Finally hit 50 miles on an outdoor ride!

[philipgonzales3]

Wohoo, I am stoked, I finally spun the legs for 50 miles on an outdoor ride! 🦵🦿🚵🏻‍♂️

I started riding in March of 2024 or so. I of course got the bug bad! I quickly hit 20 and then 30 miles out on the road but kind of plateaued there. Partly because how dang hot and humid it here in South Texas, partly because I'm slow and a big dude, partly because I naturally started riding indoors on Zwift because it is safer and more convenient etc.

The last time I rode the Greenway trails here in San Antonio, I tapped out at 38 miles. It was blooming hot and humid and I exhaustedly made my way back to my truck, coasting as much as I could to ensure I made it back without dying lol. Good thing the route out is uphill, making it for an easier return trip haha. Not sure it really got to 111F, as that's higher than the recorded high by like 10 degrees but regardless it felt like 111F, darn humidity lol.




I have done 50 miles on Zwift before, and since then I knew I had it in me to do the same outdoors. I just needed to wait for cooler weather. Activity below for proof lol.



Anyway, now for the main reason for this post. 50 freedom units on an outdoor ride in the books! Less than 10 minutes of non-moving time to boot. Only stopped to fill up my water bottles and when I predictably took a wrong turn at least a couple of times and stopped to dismount the bike and turn it around in the opposite direction (I don't trust myself with super tight turns haha and I get even more clumsy with fatigued lol). A bit disappointed with my speed, but I'll chalk that up to 1. Maybe suboptimal tire pressure, noticed today track pump started leaking air so I just over inflated and pulled the inflation head quickly and was too annoyed to fuss with a tire guage and specific pressures at that point lol. 2. I'm fatigued, also did my first 10K of running/walking this week on Thursday. 3. Did I mention I'm clumsy, if I go to fast, I'm liable to fly off the greenway trail, which for the most part is a sidewalk or asphalt with many places having a steep drop off on the sides lol.













My training load or what not and my 10K earlier this week (also slow, but hey I'm trying and very new to running). Well I hit the picture limit, so guess you don't get to see my slow 10K run haha.

 

[brommieinkorea]

I don't ride indoors,, so boring. Never thought to blame tyre pressure for my slowness, awesome. Your post does have me very curious about this trail in San Antonio though...

 

[brommieinkorea]

Just had a look at the San Antonio website, what a fragmented short distance nightmare. How in heck did you cobb together a 50 mile trip on that !? I seem to remember cycling some sort of trail there. It was either concrete like a sidewalk and rough, dirt, or strewn with horse crap. Same trail?

 

[oxoman]

Well done on going the distance in that heat. TBH its not often we get above 80 in the UK.

 

[philipgonzales3]

Just had a look at the San Antonio website, what a fragmented short distance nightmare. How in heck did you cobb together a 50 mile trip on that !? I seem to remember cycling some sort of trail there. It was either concrete like a sidewalk and rough, dirt, or strewn with horse crap. Same trail?

The greenway trails are awesome to be honest. Over 100 miles of trails, everything I rode today was paved. Mostly like a sidewalk, some asphalt. They are adding more all the time and from what I've heard the plan is to connect them all (or something like that).

I've heard that mostly the land used for the trails is in flood zones (which the City couldn't do much else with the land), so kinda sucks that they flood over bad after heavy rain. But still, super thankful to have such an accessible and safe place to cycle.

Watch the video below at this page. It is kinda confusing and not the easiest thing to figure out where all it connects right now, but I could have continued longer on my ride and not ran out of connected trai, which to me is pretty impressive.

https://www.sa.gov/Directory/Departments/Parks/Parks-Facilities/Trails/Greenway-Trails

Here is a map from Google. Essentially I rode the entire Leon Creek Greenway, at least from south to north, and a small portion of Salado Creek Greenway. This is an old map because the Leon Creek Greenway to Saldo Creek Greenway Connector was completed in 2021. I'm sure there's an updated map out there somewhere, but next time I may have to keep spinning the legs and see where I end up. Lol

 

[brommieinkorea]

Been many years since I was cycling in San Antonio...

 

[philipgonzales3]

Been many years since I was cycling in San Antonio...

Yeah you should come try it out. The other thing that kind of sucks is the closures for various construction. I technically rode a closed section today. I stopped because they had like a mesh gate that said it was closed for maintenance. I was debating riding back only 6 miles into my ride. A walker looked at me and said I went through there, you're fine. So I went around and rode on. The cement was being worked on in one spot and they had big umm covers like sheets of plywood but seemed like something heavier over sidewalk for the spots they were working on.
Didn't see any horse crap today. I did see several deer though. I also got stung by a bee on my shoulder. No idea how, as I didn't see it and my jersey was covering my body. Lol. I told my wife an ant bit me or a bee stung me or something, she said it was a bee because she could see the stinger. She took it out for me.
The greenway isn't as fast as being out on the open road, but still plenty fun for how safe it is.

 

[philipgonzales3]

Well done on going the distance in that heat. TBH its not often we get above 80 in the UK.

I may have to go visit one day! May have to remind me which side of the road to ride on though! I'll start practicing my queen's English now. Bonnet, boot, Zed, washing up liquid, pay packet, fish and chips, pissed, hmm that's about all I got haha.

 

[brommieinkorea]

If you're averaging 10mph, that's not all that slow for a 50 mile ride. And multi-use paths throw a lot of stuff (like the walker you mentioned) in the way that slows ya' down. Another thing about the paths is that the state or whoever manages the thing reports what they're like etc to Google maps and such. This means that in a lot of southern states ( looking at you Georgia !) an un rideable gravel track is often reported as bike infrastructure, yet in other places a buttery smooth crushed limestone track may be listed as unimproved.
I recall within the last 5 years riding some trails in TX that were stellar, It was either Dallas or Houston area. I had read that Dallas was working on building a big trail network, but just nothing about San Antonio. Sounds like they're still working on it, but making very nice progress! The drivers in Texas aren't usually hostile, they're just incompetent because they've been spoiled with too much space.

 

[Sharky]

I think you've posted this in the wrong section.

Don't think you qualify as a "beginner" any more!
Well done.

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Wohoo, I am stoked, I finally spun the legs for 50 miles on an outdoor ride! 🦵🦿🚵🏻‍♂️

I started riding in March of 2024 or so. I of course got the bug bad! I quickly hit 20 and then 30 miles out on the road but kind of plateaued there. Partly because how dang hot and humid it here in South Texas, partly because I'm slow and a big dude, partly because I naturally started riding indoors on Zwift because it is safer and more convenient etc.

The last time I rode the Greenway trails here in San Antonio, I tapped out at 38 miles. It was blooming hot and humid and I exhaustedly made my way back to my truck, coasting as much as I could to ensure I made it back without dying lol. Good thing the route out is uphill, making it for an easier return trip haha. Not sure it really got to 111F, as that's higher than the recorded high by like 10 degrees but regardless it felt like 111F, darn humidity lol.
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I have done 50 miles on Zwift before, and since then I knew I had it in me to do the same outdoors. I just needed to wait for cooler weather. Activity below for proof lol.
View attachment 790653


Anyway, now for the main reason for this post. 50 freedom units on an outdoor ride in the books! Less than 10 minutes of non-moving time to boot. Only stopped to fill up my water bottles and when I predictably took a wrong turn at least a couple of times and stopped to dismount the bike and turn it around in the opposite direction (I don't trust myself with super tight turns haha and I get even more clumsy with fatigued lol). A bit disappointed with my speed, but I'll chalk that up to 1. Maybe suboptimal tire pressure, noticed today track pump started leaking air so I just over inflated and pulled the inflation head quickly and was too annoyed to fuss with a tire guage and specific pressures at that point lol. 2. I'm fatigued, also did my first 10K of running/walking this week on Thursday. 3. Did I mention I'm clumsy, if I go to fast, I'm liable to fly off the greenway trail, which for the most part is a sidewalk or asphalt with many places having a steep drop off on the sides lol.

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My training load or what not and my 10K earlier this week (also slow, but hey I'm trying and very new to running). Well I hit the picture limit, so guess you don't get to see my slow 10K run haha.
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50 miles in that heat is a really good effort. We hardly ever see temperatures that high in the UK and if we did you certainly wouldn't see many cyclists willing to ride a bike in those conditions!

 

[ColinJ]

50 miles in that heat is a really good effort. We hardly ever see temperatures that high in the UK and if we did you certainly wouldn't see many cyclists willing to ride a bike in those conditions!

Indeed!

50 miles in temperatures from (say) 50 F to 75 F and low to moderate humidity would be fine. Even 5 miles in high humidity at 80+ F would do me in!

 

[ktmbiker58]

Brilliant - now there's no stopping you! Just feed, hydrate and keep going - well done!!

 

[philipgonzales3]

Did another ride on the greenway yesterday (Sunday for me). I traded a little distance for a little bit more speed.

I punctured about 5 miles in. Tire sealent did its job, my cheap Amazon electric pump, not so much. It started smoking and briefly caught fire, basically right after I turned it on. Didn't even get to get any air in my tires with it.
I think I'm going to buy a small frame mounted manual pump at this point. Tire pressure definitely wasn't optimal for almost half of this ride. Got sorted with a city provided air pump at one of those permanently mounted tool station thingies at my furthest point north.

I hit a whopping ~30 miles per hour right after the switchbacks (the only "climb" on the route) which is just before my stop where I turn back around. Started skidding when I hit the brakes to slow down. Scared the shoot out of myself for about half a second. But all good, likely not the smartest thing to do with suboptimal pressure in my punctured tire lol.

PR's galore! Still not fast compared to a lot of ppl, but it was fast to me. Will have to go for more distance next time! Anyway, all and all it was a good ride.

 

[Punkawallah]

Good work!