Day 7 - Columbus to Tomball

The Route

Columbus to Tomball was a route developed by myself, with very little input from contacts in Texas. As a result I was somewhat apprehensive about the route and what we might run into along the way. This route turned out to be excellent, just like all the other routes we had been on to date. We experienced some wonderful country lanes and some sparsely populated state routes. When we got closer to Tomball we started to experience increased traffic from the general Houston area, but the road had a nice shoulder on it and gave us a nice ride into Tomball.

The Ride

Today's experience provided more varied terrain than the previous days. The past few days have been gently rolling and headed into a head wind. Today we experienced rolling hills and prolonged flat lands, as well as areas of a head wind, but some prolonged periods of tail winds. The first half of today's ride provided a lot of nice rolling hills, with a lot of ranches and green areas, while the second half was very flat. As we neared Houston the terrain got flatter and we had less green and more wind. With a nice tail wind no one really seemed to mind the breeze.

Once again we all worked very well together and took our turns leading the group. Of course with the tail wind there wasn't anyone that was going to miss there chance up front. It was very strange to see Paul's flag hanging limp on the rear of his bike, even while riding 18-20 mph.

Bellville

Our first stop of the day was in Bellville. Bellville was 29 miles into the ride, which was longer than other days, but without a head wind it went relatively fast. Bellville was a rather small town, but the people were nice. As always the grocery baggers and checkout clerks were a little confused to have bikers with lycra walking through the store. When they learn more about how far we were riding during the week they really thought we were crazy. One of the checkout clerks came out for her smoke break and gave us a run down of Bellville. She was unimpressed with where we stayed the previous night (Columbus) and told us that Bellville would have been a much nicer place to stay, then proceeded to tell us all the reasons why. After chatting with her for a while and learning everything we needed to know about Houston and the surrounding area we continued on to our next stop.

Waller

Waller is the lunch stop for today's ride and an even smaller town than Bellville. Without visiting these towns you never know what you are in for when you arrive. On the map Waller looked more populated and we anticipated that it would have a larger selection of restaurants than other towns we were traveling through. As it turned out there wasn't a whole lot to choose from. We ended up at a local restaurant called "Stockman's". Once again people were very confused by our attire, but luckily it was a pretty casual place and they let us eat there.

Stockman's was very Texan, and very country. The main attraction during the lunch hour is the one trip buffet. This included one trip to the salad bar, one meat, one potato, and two vegetables. This seemed pretty good, though the food turned out to be very heavy for a bike ride. When Paul went to get his meat he asked for roast beef and came away with about one pound of beef, and the lady serving wanted to give him more than that. I got chicken fried steak, which was about the size of one of Paul's pork chops from the night before, and the lady asked me if I wanted one or two. Maybe we looked a little thin and they were trying to fatten us up.

After that thoroughly filling meal we got back on our bikes and hoped we could divert enough blood flow away from our stomach to power our legs.

Tomball

Tomball is the home to Gail Hurley, who was providing our lodging for the next couple of nights. We were very appreciative of her hospitality and tried our best to be good guests. Gail immediately impressed us with her collection of bicycles. She showed us all of the one's she had stored in her garage and house, all 27 of them. A few of which were reproduction high wheel bikes. Gail showed us how to ride the high wheel. After watching Gail ride, making it look easy, Sean decided he needed a turn to try it. There is a definite learning curve to riding these bicycles. Sean picked it up pretty quickly, but we were a bit afraid that he would fall over on the top of one of the passing cars. Eventually he found an intersection and got it turned around and began to steady a little bit.

One of the nicer things about Houston for me was my family. Marla and Charlie, our friends from college, had just moved to Houston in the past few weeks and Betsy and the girls had traveled down to stay with them for a few days. This gave me the opportunity to see my wife and kids, plus take everyone out to dinner. The two pictures below on the right are of Marla (with Madeleine) and Hannah. Hannah has her head turned to us, I am obviously too much for her to deal with.

Riding Update

No incidents during today's ride. It was a smooth and good route, with some tail winds. This reflected a bit in our average speed for the day. It will be nice to have a day off tomorrow to allow some of the softer tissues a break.

Miles: 89.22
Average Speed: 16.18 mph
Total Trip: 423.15 Miles
Total Average Speed: 15.32 mph

Weather

Again, the day's weather was near perfect. Again, we had some overcast skies to keep us from burning, and some wind to keep us cool. Today's high temperature was 89*.