Tues, 10/28/2025; 51 miles, 1889 feet of climb
Today was a great day for biking! Peaceful country roads, perfect temperatures, and the winds shifting just at the right time. It was the same distance and almost the same amount of climbing as yesterday, but seemed so much easier. And I ended up in a beautiful house with some great people!
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I got a late start today, because I was updating my blog and doing some route planning this morning. This is because I got to bed late last night, which was because I arrived later than expected. (And I attended on online conference last night.) Everything cascades.
But wow, what a different way to start the day! In the 20 miles to Comfort, I averaged 13.2 mph! And that was without a tailwind yet. I think it was a combination of smoother roads, no headwinds, only 220 feet of climb, and stronger legs after two weeks of biking.
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In Comfort, I took advantage of a real grocery store to buy a banana, an apple, chocolate milk, and Chex mix. This was the only stop all day, but it sure beats ZERO stops as I’ve had most of this trip.
My big goal today was managing the wind. It was light in the morning, but at 11 AM, right on schedule, it picked up from the west. This was very handy, as I was heading east for the first 40 miles!
At the store in Comfort, I checked the weather again. (It’s nice to be back in the land of cell coverage.) There are high wind warnings starting at 2 PM! That’s the time that the wind direction shifts from the west to the north.
So my goal was to make it to Mile 40 by 2 PM, since that’s when the route turns from straight east to straight south.
Wouldn’t you know it — I hit that intersection at EXACTLY 2:00 PM! From that point on it was like wind surfing. So fun!
I climbed 1889 feet today, but it seemed so much easier with the tailwind.
I am grateful to Leslie for telling me about this route to her house — I had been planning to stick to the I-10 corridor to get from Comfort to a hotel in Boerne, but this was much more scenic with less traffic.
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Leslie and Jack Knight are Warmshowers hosts near Boerne, northwest of San Antonio. Warmshowers is an organization that puts long-distance cyclists in touch with people willing to host them for a night. We’ve been Warmshowers hosts in Wisconsin over 30 years — before the World Wide Web was in use! Back then it was just email.
They don’t get many riders here, because they are off the route. But they are perfectly located for someone who is diverting to San Antonio, as I am.
Leslie is also on the Air Force Cycling Team and has ridden the biggest bike ride in the world, RAGBRAI. She plans to ride the entire 3300-mile Southern Tier Bicycle Route from Florida to San Diego next spring. She has asked me questions over the past year when I posted my journal entries on the Southern Tier Facebook group, so she reached out offering to host me for the night.
They were both gone when I arrived at 3:30, but she left a cooler full of ice cold beverages on the back deck! It was great to relax and catch up on messages in the shade out of the wind.
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When they got home, Leslie showed me my guest room and private bathroom. She rolled my bike into the garage while I carried my panniers into the guest room.
(She later confessed that she WASHED my water bottles! I didn’t know anything containing only water needed washing, but I guess I will defer to a medical doctor.)
We had a great meal of STEAK AND POTATOES! When I commented on the Texas-size slabs of meat, she said I could save some for breakfast. Well, once I started eating, it soon disappeared entirely.
We had a great time talking about RAGBRAI, bike touring in general, the Southern Tier route in particular, the Air Force, and living overseas (they were stationed at Lakenheath in England, where our son was stationed).
I shall sleep well tonight. Tomorrow I get to stay with long-time friends in San Antonio and see my SON!
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TRANSLATIONS/BACKGROUND: “TEXBIRD” = Texas Bike Ride, my own nickname for the 800 miles in the middle of Southern Tier Bicycle Route, from El Paso to Austin, using maps from ACA (Adventure Cycling Association). This will complete my ride of the Southern Tier from the Pacific Ocean (San Diego) to the Atlantic Ocean (Jacksonville). (I biked the 1500 miles from Austin to Jacksonville in March 2024, and the 1000 miles from San Diego to El Paso in February 2025.)
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LINKS:
Old-fashioned BLOG if you have friends who don’t use Facebook:
“Old Scouter” Facebook page if you want to follow big adventures with more pictures and video clips (but not unrelated personal posts):
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066334039590
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):