After the top end work on the R90, there had to be a shakedown trip. This was it, and it was fun. Angela and I started off toward Kerrville to see if we could knock out all 3 sisters in the weekend. It really isn't that far, but it is a bit of work due to the curves.
Day one was just the ride out there. It was just a nice leisurely ride. No big excitement. It was nice to discover that the little switchback on Hamilton Pool road has finally been re-surfaced, it was actually almost easy this time. The bit thing that stood out on this leg of the trip was the flowers. All of them. We managed to go right at the end of the bluebonnet season, and right when everything else was coming up. There wasn't a real safe place with a lot of flowers to get pictures, but the smell of all of those flowers was trapped in my helmet with me for a couple days. Here was the route we took out there:
View Larger Map
Day 2 was the loop out into the hills. We got a late start on the ride due to the fact that a hailstorm blew through with 70mph winds Friday night, and we went out at 3am and moved the bikes under the hotel awning just before the hail started falling. We got the bikes back into parking spots and locked down in time to be in bed by 4:30. Needless to say, we started Saturday late. We decided to cut one of the sisters off because it required some back tracking and we wanted to take a more leisurely ride that day and get some pics. Here is the shot of the R90 in front of a huge field of yellow flowers and the hills in the background:
One of the big gripes everybody who rides has is that they get lots of pictures of their bike, and lots of pictures of them beside their bike, but no pictures of them actually riding. Well, there is a photographer that has set up on the curves on Ranch Road 337 to get some shots of you as you go through. You pay to download them, but it really isn't that bad. Here is the shot of me going into the big curve:
And here is the shot of me coming out of the curve taken by the second photographer.
After we got to Camp Wood, we decided to go back to Leakey, The Home of the Leaky Eagles (don't look up), and just take RR 336 north instead of RR335, that way we could go check out the Rio Frio Bike Stop.
The trip back up 336 was very.....busy. There are a pretty good number of curves out there, and they are fairly high stakes. This was the road where I met the redneck squirrel. Coming out of a curve I see a squirrel running across the road. About the time he gets to my front wheel, he jumps up and bounces off my fork leg and then runs back off the side of the road where he came from. I just know that somewhere off in those bushes there was a raccoon holding that squirrel's beer.
Getting back to the hotel went smoothly. There is so much awesome scenery out there. If you haven't been, go...if you have been, go back. Especially in the spring.
Here is the route for Sat:
View Larger Map
For the trip back, we decided to take the long way around. We went up TX16 all the way to Llano, and then wrapped back around 1431 through Marble Falls. TX16 north from Fredericksburg is not incredibly curvy, and it is pretty flat, but the scenery is actually fairly nice, especially when the flowers are out. Here is our route back home.
View Larger Map
No comments:
Post a Comment