To date, we haven’t repeated a tour or locale.  But that’s about to change.  Three years ago we started our Spring North Cycling Tour in Granbury, Texas.  On that trip we circled through the Hill Country then made our way north to St. Louis MO.  The time and place for starting the Two Timing Texas Tour is identical, but this time we plan to stay within Texas.

Spring is a great time to leave Duluth, while the snow melts, mud reigns and the seasons sashay back and forth before finally warming up and getting green.  So we have plenty of motivation to do another spring bike tour.  The difficulty has been finding enough mileage in bicycle-friendly territory with warm weather.  Since Texas worked well before, we decided to give it another go.

This itinerary will take us through mostly new scenery.  We’re repeating a few favorites – the Davey Crockett National Forest and the Hill Country surrounding Fredericksburg.  If we’re lucky, we’ll hit the bluebonnets in bloom again.  In between we will sweep further to the south and east, skirt St. Antonio and perhaps dive into the city to see its scenic riverfront.  It looks firm on paper, but in reality the route is merely a rough guide.  No advance reservations this time, we’ll make it up as we go.

Our planned start date is around April 1, but it is highly variable as it hinges on when our newest grandson decides to make his entrance into the world.  That’s an event too precious to miss. We expect the route to be about 1,000 miles, which we will cover in a month.

We had a bit of a prelude to the trip when we spent nine days in Tucson in February.  Our bikes and legs got a good workout most days, so we remember how it feels.  But that still leaves some hefty on-the-road training for the early days of our tour.

So far, the weather forecast looks favorable.  Cool mornings and highs in the 60s and 70s, with some hotter days sprinkled in.  Looking out the window in Duluth into deep snow, that sounds pretty enticing.

As always, I will cover our travels on this blog, adding to this page as we go.  I invite you to follow us on the journey!

Pre-Trip Planning and Travels:
Final preparations for the tour – Oh Baby, Another Cycling Tour

Progress Reports from our trip:

Week 1 – Granbury to Hondo Texas
Changing up our route – Texas Touring Tweaks
Facing heat and wind – An Endurance Test
Sudden frigid temperatures – Is this still Texas?
Fiddlers, bluebonnets and Country music – Taking in the Local Color
I get a new sleeping bag – Amazon to the Rescue
Fewer miles per day – Easing Up

Week 2 – Hondo to College Station
A different kind of motel experience – Hasty Judgements
Finding some vibrant old towns – Cycling through History
Visiting the George Bush Presidential Library – A Trip to the Library

Week 3 – College Station to Corsicana
Road conditions make or break our day – Tales of the Road
Avoiding rain in the forest – Woods and Weather
We could have call this the Texas Wildflower Tour – Beyond Bluebonnets
Feeling right at home – Down Home Hospitality
Dining in style – Pampered Cycle Touring

Week 4 – Corsicana to Granbury
Mileage disputes and a Rock n Roll band – Mending Fences
Finishing with a special Warm Showers family – Heartwarming Finale

Post Tour thoughts
Composing written images instead of photos – The One that Got Away
The nuts and bolts of cycle touring – Be Prepared

Here are additional posts about our trip:

Molly’s blog posts – All blog posts related to the Two Timing Texas Cycling Tour, including those leading up to the trip and after thoughts.

Rich’s view of the trip – He posts to the Crazy Guy on a Bike website, which is a widely used portal for long distance cycling trips. Scroll down to the bottom of this tour page to Table of Contents to find the individual posts.