The Bicycle Adventure Club - Come Ride With Us!

Flowers In The Hills

April 2nd to April 10th

Ride Director: Becky Hettinger
Ride Co-Director: Vicki LaBella
Report by: Jon Graff

.

This is my second time participating in the Flowers in the Fields tour. I came back to do this tour a second time because it was so much fun.  We had 37 participants who had a wide range of riding interests. 

This is a fixed-based tour having 22 different routes of varying lengths and challenges and scenery.  Because it is fixed base, we could decide what rides to take each day and take days off the bike to relax, and explore if we wanted.

Becky did a fine job in arranging this tour.  The routes were well laid out, the GPS routes were helpful and the route sheets well done.

Additionally, we were well feed.  There was lots of food at the Happy Hour.  So, if you desired, the Happy Hour food were sufficient for dinner.  In addition to Happy Hour, Becky gave us three dinners, two of them with speakers. The first speaker was Fredericksburg historian who told about Fredericksburg’s beginnings.  The second featured a husband and wife who “pulled the wool over our eyes” by telling us about alpaca wool and natural fibers, complete with an adorable young alpaca goat kid.

Besides Happy Hour food and numerous food places and restaurants, the Inn is close walking distance to a Texan institution, HEB – large, modern, supermarket with lots of fresh fruit and vegies as well as a deli for sandwiches, wraps and salads.

The routes were pleasurable.  We biked numerous back roads with almost no traffic and enjoyed the sounds of silence.  The motorists were courteous and friendly, even on the occasional unavoidable highways and in town streets.

Theroutes varied from tree covered lanes to ranch land back roads with varying amount of hills.

Twilight 20 The scenery was bucolic, with long horned and short horned cattle, sheep, goat, and, of course, wild flowers.   

And, of course, there were flowers in the fields.

There were a number of cattle guards (be certain all you bicycle parts, cyclometers, etc. are securely fastened) and water crossings.  Texans seem to prefer cheaper water crossings to bridges.  Because algae likes to grow on the surfaces of the water crossings, it is wise to walk you bike through any water crossing that is even minimally water-covered.

We stayed at the Inn on Barons Creek, a nice, quiet hotel with nicely sized rooms.  The Inn has a Spa on its grounds.  At the Spa, you can get appointments with a Licensed Massage Therapist to work out the “kinks”.

Besides the bike routes, there’s plenty to do:

• Fredericksburg itself is picturesque tourist town with lots of shops,  German restaurants, barbeque places, and ice cream eateries, and crafted beer.
• The National Museum of the Pacific War.  This is a very well done, extensive exhibition of the World War II Pacific front.  It easily takes a full 8 hours to see and experience it.  The tickets are for 2 days, so you don’t have to see it all at once. It is “Smithsonian” quality.
• Pioneer Museum, where you can see how the early Texans survived a challenging environment.
• The LBJ ranch, see the 1960’s Texas White House and learn about the LBJ’s history and accomplishments.  You can bike to it.
• Luckenbach – the home of the famed Luckenbach Dance Hall.  You can bike to it during the day, but to really see what “Getting back to the basics of life with Waylon, Willie and the boys…” you need to visit on a weekend night to a concert or dance- bring you cowboy boots and be prepared to Two Step the evening away.