Chicago with the girls

Today Barb, Sam, Kaethe and I are traveling to Chicago via train. So far it's been pretty uneventful. And a little boring.   

We had a fun day in the big city. It was nice walking around and going to the various vendors at the Christ kindle markt. All the vendors were not German however. I bought some candy and mittens. The food was good. Smaller than I expected. The train ride and lie surely walk around town was nice. Weare in our way home now or at least to Lansing. We discovered that we could take our bikes on board

Oct 15 2015 Kerrville to Frederichsberg

Oct. 15, 2015 Kerrville to Frederichsberg

Short ride today to Frederictsburg along highway 16. Rich and I took thedirect route to get here early. Good riding but very noisy. I think I'll ride the Adventure Cycling route tomorrow.
And oh, I forgot to mention Fredericksburg seems to be a very ethnic German town. We ate dinner in a Ratskeller restaurant and 3 of us had Jaegersnitzle. Two others had bratwurst and probably weisswursrt. 

Fredericksburg.  Plan to visit a museum and walk around town. Hills weren't too bad: a 300 footer then some small climbs that we had to gear down for. 11 .2 avg.  Only Rich and I are here.

Main thing wrong today was noise from a lot of traffic.  Shoulders were about 7 ft. wide and fairly smooth.

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Lt

Tuesday May 14, 2012 evening. Days are so long I need

Two blogs per day.  After we arrived on the train to Innsbruck we checked into our hostel Glockenhaus and watied for Anneliese to arrive so that we could walk in the alt stadt and have a bite to eat.  We ate at a lovely resturaunt just across from the goldene dachl.  The food was very German.  We all had a round of beer and most of us a round of apricot Schnapps.  The old city is very imoressive with its relief work on the outside of the building and architecture.  We later sat with Anneliese and Heinz son Ingo and discussed his training of the womens soccer team in the area.  I remember him from when he was young and we did white water rafting down the Inn.  This evening I spent time in the room trying to get car reservations which have been all messed up since.

October 14 Vanderpool to Kerrville

Vanderpool to Kerrville

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

9:42 AM

 We just checked into a Motel 6 in Kerrville after another tough day of very steep hills.  I walked about a mile up the big hill (500 footer) of over 8% grade, then had to push the bike half way up a bunch of short 8 to 10 percent grade hills a hundred yards or so in length.  And of course we had a headwind a  lot of the day and temps peaking at 94.

Rode to Kerrville from Vanderpool today, 50 miles. Started at first light and got into town late afternoon.

The ride started almost immediately with pushing my loaded bike a mile uphill on an 8% grade which most of us found unrideable. I thought that was the easy part of the ride until we ran into a bunch of short steep hills I estimated at 10% grade, about 100 yds. long. More walking. Surprisingly my average speed was 8.1 despite all the walking. That's probably because the last 25 miles followed the river so we lost most of the hills.

Guadalupe river

Guadalupe river

 

October 11 2015 Bracketville to Campwood

Bob and the guys are in Campwood Tx tonight. They are all in a cabin tonight. The ride was 50 miles today. It was tough in the afternoon because temps became too hot for them. They are planning on leaving early morning in order to avoid the heat in the afternoon. Temps were in the 90s.

October 12, 2015 Campwood to Vanderpool

We're in Vanderpool staying in two log cabins. Nice, with air, fridge and all. Bernie said this is the toughest day we've had.
No wonder. The profile I sent earlier showed 3 hills that look like spikes. Supposedly the 3 are named the three sisters. I prefer the "Three witches" because all are extremely steep. The first rose 200 feet in a half mile (8.3%), the second rose 325 ft in a mile (6.2%) and the third rose 400 ft in 0.9 mile (8.4%). There was a lot of walking going on today!! Look at the road view below if %grade doesn't do it for you.

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Sept 6, 2015 Bob's cross country bike trip begins

Taking the train to San Diego early tomorrow morning. Will spend a day or so there recuperating from the train ride before riding east over the mountains on our 3000 mile adventure carrying our house on our bikes. I hear the mountains there are high and the road is steep. We'll maybe do 30 miles the first day, with a little luck!

And. They're on they're way