Texas Bicycle Tour

I noticed that this site doesn’t have any videos of me being me, so I decided to open this post with a short video introduction.

The Bike

I did this tour on a 4th generation Trek Domane SL5. Check the short promotional video from Trek:

I hadn’t made any alterations to the bike except to switch from the standard clincher tires to 32mm tubeless tires. The Domane is an endurance road bike made for riding hours at a time. This particular class of bike is probably the best bike to tour on if you’re going to tour on a performance road bike. That said, while the Domane is built for endurance and long rides, it is first and foremost a performance bicycle built for speed and fun, as the promo above shows, though this particular model nods to comfort. I think the original intent of the bicycle is for local touring, where you start in your garage and end in your garage, but you spend all day out on the roads in your area.

Touring on a performance bicycle makes for a decent short tourer as well. Short touring is when a tourer drives, flies, or takes a train or bus into an area and tours it. This type of touring assumes the tourer is going to have hotels or some sort of arrangement to keep all his stuff. This Texas Tour of mine was a combination of a short tour and a long tour, however.

Long touring is when a tourer actually rides his bicycle from city to city or place to place to tour everything on the bike. Long touring and short touring require some different skillsets. Short tourers have to be able to assemble and disassemble bikes for travel, make all kinds of travel arrangements, etc. Long tourers have to pack everything they are taking and ride with it.

This tour was a combination of long and short in that I had to take transportation into Texas and then ride between and around in various cities in Texas. For the long tour aspect, almost everyone will recommend a long-wheelbase (extra stable) gravel bike (can ride on any road) with a lot of mounting brackets to which one can affix bike racks, low rider pannier mounts, all sorts of doodads such as navigators, lights, etc, and whatever fork bags, frame bags, seat bags, handlebar bags, and anything you’d want to take with you. I’ve seen such bikes so loaded down that they are effectively unrideable. There is a whole science to the endeavor of packing up your bike.

Long touring on a performance bike is a distinct kind of challenge, though. Fortunately, it was one that I have undertaken before, as my world trip included riding through California, Arizona, Alabama, Southern Europe, and Jordan on a Trek Émonda SL5. That’s not even an endurance road bike. It’s what’s called a “road race” bike that is essentially a full-on race bike adapted to open road conditions as opposed to tracks, and essentially this means it’s a race bike that is good at climbing hills. I did that whole trip with nothing but a CamelBak and a shoulder bag dual purposed to attach to a universally mountable bike rack that I was able to stick on that Émonda, which had no inherent capacity for bike racks.

Likewise, this Domane, although built for long days in the saddle, is at its heart a performance speed machine that has no mounting brackets. (called “tour tabs”) to put on a rack or any other feature. If I had wanted to haul cargo, I would have again had to get some kind of universal rack and rig up some kind of solution. I opted for another solution: bikepacking. More on that below.

While talking about bikes, though, I’ll say that my experience on performance bikes is limited to the aforementioned Émonda, the Specialized Roubaix Sport that I was able to ride around LA for a few months before it was stolen, and this Domane that I got to replace my Roubaix. So, the Roubaix is Specialized Bicycles’ endurance road bike, making it effectively that company’s counterpart to Trek’s Domane. Since I’ve ridden the two, and since I ride with a guy who has a 3rd generation Domane SL6 and another who has a Roubaix Pro, I’ll talk about these bikes a bit.

The first thing to note is that both the Roubaix and Domane are built to ride on rough surfaces. In fact, the litmus test for the bikes is a famous race from Paris, France to a town called Roubaix on the border of Belgium. The race is formally called “The Paris-Roubaix” and informally called “The Hell of the North” because the entirety of the route is on cobblestones and poor road conditions. Doing well at the Paris-Roubaix is so important for the marketing of these bikes that Specialized actually named their bike after the race, which their endurance roadbike is specifically designed to win, and it always does. The Domane has only won the women’s Paris-Roubaix one time. All other times, and all times for the men, the Roubaix wins the Paris-Roubaix.

One of the defining technologies of these two bikes are their “ride smoothing technologies.” Specialized calls theirs “Future Shock”, and Trek calls it “ISO Speed”. Since the Domane is struggling to build a reputation of being as fast as the Roubaix, the 4th generation frame that I have removed some of the ISO Speed as a part of making the frame a bit faster. This saved a whopping three hundred grams of weight on my 4th generation frame over the 3rd generation frame of my riding compadre.

Now when it comes to speed on these performance bikes, you’ll find that a single rider in absolute peak condition will ride a five-mile course 15 seconds faster on this bike, but 45 seconds faster on that bike, but ten seconds slower on yet this other bike, etc. But for all the rest of us, those little bit of speed differences are solved by pedaling a little harder, or getting into better shape, or adopting a better riding technique, just losing ten pounds, or taking a time machine back to the 90s and being young again. That last option is of course the most preferable, as not only do you yourself improve, but the world around you does as well.

The above said, I did not appreciate the ISO speed on the 4th generation being pared down. The claim is that the front-end system wasn’t that effective in saving the wrists against the cobblestones, and so was removed, leaving only the rear-end system to contribute to a less tangible “reduction in rider fatigue.” However, cobblestones are not the only enemy. There is a low-quality asphalt that is used in areas of high seasonal variation such as Texas, and I spent many a day riding on roads that had been crumpled by the sun. I could feel the vibrations in my wrists. I honestly would have preferred to add 300 grams of weight for a more aggressive ride smoothing technology. As it was, I relied on good gloves as many do, but the 3rd generation Domane riders should consider themselves lucky.

My 2023 Roubaix Sport had Specialized’s Future Shock 1.5 system on both the front and rear tubes, and I would have loved to have been able to feel its effect on those roads. My experience with it riding around in Socal was that it felt a bit gimmicky, not really powerful enough to absorb the truly rough shocks, and not really necessary on the little stuff. However, a guy I ride with has a Roubaix Pro (more expensive, top end model compared to my Roubaix Sport) with Future Shock 2.5, and I can only imagine it would be more effective than what I had on my bike. In either case, after this tour I am a fan of the ride smoothing technologies that you’ll find on some performance bicycles, not really for the treacherous cobblestones and dirt, but for those annoying vibrations from poor quality asphalt that you can get stuck on for hours at a time.

I lament that my current bike seems to be moving away from the ride smoothing technology, but due to rider geometry, I think that the Domane is probably a better tourer than the Roubaix. There is no question that my Roubaix had a more aggressive riding position and was a faster bike, and an excellent climber. It really put the rider into a position to move fast and pedal efficiently. With the Domane I have to get a bit awkward to get really aero, although I can do it, and the Domane gets very, very fast when I do. The Roubaix kind of put me there to begin with, though.

Overall, the comparison is hard to assess, as the Roubaix had better ride smoothing, but was a bit racier and less built for endurance. The Domane’s rider geometry is unmatched for hours of riding at a time, but my fourth-generation frame removed critical wrist-saving ISO Speed. I think if I had gotten a 3rd gen Domane somewhere I probably would have been happiest, since little weight savings and tiny increases in bike speed are the least important to me.

Talking about a slow performance bicycle is sort of like calling a Corvette slow compared to a Lamborghini. Well…sure…it is…but don’t think that ‘vette isn’t going to give you whiplash when you punch the gas. It might be a “slow sportscar,” but you’ll get all the sportscar experience, from the roaring engine to the smoke on the tires to having to clutch onto the wheel to keep from sinking into the back of your seat from that “slow sportscar.” Likewise, a performance road bike with truly all-day riding geometry and maximized ride smoothing technology can be a few seconds slower in my book.

So okay, I did this thing on an endurance road performance bicycle with no capability to mount anything on it whatsoever. That meant that I was going to have to do what we call “bikepacking,” or putting everything I was going to bring with me in a backpack and wearing that for the duration of the ride. So next, let’s discuss the pack.

The Pack

I rode with a Mountenoo cycling backpack that I got off Amazon for $40.

I’ll let the above picture stand instead of a detailed packing list, stating that the pack contained basically clothing, toiletries, IDs and documents, and electronics such as a tablet and the ability to charge everything. A major distinctive of the list was that I brought a sleeping bag for emergencies but no tent. Ultimately the sleeping bag was very helpful for sleeping on the train, but otherwise I didn’t really use it. I brought two changes of clothes (shorts/jersey) plus a rain jacket and a pair of spandex long cycling pants. Yes, it was Texas in the summer, but you never know what the temperature might be in the early morning or late at night, and of course there can be rain.

The pants ended up making nice jammies when I was hanging out at my cousins’ and doing laundry, but otherwise I didn’t wear them. Looking back, I think two changes of clothes were too much. I didn’t have a separate laundry bag, and I had to remember what was clean and what was dirty. The pack was overstuffed, and I didn’t want to risk tearing the bag every time I had to stuff it full. Better to just have one set of clothes on your body that needs to be washed, and another set in your pack that needs to be washed, and just understand that every time you hit a hotel, you’re doing laundry. If you get stuck in the wild for a few days, I guess you’re just going to wear that set of clothes for a few days. Notice I included Axe body spray…

To the above picture I ended up adding a tire pump that I bought at a bike shop in Houston. I ride with tubeless tires. Most riders are satisfied to just feel their tires with their hands and get a ballpark pressure estimate because they will be going back to the garage after the ride where they keep their pressure gauges and floor pumps. But tubeless tires lose pressure regularly and need air regularly, and airing up tires with CO2 cannisters and estimating pressure will be both inefficient and inaccurate over the long haul. Touring with a pump and a pressure gauge is a must. That pump ended up not mounting properly on my bike and not fitting in the Domane’s frame tube storage compartment, so I had to throw it in the pack. I threw the thing away as soon as I got back, planning to get a properly fit pump before my next tour.

So that’s what I brought with me on the trip. Now for the trip. Let’s start with getting to Texas.

AmTrak

So, for the short tour aspect of the trip, “getting there” is a very different kind of challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. Yes, one way to short tour is to get yourself an SUV with some bike racks on it and just go wherever the hell you wish. This kind of short touring does make the short tourer somewhat amateurish compared to the long tourer with his many hours on the bike displaying high levels of athleticism. However, the short tourer can flex his athletic muscle when he gets to where he is going. The SUV option is not always available for international or overseas situations, and any brand of your own car, whether it’s a rental or not, is sure to be expensive.

The rest of us, though, rely on planes, trains, and buses to get to the destination. This can also be expensive, but doing it right can save money. Then on top of that, there are maintenance concerns. If you take a plane or most buses, you’re going to have to be able to take a bike apart and put it in some kind of box or case and then be able to reassemble it to good working order when you get to where you are going. Then there is the fact that sitting on a bus for three days can be harder on the spine than riding a bike 8 hours a day. Then there are all the arrangements to find the best, fastest, and cheapest mode of transportation. All of these aspects of short touring show that this method is not a joke. There is a lot to it.

As alluded to above, putting a bike on a plane will require it to be packed and unpacked, and it’s going to involve paying for oversized luggage. In the USA, Greyhound won’t charge you an arm and a leg for a bike in a box, but you still have to put the bike in the box and take it out. Amtrak, however, will let you give them your fully assembled bicycle, which they will store in the luggage car, and give you that fully assembled bicycle back at the end of your trip if you pay a paltry $20 to transport a bicycle. This service is not available for every line or every train, but it’s fairly commonly available. You may have to take a train at a different time or to a different station, but it’s generally fairly easy to move with your bicycle this way.

Further, the seats on Amtrak trains, if you’re going coach, tend to be about like a nice business class airplane seat, and better than you’ll find on any bus in the USA. Also, many lines will offer you a roomette for about the same price as a plane ticket. You may take a few days to get to your location, but you’ll sleep nicely, enjoy hanging out in the lounge car, take meals in the dining car, enjoy some time in the cafe, visit the convenience store, enjoy the rural views outside of the train, usually have good internet service, and you’ll have a variety of tables and chairs to sit at and do work or otherwise enjoy the digital universe or have conversations with other passengers. Finally, if you have enough money to blow on that SUV but want to try something different, Amtrak can be a luxury option if you get an entire stateroom.

But I’m not selling Amtrak as an exotic luxury option. We all know the USA does have these things called trains, but we tend to think of them as a sort of opulent, peregrine form of travel enjoyed by the rich for no good reason other than being a fun way to get where they’re going, something like a cruise ship or so. I’m wanting to tell you, however, that Amtrak is often the cheapest and most efficient way to get to a touring destination with a bicycle in a decent enough state of comfort to enjoy riding and do it well when you go on tour.

Remember, though, that I was planning a trip to Colorado, and at the last second I switched to Texas. I did not take time to search out alternate routes and lines. In my hurried searches I found a coach seat to Houston for a decent price. I’d never done a long Amtrak ride in coach before. I’d always taken time and gotten creative with my routes and been able to find a roomette for cheaper than a plane ticket. Not this time, however.

On the trip in to Houston I got lucky with a window seat and nobody sitting next to me. The guy in the seat next to me got off in El Paso and I had the two seats to myself overnight. I was able to fold out the footrests and have effectively a slightly cramped twin bed to sleep on.

Coming back to LA from San Antonio, I got stuck with an aisle seat next to a Methodist minister who was with me for the long haul. The conversations were interesting, but when it came time to sleep I looked for a creative solution. I was able to find some couch space in the lounge car with a number of other passengers who didn’t want to sleep in their seats. All in all, the moral of the story is that if you take coach, you’re rolling the dice. If you are going to use Amtrak, get a roomette if at all possible, but in my one instance of rolling the dice on a coach seat for a two-day trip, I managed to be pretty comfy both ways, though it wasn’t important for me to be dignified in the least. It kind of had the feel of being a homeless dude who lucks out and finds a super comfy and warm park bench to sleep on. It’s all a part of the adventure, I suppose.

Day 1: Arrival in Houston

As far as riding was concerned, my arrival in Houston consisted of dropping by a bike shop to pick up a bicycle pump and some carbohydrate gummies. There’ll be some more detail about the riding from the Strava link. Otherwise, I want to point out that travelling with the aid of family members can contain some rather pleasurable pitfalls. I stayed with a maternal cousin of mine, Greg. I don’t get to see this guy but a couple of times per decade, and we always have a good time when we get together. He is a true southern gentleman, always looking out for others, and that includes treating his guests the absolute best he possibly can. Now I was planning a huge ride the following day, so let me show you what getting treated a little too good can mean for a cyclist with a long road to hoe on the coming morn.

So this is the point where you bow down and worship me, or you lose all respect for me altogether. I would like to point out that I am alive at the time of this writing. Given the above night with family and everything that would happen the following day, that is an achievement.

Day 2: The Trip to La Grange, Texas

There’ll be more detail about the above 92-mile ride on Strava for those with that app.

Alright. So all of the above, particularly the commentary on the rigors of short touring, stresses the importance of planning. However, my two decades in the Army taught me good and well that any Operation Order that you may have written for whatever mission you have planned is going to go straight to the bottom level of hell immediately upon the arrival of H hour, and getting the plans that you have made to correspond to anything remotely related to reality is going to feel like solving a Rubic’s Cube.

So my cousin Greg told me that there was a way to get my birth certificate in Houston, not needing to head to Beaumont. When I went to that office, though, they told me that the birth certificate they issued was a short form version that would not be adequate for the Israelis, but not to fret, I could get the version I needed from an office in Austin. So not only did I not need to go to Beaumont, but I didn’t need to go to Houston either. I could have just AmTrak’d to Austin and taken care of everything. None of that was on any of the online sources that I had checked out or anything that had been provided to me by Nefesh B’Nefesh. Oh well…life is like that. I still needed to get to Austin.

In this case, I didn’t hardly make any plans, and whatever vague notions I’d had in my mind about how things were going to go were shattered from the outset. At the bike shop in Houston, I asked the techs there what a good way to get from Houston to Austin was. That’s it. That was my planning. The answer was that in the Spring they had a fairly famous ride that was put together by a multiple sclerosis charity annually between Houston and Austin called the LG 150, as it was 150 miles from Houston to Austin, with a midpoint in La Grange, Texas.

La Grange, Texas may be familiar to some as the home of The Chicken Ranch, an old brothel that served as the inspiration of a feature film starring Dolly Parton called The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. You can Google that on YouTube. I’ve always been more of an indie guy, though.

I didn’t see the Chicken Ranch when I was there. I just got to a hotel and left the following morning. But this is about getting there. Needing a quick route, I used an app called Komoot to give me a route and got on the bike and rode to La Grange. I needed to get going. The fact that there was a huge early hurricane season storm heading through south Texas wasn’t going to deter me. The day ended up being a lot of riding in the rain, and because Komoot really doesn’t plan routes very well, I ended up taking my road bike through a ton of gravel, and even through some farmer’s forest during torrential rains.

While I most certainly was blessed by the Almighty not to be hung over, I ultimately found that storm to be a blessing as well, as I would later find out that the ultra humid heat of south Texas probably would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back and prevented me from completing the ride.

Twice on this trip I was saved by the cool rains. On that day, though, I was deep in adventure mode, taking that bike places it had absolutely no place being. The following video was too much to upload to this site, but I was able to upload it to my YouTube channel.

The rain did clear up afterward, and I did have some pleasant riding in cool temperatures among the verdant forests of the state that appeared so lush I felt like I was riding through a giant Caesar salad.

Overall, it was a challenging day caused by a lack of planning and need for expediency that ultimately made for a hell of an adventure. As it turns out, it would be the next day that was the most challenging for me, though.

Day 3: From La Grange to Round Rock

Here is the Strava link for that ride.

So coming into Austin, I actually had the privilege of having several family members in the area. As things go, though, on the schedule I was operating under, I pretty much had to go see whoever answered the phone, wasn’t busy, and was willing to entertain guests. This ultimately lead me to my paternal cousin Jessica. She actually was pretty busy that weekend, and I ended up spending that sabbath at a water park with her and her family. This section is about the trip there, though. It was a day without rain. That meant heat. To begin with, the ride was great, though I was getting tired and started too late.

In the afternoon, however, I had to stop in Elgin, Texas for several hours and drink all the water they had in town. I didn’t make it to Jessica’s house until about sundown.

Day 4: Documents in Austin

The next morning, I set about to ride into town and take care of my business.

There isn’t much else to say here. Only that I got my documents and uploaded them to Nefesh B’Nefesh.

Day 4: Fun with Family, Breaking Shabbat, and the Night Ride to Dripping Springs

There will be some more detail on the Strava link.

So with that mission completed, I wasn’t into riding in the heat, and my family was happy to invite me to a day they had planned for the kids at a local water park. It was a great sunny day spent among the spray of cool drops of water. The highlight was getting to play with the first of many little princesses I would get to meet on the trip.

There is a sense in which this trip is all about the princesses. That will have to be another story, however. I needed to get to my next stop, and I found myself in a little dilemma. Today was the sabbath. Shabbat. Now I don’t follow all of the 39 prohibitions of shabbat that strict religious Jews follow, but I do make sure I take it easy on that day. So while I will use my phone, and I am happy to ride my bike around, there are two examples of things you’re not supposed to do on shabbat that I follow if at all possible. I don’t do intercity travel, and I don’t light bonfires.

My next stop was going to be to another cousin, Jessica’s sister Jennifer actually, on the way to San Antonio where I was to catch my Amtrak back to Los Angeles. She lives in a little town outside of Austin called Dripping Springs. So really, I should have stayed another night, they’d have been happy to have me another day, and headed out super early the following morning to avoid the heat. However, I had been packing on a monumental number of miles on this trip, and I wanted my Strava record to reflect that I had a 300-mile week. Strava resets on Sunday. So I was going to have to get to Dripping Springs on Saturday if I was going to get all those miles on record.

I decided to try to keep shabbat as best I could and ride out toward Dripping Springs at the end of the day and head through the wilderness at dark. Shabbat actually starts on Friday night and ends on Saturday night. Basically, I’d ride out to the edge of the city on shabbat, then cross over the city limits after shabbat. Or come close to it. In the end, I’m thinking I was playing around with technicalities and should have just waited. But, I was tempted by the thought of that 300-mile week. So, it is what it is.

Day 5: Wine Gardens and More Princesses

I spent the day in Dripping Springs getting treated like a king by Jennifer and meeting her husband and kids. They took me to several local distilleries that had the flavor of beer gardens, places to sit under the trees and drink local brews.

We also went through a picturesque area town called Wimberly for a sunny stroll around town.

There is no shortage of princesses in Texas.

Day 6: To San Antonio and Back to California

Here is the Strava link for this ride.

The next morning was going to start at dark. There was a chance of rain, and that rain came, but I wanted to avoid any heat that might turn up. Starting early got me to San Antonio in time to enjoy the Riverwalk before my late night train out of town. Everything started with some predawn caffeination at a gas station.

The morning ride was rainy, but again, I was glad for some cool air.

By the time I found myself riding through San Antonio’s historic downtown the sun had already come out.

That left a very pleasant and beautiful day on the river walk.

At the end of the trip, both the bicycle and I were completely beat, and I was happy to hit the AmTrak station for the trip back.

Conclusion

So this is what I did in order to get the documents I need for Israel. As I said in the opening video, it was a great opportunity to ride huge distances through rain, through jungle, through blistering heat while being in the relative comfort and safety of my home state, taken care of by a family that loves me. I tested that Domane for all she was worth, and she was brilliant and beautiful in every way.