My wife and I drove to Fredericksburg on Friday so that I could ride in the LBJ100 on Saturday. I made the mistake of driving through Austin during the Friday afternoon rush hour. We finally arrived in Fredericksburg a little after 5 PM and went to the Hill Country Bicycle Works bike shop to pickup my registration. This took a few minutes and we were on our way to our hotel. The weather Friday was in the 80’s with a strong wind and clear sky. Saturday was going to be different weather. After we checked into our hotel we were going down the elevator with three other people. One lady noticed the HH100 t-shirt I was wearing and asked if I was riding the LBJ100. She and her husband were (They came from San Antonio). Another lady on the elevator wasn’t riding but was driving a sag truck for a team from Corpus Christi.

From my previous time at the LBJ100 I knew the traffic onto the LBJ Ranch National Park was going to be crowded. The road to the runway where the cars are parked is narrow and twisting. We left our hotel at 7:40 and arrived at our parking spot on the LBJ Ranch runway about 8:15. The ride started at 9:00AM so I walked around handing out Texbiker.net business cards and taking some pictures of the bikers. About 8:35 I unloaded the bike and got all of my stuff together to ride to the start line. Because it was a mile away my wife stayed at the Jeep to wait to leave and do her things.

Weather for the start cooled down dramatically from Friday. The Jeep’s weather said 50 degrees and sitting in the open on the runway the wind was blowing strong. The sky was clear and the forecast was for 74 degrees by the afternoon. The wind would be a problem for most of the ride. No matter which direction the road turned the wind seemed to be in my face or almost there. I dressed warm with leg warmers, shorts, 2 long sleeve jerseys and windbreaker jacket. I wore half finger gloves and my hands were warm probably thanks to the sun. In the early miles the shade was cool but shade is not found often in the area. Cactus, mesquite trees and rocks are the typical fare along the roads. Bluebonnets were rare except along a section of RR1323 with some patches of blue beside the road. You can see these in the Flickr photograph link.

During the ride

After I finished

I rode the 62 mile route. The roads generally are a well compacted chip’n seal surface with sections of very smooth surface. I did not encounter any rough road but cattle guards are a common thing. Looking at the cattle guard you would think the ride over them would be rough but actually it is smooth and the exit back onto the pavement is not a problem. The problem would be if you tried to walk over them. The space between the pipes looks like a bike cleat width and the pipe is slick.

Rest stops were frequent and well manned by volunteers. One of them had a donation jar which I don’t see very often. All of the ones I stopped at (4 of them) had plenty of snacks and water. They used a big blue plastic container for water with multiple spigots to fill water bottles. I have not seen these on other bike rides. Cookies and peanut jelly sandwiches were at each of the stops I visited.

Routes were well marked with signs beside the road and flag people at important intersections or turns. With the routes on ranch roads and traffic was light no police were at intersections. This did not cause any problems that I could see. I saw no crashes although one emergency truck passed me with siren and lights flashing. I never did see any bicycle situation where the truck went. Overall the ride was well organized, rest stops spaced appropriately and well stocked.

At the start of the ride my Garmin 510 decided to lock up but I pulled over just past the start line and got it working. I biked 62.85 miles averaging 14.4 mph. Considering the number of hills and the wind I am pleased with the 14.4 mph average speed. My new Stradalli RP-14 Carbon performed great. the gearing was fitting for the hills and wind. I used the 34 front ring and gears 6 through 9 on the rear on the ride. I did standup on a lot of the hills, sometimes for power other times to vary my sitting. When I get home I will upload the ride to the Golden Cheetah program for the official metrics. In the meantime Garmin connect and RideWithGPS show the map and metrics. This ride puts me over my March goal of 505 miles.

When we got back to our hotel the AC unit in our room had frozen and was putting out hot air. The front desk clerk came to look at it and then called a repair man. About 30 minutes later the repair man installed a new AC unit and we are cool now.

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