Above: Longhorns and wildflowers in the Texas Hill Country

Why Texas?

After a chance chat with an astronomer in NZ the year before, Molly was itching to see the North American total solar eclipse.

More importantly, Charlie really wanted to watch some MotoGP.

The stars aligned for both of us in Austin, Texas.

Cycling Texas: Our route

Above: From Austin, out west for a Texas Hill Country loop, then over to Galveston on the east coast via Houston's Space Center. 

Total Texan miles pedalled: 780.

Cycling Texas: The Journey

We flew in to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (from Liberia, Costa Rica). 

Above: The Lady Bird Lake hike & bike trail was a great traffic-free route into downtown Austin, from the airport area.

Austin was a classic North American metropolis, with spacious roads that were surprisingly easy to cycle (below).

Austin is home to North America's largest urban bat colony, which didn't show up for the crowds at Congress Avenue Bridge the night we went.

We did at least catch some live music downtown.

Hotel prices around Austin skyrocketed for the solar eclipse dates.

We were beyond lucky to bag a house-sit, and watch it from the comfort of our own back yard !

Above: Molly geeking out at the eclipse🤓  A special moment !

The screams and shouts of local schoolchildren when it went completely dark, made it even more surreal 👍👌

The MotoGP at Austin's Circuit of the Americas (COTA) was an exhilarating display.

We seemed to be the only spectators who pedalled there. A great way to dodge the queuing traffic !

Above: The "globe of death" at COTA ... originally a feat for cyclists (not us) !!

Our "Warm Showers" hosts in Austin, John and Elizabeth (below), were kindness itself.

John briefed us on pedalling the Hill Country, and even lent us his paper map for the trip.

So now we knew NOT to venture onto private driveways to ask for water (= risk of ending up on the wrong side of a shotgun!).

Also to avoid the mounds of fire ants, which swarm their unfortunate victims when disturbed.

Whilst biting them.

With barbed jaws.

Ouch ! 🐜

The Hill Country itself was nice enough.

Rolling rather than hilly, pretty wildflowers (below), and a couple of breathtaking moments when wild deer suddenly leapt over high fencing just ahead of us.

Sadly there were no quaint old cowboy towns to be found, although we did have a beautiful stroke of luck in Fredericksburg:

As we sat on a bench eating our supermarket breakfast, a friendly lady started chatting. She happened to mention that she was going to Europe soon.

On a cruise ship !

Leaving from Galveston, Texas !!

Lightbulb moment !!!💡

Above: The closest we got to finding an old cowboy town.

Houston Space Center and Galveston sounded enticing, so off we headed on minor roads across East Texas.

The pedalling was pretty flat and uneventful.

Above: A quiet snack stop in rural Texas.

Houston Space Center was well worth the visit, including the original Mission Control room for the first moon landing; an International Space Station replica (inside and out); actual flown spacecraft, astronaut suits, moon rocks and more (below) ... 🤓🤓

Above: The rocket (restored using original segments) used to launch the Apollo spacecraft. It was immense !

Below: Space shuttle (replica), "piggybacked" onto an adapted 747 (original) for overland transport.

The faded seaside grandeur and charming historical centre of Galveston was just a day's pedal away.

Above: Our last of many long, straight Texan highways.

Below: Galveston seafront felt surprisingly like a British seaside resort. 

Happily Royal Caribbean were good enough to accommodate our bicycles on board Voyager of the Seas, for her 2-week transatlantic repositioning cruise from Galveston to Barcelona (!).

We slept like logs, ate like kings, and were pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. The ship was less than half capacity, which helped a lot.

It was a relaxing and economical way to get back to the UK with the bikes, with no jetlag.

Highly recommended !

Above: Sailing out of Galveston on a cruise ship - surreal.

Below: Disembarking in Barcelona after 2 weeks of good food and rest. Now, where did we put those pedalling legs ?!

From Barcelona: we pedalled north to Girona then flew back to East Midlands airport, courtesy of Jet2.

Cycling Texas:

Food & Accommodation

We thought food would be cheap in the US so were surprised by the high costs, both in eateries and supermarkets. Both were a good bit more expensive than in the UK.

Above: Extensive field research confirmed Wendy's and What-A-Burger as Texas' best fast food chains. No veggie burgers for Molly though ☹️

Below: Many pedalling days ended with a well-earned bottle of "Lone Star".

Accommodation was also quite pricey, at £50-£70 per night for the cheapest options on AirBnB / online hotel searches.

To soften the financial blow: we used Warm Showers  and Trusted Housesitters for accommodation in Austin and Houston.

Above: A proud shih tzu Auntie in Houston - thanks Lori for a lovely house-sit! 

Cycling Texas:Ups & downs

⭐ Texan drivers were far more bike-friendly than we expected, giving us plenty of room. Apparently, it's the law for them to give bikes a lane's space 👌

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️ The roads and scenery were generally quite bland. But in fairness, we were in Texas for other reasons !

Cycling Texas:

Practical pointers

* CHECK THE WEATHER FORECAST DAILY.

Texas gets some crazy weather events !!

We pedalled across Austin on a day when a tornado warning was in force 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♀️

And when we arrived, we saw locals using cardboard sheets to protect their car windscreens from golfball-sized hailstones !

* No pedal-out rating for Austin-Bergstrom Airport, as we called our hotel's free shuttle minibus and kept our bikes boxed.