West Frio River Ride

Thursday, March 13, 2003 West Frio River Ride

I parked outside the Real County Courthouse in Leakey. There were several cars with bike racks, so I knew this was a popular spot. The route was really simple: head north on US 83 to the fork of Ranch Road 336, follow 336 until exhaustion or impending darkness, then turn around and come back.

RR 336 started out straight, but once I passed over the first cattle guard, it was up-down-left-right-repeat. The climbs were sometimes a struggle but in a good way. It made me feel alive. I felt much better than one would expect, considering that I only slept four hours the night before, and in the car at that. Regardless, the views were well worth every drop of sweat.


RR 336 went through land higher, drier and hillier than the previous day's ride at Laguna Atascosa.	Some of the hills seemed to go on forever.


See what I mean?	The West Frio River was down the hill to the right.

After 13 miles, I started on my last bottle of water. Since there were no stores anywhere ahead, I decided that it would be prudent to turn around. I didn't want this glorious ride to fall apart like the miserable final miles of Sunday's Big Thicket ride. It was too bad that I hadn't started earlier with more water because I was really enjoying myself.


Finally, here is a view of the West Frio River, looking south.	This view of the valley looks north.


	Yikes, that's a step hill!

By the time I returned to the courthouse, I had ridden about 25 miles (I wrote down my totals but misplaced them).

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