parent’s house in Hollywood Park for an 80-mile roundtrip bicycle tour from north central San Antonio to Castroville, Texas. I was joined by Kim, a coworker and friend who wanted to experience her first bicycle tour and having another rider with me was a welcome change from my previous two solo tours. I’m very proud of her accomplishment! Bravo!
Our little mini-bicycle tour to Castroville was, in a word, incredible.
Here are just a few of the highlights that made it so:
Scenery : We encountered fields of beautiful wildflowers along Loop 1604 and FM 471. We also saw some really neat rural scenes like vast rows of freshly planted crops that were perfectly lined up for as far as the eye could see. View a gallery of images from the tour.
Destination : While I’ve been to Castroville in the past, I’d never experienced Castroville. The bicycle tour gave us that opportunity and I really liked what I found – from the amazing Landmark Inn where we stayed overnight to the down-home cooking of Cora’s 471 Grille, we found there was much to do in this small town of 3,000 residents.
The ride : The route worked well and was challenging at times due to a brisk northwest wind that badgered us on certain segments. Traffic was minimal on most of the ride and we enjoyed generally good road sharing by the motorists we encountered.
We arrived in Castroville on Saturday about 2pm and checked-in to the historic Landmark Inn. From the moment we arrived we were greeted by the hospitality of Libby and other staff members. They made us feel very welcome. When I walked into my room for the first time I quickly learned that pictures did no justice to the charm of the “Castro Suite” that I had reserved. The grounds at the lodge were picturesque and just a short walk from my room was the scenic Medina River and a waterfall guarded by huge bald cypress trees.
Typical for my bicycle adventures, it wasn’t long before most of my family descended upon me eager to use the excuse of my bike tour as a reason to come “check out someplace new”. We ate some incredible nachos and enchilidas at Cora’s 471 Grille and I slept like a rock when we returned to the Landmark Inn.
We fought headwinds on our return trip home but once again enjoyed the sights and sounds of travel that only a bicycle can truly deliver.
This was my third bicycle mini-tour and once again my Trek Valencia proved it is a bicycle ready to tackle just about anything I throw at it. I used this tour to put some new panniers to the test – a pair of Avenir Excursion bags and they proved up to the task. Look for a review on these bags soon once I get some more mileage on them.
All-in-all, an outstanding experience that I look forward to introducing to other riders in the future!
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March 19th, 2010
Google recently announced that Google Maps now supports bicycling as a method of transportation when requesting directions to a location. Google says the system will generate a bicycle-friendly route by considering factors like traffic levels, hills, existing bicycle facilities and more.
I used the feature to see what route it would generate between my house and workplace. I was impressed to see that it provided a couple of routes – both of which I use regularly! Nice!
This feature is still in beta but there is no doubt that it is great tool you can start using now to plan your bicycle trips!
Here’s a video with an overview of the new features…
Posted in bicycle commuting, bicycle safety, bicycle touring | No Comments »
March 6th, 2010
This one is just too good not to share. It does a great job of capturing the essence and allure of using your bicycle as a true method of transportation.
Ryan Leech, Bicycle Commuter
If you’re on the fence about bicycle commuting or using your bicycle for errands and short trips, click on the “bicycle commuting” category on the right side of this page to find articles that can help you take the next step!
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March 4th, 2010
Rumors of my abduction by aliens were greatly exaggerated.
In all seriousness, the lack of blog updates has been a combination of an aggressive work schedule with associated travel, a bout of “the crud” which seems to be a vicious cold virus and a decent number of inclement weather days.
A “perfect storm” that has put a big dent in my saddle time.
That said, I have a lot of things in the works. Several product reviews are just around the corner, including:
- Schwalbe Marathon Supreme tires (so far, very impressed)
- Cygolite Trion 600 headlight
- Princeton Tec “Swerve” tail light
In addition, I’ve signed-up to attend the League of American Bicyclists’ “League Certified Instructor (LCI)” seminar in Houston, TX. I’m looking forward to this seminar and the chance to teach cycling safety workshops later this year.
More to come folks!
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January 21st, 2010
I enjoy using my bicycle for small grocery store visits so when I noticed the Topeak Trolleytote I was instantly intrigued. On the outside it looks like nothing more than an egg crate strapped to my bicycle’s rear rack but in this case, looks are quite deceiving.
As I put the Trolleytote through its paces for a full review, here are some first impressions I’d like to share based on my first trip to the grocery store:
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The design of the Trolleytote is pretty impressive. Unassembled it can be stored with a minimal space requirement. When you’re ready for that grocery store visit, the assembly process really shows the thought that went into the design. I got the sense I was a kid again playing with a transformer toy –
here’s a video to see what I mean! This video will also give you a sense of some of its key features.
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During my 5-mile roundtrip ride to the grocery store the Trolleytote stayed secure to my bike both with a load and without. I liked having the weight distributed down the centerline of the bike (versus the balancing required when loading up left and right panniers).
So far, I’m pretty impressed. I’ll be keeping a close eye on how well the Trolleytote can hold up to repeated use.
Posted in product review | 2 Comments »
January 16th, 2010
As a continuation of Part One, let’s take a look at two more powerful bicycle tail lights that I’m convinced will improve your visibility and contribute to your safety on the road.
CatEye TL-LD1100
The TL-LD1100 is Cateye’s top-of-the-line bicycle tail light with 10 super bright LEDs – six that point rearward (aligned in two rows of three) and two on each side.
What I like: Each row of three LEDs that face to the rear can be toggled through several settings like a) constantly on, b) flash, c) cylon mode (side-to-side display) and d) random. Choosing a different flash pattern for the top and the bottom row can yield a very eye-catching overall pattern that is sure to be noticed by motorists.
What I don’t like: This is a big damn light. I find this to be a minor drawback since this light fits perfectly on the end of my bicycle rack. That said, I could how this light might be unwieldy for someone clipping it to a backpack, clothing, etc.
NiteRider CherryBomb
The CherryBomb features a half-watt LED powered by two AAA batteries.
What I like: The flash pattern is noticeable and a variation of the popular PlanetBike Superflash design where two smaller LEDs fire before the brightest LED fires. In this case the two smaller LEDs fire from top and bottom while the more powerful LED fires immediately afterwards in the middle. In addition, this middle LED has a lens covering that tends to diffuse the light not just rearward but also to the side. I also like that this light has a reflector built-in so that if your batteries die, the reflector built-in will be picked up by headlights and still offer some visibility.
What I don’t like: At least for me, the default clip for this light had far too much of a gap for it to hook on my Topeak bicycle bags in the designated place on the rear of the bag. I solved this problem by wrapping some duct tape around the clip to “bulk it up” enough to close that gap to keep the light from flying off the bag at the first big bump.
Here is a shot of the Cateye light on the back of my Topeak Explorer bicycle rack:
Posted in bicycle safety, product review | 1 Comment »
January 4th, 2010
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.
Posted in bicycle touring | 3 Comments »
