Rambling Roads

We finally got a little rain around here. We’ve been in a major drought and haven’t seen much measurable rainfall since last fall. So when a gully washer blew through last Thursday, it was very welcome.

That little bit of rain resulted in a bumper crop of Rain Lilies. Rain Lilies are great. They seem to pop up and grown over night a day or so after a rain storm. It doesn’t seem to be every rain storm, but when the conditions are right – and I’m not exactly sure what those conditions are – they pop up and bloom rapidly. Once in awhile you get a bumper crop of them like we did this weekend. They’re everywhere! In big clusters even. My pictures here don’t quite do them justice. I took them with the phone camera while out on a bike ride over the weekend and they didn’t turn out all that well. But, you get a sense of the clusters.

These flowers don’t seem to have much of scent unless you’re up close – like right up against your nose. Imagine the scent of a very earthy smelling Easter Lily. That’s sort of it. Sort of.

The weekend ushered in some spectacular cool weather for a change. We don’t usually see cool weather at this time of year. Right about now it’s usually starting to get very hot, so I’ve been soaking it up. Turned out to be an ideal day on Saturday to do the Burnet ride that Jim and Tony and I had planned earlier in the week.

The route was actually part of the Armadillo Classic bike ride but since we ride the roads around Liberty Hill and Bertram a lot, and we had no intention of doing the 105 miler that would otherwise take us out to Burnet, we decided we’d just make up our own route based on a part of the Armadillo. We did a figure 8 loop’ty loop route that left Burnet and went up to Lake Victor and then headed west and then back south to Burnet. Then a loop route to the south of Burnet. All in all, about mid 40 miles. I calculated 43, but Jim’s bike computer showed 46. So it was somewhere in there.

Aside from a pretty stiff wind out of the north on Saturday, the route and ride were great! Scenic countryside throughout and not much else. Little traffic and no place to stop along the way. As far as we could tell there’s nothing in Lake Victor except a few houses and Baptist church. Thankfully we’d brought enough water and snacks to do the 1st loop of about 30 miles without any trouble. We took a break back in Burnet and then did the shorter loop to the south to finish it up.

In the photo here, you’ll find Tony on the left, me on the far right and Jim’s friend Mary in the middle. Jim’s taking the pic. We stopped to see the yellow flowers you can see in the picture. Generally the wildflowers were pretty good this weekend. It’s too late for bluebonnets, but lots of yellow flowers and “Indian Blanket” were showing.

Despite the very gusty winds of the last few days, it’s been fun getting out to ride on this year’s Easter Hill Country Tour. There were some longer and more challenging rides among the menu of routes but I didn’t opt to take them. Instead I took a shorter (but hilly) ride on Fri morning and then later rode in Fredericksburg up Lower Crabapple Rd.

The first part of the Fri ride was very hilly. The hills started almost immediately. Saw lots of folks walking up ‘em. At one point I saw a guy on a recumbent bike just topple over because he was moving so slow. More like he just rolled off. Maybe that’s how he gets off one of those bikes going up hill. (?)

The Fri morning ride was marred by coming up on the aftermath of a very bad bike wreck. At some point we had to come down from the hills we’d climbed and we had some steep, fast descents. I’m not sure what happened but as I rounded a corner I saw lots of folks around a woman that was down on the ground. Looked bad. Lots of blood. Very scary. Someone later said they helicoptered her down to San Antonio but I don’t really know. I just hope she’s ok.

Later in the day I rode out of Fredericksburg and up Crabapple Rd. That’s where I snapped this picture of my bike. I love heading out that road. Pretty country. Couldn’t help snag a photo of the bike too.

The other photo of bikers was taken as we took off on Saturday. The ride I did Saturday was only 35 miles. Knowing that at least half of that would be against a strong wind, it seemed like it’d be plenty. We did finish with an excellent tailwind though, on a quiet road along the Guadalupe river. I ran into a couple friends from Austin, Joel & Eileen, and their friend Charles, just as I was starting the ride. Seemed we were all happy with a reasonable and leisurely pace, so we stuck together. Made riding against that wind a little easier.

With temps pushing into the 90′s this weekend, some nice chilled wine on the patio of the B&B at the end of the day was just the ticket. I’d brought along some rosé that fit the bill just perfectly. Brought back good memories of France last summer. Speaking of France, coincidentally the Lavendar at Becker Vineyards is in bloom this weekend so I took a side trip over there to check it out. Snagged the photo below.

It continues to be ridiculously windy here on a regular basis this spring but yesterday we were treated to a fantastic morning when the temps were cool and the winds were light and out of the north east. Jim, Tony and I planned to do a route we’ve done before: a 40-miler out of Bertram that goes to Burnet, and then back to Bertram. It’s a great route of rolling hill country backroads.

While we’ve seen few if any Bluebonnets this spring the weather’s at least been conducive to lots of yellow flowers. I snapped this one along the way. Seemed appropriate to get some of the old barbed wire fence in the picture too.

The picture of me on the bike is only a few feet from where I took the pic of the flowers. In fact, you can see the flowers and fence off behind me. I’d just gotten back on the bike when Tony snapped this one of me.

 

 

We’ve had very little rain this year, so it’s not been a good year to see wildflowers in central Texas. But while it’s been a bad year for the flowers, I still love to get out around Fredericksburg and Stonewall in particular and cycle the [mostly] quiet roads.

This is the first year I’ve done the LBJ 100 ride, but I’ve ridden all the roads of their routes. That one was a couple weekends ago. This past weekend was back to the same area and some of the same roads on the Pedal Power Wildflower Ride. The Pedal Power ride includes the Willow City loop route. It’s always one of my favorites. The picture here in the corner of Bluebonnets was one of the few along the way. Very few to speak of this year. Contrast that picture with last year. What a difference some rain makes.

We had good weather for both rides this year. Chilly starts but it warmed up quickly. Thankfully only light breezes. It has been almost perpetually windy this spring so to have a couple mornings when it wasn’t routinely gusting to 20mph was a blessing.

The 2nd picture here is of me having a beer after the LBJ 100 ride. It was close to 90 that day by the time we finished so the brewsky was welcome. You wouldn’t know it by looking but this tent/table was set up smack dab in the middle of the tarmac of the airfield on the LBJ ranch. It’s kinda weird. There’s a huge landing strip out in the middle of a field of cattle where LBJ used to land the Air Force One of the day. On the day of the ride, the landing strip was used as a parking lot and road. It felt odd driving down the runway where LBJ used to land his plane. LBJ’s daughter Luci was there to lead the ride out. Not surprisingly perhaps, there was a fair amount of speechify’ing at the start of the ride. Someone even sang the national anthem. Mostly people just wanted to get on their bikes and ride.

The picture below was taken by Tony at one of the rest stops along the LBJ ride.

I’ve been able to get out to ride the last three days. It’s felt great to get some exercise and get out in the sun. The previous couple days it was reasonably warm, but windy. Today though, much colder. Lower 30′s this morning so I waited till afternoon to get in another ride today. We topped out around 50. Cold enough I’m going to put on all the gear to keep warm. Here I am with scull cap over the ears, fleece jersey and neck gaiter.