OurLifeExperiments

March 30, 2012

Willow City Loop Bike Ride

Yesterday we were talking to some road bikers that are staying at the hotel we are parked at, and they casually mentioned that we should try the Willow City Loop. One of them said that it was the "best bike ride" he'd ever done. So, this morning we decided to give it a go. We woke up nice and early (8:30... that's pretty early for us recently), ate a hearty breakfast, packed the bikes up in the car and drove to Willow City. We chose to drive there instead of bike there because it was 16 miles from Fredericksburg and I didn't feel up to doing a 56 mile ride (not sure if I could do it even if I wanted to...). We parked our car across the street from the Willow City post office and set off. I'm not really sure why they call it a Loop, as its really an out and back, you start from Willow City, bike the road until it T's into highway 16 and then turn around and come back.

The first mile was pretty boring, but then we rounded a corner and it all went downhill from there (no literally...the ride out is all downhill...nice on the front end, but hurts on the way back).

On the second mile

A view from the top

Here is the Map My Run snapshot of it:

Instead of going all 13 miles of the loop (to highway 16) we turned around just past mile 9. Right about then the road started going uphill, and I knew we had a hill to tackle on our way back, so I weenied out and suggested we go ahead and turn back. The climb between miles 15 and 17 was Long and Hard..but we made it to the top and ate our lunch with a view of the valley.

A picture of us on the Willow City Bike Loop

Fields of wildflowers everywhere!

There were so many wildflowers, everywhere! Everywhere I looked was a picture worth taking. I must have gotten off my bike at least 50 times to take pictures. I tried to get a picture of every type of wildflower I saw, and documented them in my photo album. I used a handy website to figure out the names of the flowers, the Lost Springs Ranch website.