March 16, 2025
Day 30: Johnson City to Kerrville
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
I went to bed last night at 9:30 and woke up about 5:30. I was up a couple times during the night as there was a street light right above my tent that I didn't notice when I set up. I'll be more careful in the future.
I went to the bathroom first thing and put my shorts on (including all that entails). My tent was all packed up by about quarter till seven, and luckily breakfast was ready. I ate 2 packets of oatmeal with walnuts, blueberries and raisins plus some yogurt with the same. I packed a ham and Swiss sandwich, some fig newtons, a banana and a clementine for snacks/lunch. I also had a cliff bar from yesterday. I took a 2nd trip to the bathroom and left 7:42. I was the first one on the road for the first time. It was kind of cold so I wore leg warmers, a long-sleeve jersey with sun sleeves under it, the salsa vest, heavy wool socks, and, light weight neck gaiter, full-finger (light-weight) gloves. It ended up up being in the low forties (my Karoo actually said it was in the 30s) and my fingers were pretty cold for about an hour. I wished I had used my heavier gloves and perhaps toe warmers. Tomorrow the temperature is the same, so I will learn from that mistake.
It was beautiful riding that early (sunrise was 7:44). I saw a lot of deer, including ones that ran in front of me and leaped effortlessly over fences. The wind started out very low, but there was a lot of climbing. At 9:00 the wind came on and built during the day. Windsock said that there was a headwind 69% o the time and that it was from 13-23 mph. The ride was 76 miles, so it was a hard day. It took 6.5 hours of riding time at 11.8 mph. My but hurt after the first hour or so. I took some ibuprofen before I started riding and again at 2:00.
I stopped at about 20 miles to eat the banana and clementine. I tried to drink water every 30 minutes or so. I stopped at mile 39 in Fredericksburg. It is a very nice town that I wish I had more time to visit. I stopped at a German restaurant/beer garden and had lunch: bratwurst with sauerkraut and German potato salad. It was very good. The waiter filled my water bottle. I took off my sun sleeves and reapplied sunscreen to my face/neck. Before I left town I was warm so stopped and took off my leg warmers and put them in my pack. I also switched to the open finger gloves. BW saw me and stopped briefly. I went to the bathroom at a Burger King and started riding. The wind was really strong and going was slow. After a while I caught up with BW. My plan was to stop with 20 miles left for a snack and 10 miles left to eat lunch. I did that and also drank occasionally as I rode. With 20 miles left I age a cliff bar sitting on a ranch road. Just after that the road turned to the south and so it wasn't a direct headwind, which was very nice. We were riding on a ranch road that goes through ranches without fences between the road and cattle. There are cattle grates that separate the different ranches. While the wind wasn't bad, there was a lot of up and down and I didn't go all that fast. At 9 miles left we crossed over I-10. Some idiot in a white pickup (the Texas state bird?) honked at me for 15 seconds as he passed me on the other side of the road. Why? There was a convenience store, and I stopped and got a Gatorade and a Payday.I drank that and ate my sandwich. BW stopped and got a drink too. The rest of the ride wound throug Kerrville. It seemed like a round-about way to get to the campground. The last couple of miles were into the wind again and were very hard. I got to camp around 4:00. It was a hard day. I was in a dark place on the ride. I the van had come by I would have asked for a ride. 3 riders (DS, BF, and BD) were taken off the road because it didn't look like they would make it before dark. One of them may ride the 20 miles he missed tomorrow. I am also wondering if I can ride all of the upcoming rides. We have 70 something mile ride on Wednesday and 80 miles with significant elevation gain on Friday. I wish I could figure out why my but hurts.
When I got to camp I waxed my chain. It was a little noisy today and I thought I might not have time tomorrow since I thought I was cooking.
There is an outdoor fire ban so we couldn't use our gas stove. It is super dry and I saw some wildfire trucks on the road early this morning and smelled smoke. Fortunately, it was not on a road we were traveling. In any event, we were able to cook in the clubhouse at the KOA. We had smashed kabobs with rice yogurt sauce that was filling and good. We had a nice fruit salad for desert.
Tomorrow I cook, but Benny said the we will go out to dinner as the campground we are in is also in the same county (with the burning ban). that is nice. We are going to do shopping early tomorrow. I should go to bed so I can get some sleep.
Today's ride: 77 miles (124 km)
Total: 1,481 miles (2,383 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 7 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |