Day 1/6 of “Biking and Blogging†on the Classic Adventures Texas Hill Country Tour.
Doing a bike tour so close to home allowed us to drive instead of fly. We always prefer to drive when the distance is manageable in a day, sometimes even when it isn’t. If you can’t ride it, driving it isn’t bad.
Besides, when our daughter, son-in-law and the two sweetest, most adorable grandchildren in the world lived there – Austin and the University of Texas – we made the trip frequently. Other than riding in the Ride for the Roses, it was our first time to go there for the sole purpose of biking bliss.
We drove down to Boerne, TX the same day the bike tour officially began – Sunday. We would get our loaner bikes fitted, take a short ride and get acquainted over dinner. By the time we arrived everyone else was already there. We were a small group, only ten of us, including Dale and Dianne, our guides for the week, and as I mentioned in my first post Classic Adventure – Texas Hill Country, founders of the bike tour company, Classic Adventures.
Once we got our bikes adjusted we changed into our bike gear and took a brief ride around Boerne. My initial ride on my steed for the week, a Trek Pilot, had me missing both Rocket and Condor, but that would soon change. After our quick ride around Boerne we returned to Ye Kendall Inn, our home for the night to get ready to meet the gang for dinner. The rooms in the Inn were large and nicely furnished – Texas style.
It didn’t take us long to give our room our own personal touch…
Before dinner, we gathered in Dale and Dianne’s room for wine and a “meet and greetâ€. As usual on bike tours, the group seemed friendly and easy going. Interestingly enough, with just a few exceptions they were all retired teachers. As Mark pointed out, although he wasn’t a teacher, he had caused many to retire, so it was sort of the same thing.
We also learned about the beginnings of Classic Adventures from Dale and Dianne – an interesting story – again involving teaching – which you can read about here. For any of my fellow tour riders/former teachers reading these posts, be forewarned that I take whatever license I need with the English language and rules of grammar to tell my stories so be prepared to cringe, particularly if you taught English. Thank god you can’t use your red pen–
As is typical on bike tours we ate well, this evening at the Tin Roof steakhouse in Boerne. As is not-so-typical on any bike ride I do, I only had salad for dinner; although the steaks looked fantastic. I would more than make up for that as the week went on.
Tomorrow our riding officially starts when we leave Boerne and ride to Comfort!
Scenes from Day 1:
