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| Lakes and forests in the Conroe area |
For several weeks now I have been meaning to sit down and jot down a few impressions from my trip down south that resulted in the disastrous confiscation of my German passport. The shock sat just too deep to write a blogpost of what was supposed to be an enjoyable (and in many ways was) a weeklong cycling vacation in the heart of Texas' pine forests.
After leaving my friends Kevin and Kate in Houston after my interview at the consulate I drove about an hour northeast where my condo was located in the community of Conroe. It was another one of those timeshare deals that I have been able to utilize this summer, allowing me to whittle down points (and pay a $239 exchange fee) to secure comfortable accomodations for myself. The two-bedroom apartment at Inverness del Lago on the Walden peninsula certainly had seen better times; the interior was dated, the rooms rather small, and the appliances definitely not on the same level as what I had found in all of the other RCI condos where I had stayed this summer, but it served my purposes. Plus, it had an extremely well-functioning air conditioning system!
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| Riding with my old buddy Kevin in Houston |
My daily rides covered between about 45 to 55 miles, all at a very gentlemanly pace to avoid blowing a gasket! Regardless of when you leave for your ride, it is oppressively hot. Missouri and Arkansas were bad in that regard, but down here the soupy atmosphere seemed to be even thicker and hotter. I always took two extra, frozen waterbottles along (in addition to the standard two 24 oz bottles), and I usually drank most of my water. From a riding standpoint, cycling in Montgomery County was easier and more pleasant than what I had experienced in most of the other places where I had traveled as almost all roads had wide shoulders and the few that didn't had almost no traffic. In addition, the road surface was generally either extremely smooth asphalt or well-laid concrete, which seems to be the material of choice to build roads down there.
Knowing full well that I wouldn't experience any hills worse than what we have in Lubbock I had set up both my road and gravel bikes with cassettes that allowed for tight steps between gears. Most of the time the wind was a non-factor, so riding would have been absolutely perfect had it not been for that 180% humidity!😂
For one of my rides I received a route from my racing friend Venni who with her husband lives in the area and who probably knows every dirt road in Montgomery and adjacent counties. The route led me through some shaded parts of Sam Houston National Forest, on gravel roads that were mostly deserted. With the exception of two days I always started my rides from the condo, but twice I took the Beemer to drive a few miles and thus increase my range. On two occasions I saw other cyclists, but otherwise there was a notable absence of other athletes, just like in all the other places that I had visited since COVID hit.
Even though I found some fine beers in the local Kroger's (Spindletap's Houston Haze is one of the most balanced and tasty hazy IPAs I have ever had) and enjoyed a good selection of adult beverages every night with dinner (and before and after), I wanted to add to my list of microbreweries visited. On the day that took me to Magnolia I was about an hour too early to visit Lone Pint Brewery as they didn't open until noon—bummer. So, I decided to go for an official pub crawl one day, with three microbreweries mapped out, all of which looked to be open from their webpages. Unfortunately, only B52 Brewing sold beer to be consumed in their spacious biergarten, while two others (Southern Star and Copperhead) either couldn't be found or only sold six packs or growlers. The nice fellow at B52 (no hyphen, BTW!) set me up with an unsellable can of a slightly out-of-date double IPA that I took with me and eventually shared with my friend Alan when I stayed with him and Martha for a few extra days on the way home in Temple.
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| With Martha and Alan in Temple, on the way back to Lubbock |
I think it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to revisit this part of the world when temperatures are more moderate. The trick is to find a time of year when it doesn't rain, when hurricanes don't make landfall, and when COVID-19 is under control. There are enough roads (asphalt and gravel) that one wouldn't get tired of exploring, and—with some normalcy reestablished—investigating the local brew-scene would probably be quite satisfying as well. But for now, I have had enough humidity for a while and will set my sights on the mountains again.
