Bikes, Blues and Barbecues: A father and son hit the Texas BBQ Trail on 2 wheels

Tim Landauer poses in front of the Texas Capitol, left. Son Robby rides between Taylor and Austin. 

Here at Posse headquarters, we've been feeling pretty good about ourselves and the nearly 700-mile Best of Texas Tour that we did -- by car -- over a long weekend.

Then we got an email from Tim Landauer, a North Texas resident who, with his son, Robby, took a 6-day, 276-mile tour of the Central Texas barbecue heartland by bicycle last May.

They ate at five of the same joints we did and arrived at the same conclusion: "Franklin's is the best we had," Tim wrote.

The Barbecue Chronicles: Best of Texas BBQ Tour

Brisket, ribs and sausage at Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor. (Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)

By Gary Jacobson/Texas BBQ Posse

For a while now, members of the Texas BBQ Posse have strongly suspected that Dallas finally has a joint that can hang with the elite barbecue restaurants in the state.

Our recent Posse Favorites Tour confirmed that suspicion. We drove nearly 700 miles and ate at 10 top places over 48 hours. We scored brisket, pork ribs and sausage, the holy trinity of Texas barbecue, on a 10-point scale.

In the end, we compiled a list of the six top-scoring spots. Pecan Lodge at Dallas Farmers Market placed second overall, snugged tightly between Franklin Barbecue in Austin at No. 1 and Snow’s BBQ in Lexington at No. 3.

That’s stout company. Behind them in our top tier of six were Kreuz Market in Lockhart, Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor and Fargo’s Pit BBQ in Bryan.

Video: The Posse talks about their picks for the Best in Texas BBQ

The Posse judges dig into ribs, brisket and sausage at Kreuz Market in Lockhart. (Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)

One of the new additions to our reporting of the Best in Texas BBQ Tour was taking advantage of the new video studio at The Dallas Morning News. Some might say the Posse members in the video -- Gary Jacobson, Jim Rossman, Bruce Tomaso and me, Chris Wilkins -- have the perfect faces for radio. We don't disagree, but we had a great time filming these videos.

DMN photojournalist Nathan Hunsinger shot three videos of the Posse discussing the pursuit of great barbecue for dallasnews.com. The video shown below is our discussion of how we ranked the top six BBQ joints in Texas.

We also shot two other videos: How to plan your own Texas BBQ Tour and How the Texas BBQ Posse judges good BBQ. Enjoy!

Today in the Dallas Morning News: The BBQ Posse's Best of Texas picks

Here's a look at our three-page spread in today's Dallas Morning News travel section. The Best of Texas BBQ project was published in print and online on dallasnews.com and the DMN iPad app.

Dallas Morning News editor Bob Mong shared his thoughts on the Posse in his weekly note to the readers published in today's paper:

I can always stop by photo editor Chris Wilkins’ desk and catch up on the top visual journalism of the day.

Check out 360-degree panoramas of the best BBQ joints in Texas

Snow's BBQ, Lexington. Click on each photo to see a 360-degree panorama.

When planning started for our Best of Texas BBQ Tour, we wanted to come up with a unique way to let readers experience the best BBQ joints in Texas. Welcome to the BBQ panorama project, a way to take a virtual tour of each joint without leaving your easy chair.

Dallas Morning News staff photographer Tom Fox shot the panoramas using a specially-designed rig consisting of a tripod bracket that helped him to align and shoot six separate photos of each place, which were then stitched together using software that forms the full 360-degree panorama.

You can click on each photo on this blog post to go to the related panorama hosted on dallasnews.com. Once you're there, you can use your mouse or touchpad to navigate your way around each BBQ joint. This technology works even better on the iPad, where you can simply hold up the panorama in front of you and slowly turn in a circle as the image on the screen moves with you.

Also, thanks to Dallas Morning News multimedia producer David Guzman for his hard work putting these together. Enjoy!

Louie Mueller Barbecue, Taylor

Franklin Barbecue, Austin

Pecan Lodge, Dallas

Kreuz Market, Lockhart

Fargo's Pt BBQ, Bryan

Stanley's Famous Pit Bar-B-Q, Tyler

The Posse's best of the best BBQ joints in Texas: Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Pecan Lodge in Dallas and Snow's BBQ in Lexington

The faces behind our top six BBQ joints, clockwise from top left: Aaron Franklin of Franklin BBQ, Justin Fourton of Pecan Lodge, Tootsie Tomanetz of Snow's BBQ, Roy Perez of Kreuz Market, Wayne Mueller of Louie Mueller Barbecue, Belender Wells & Alan Caldwell of Fargo's Pit BBQ. (Photos by Tom Fox/DMN)  

The Dallas Morning News posted the results of the Posse's Best of Texas BBQ Tour today on its Web site. The results will appear on the paper's iPad's application this weekend and in the newspaper's travel section on Sunday.

It was an exceedingly close finish. With 30 being the best possible score, less than a point separated the top three joints -- Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Pecan Lodge in Dallas and Snow's BBQ in Lexington.

Over 48 hours we ate at 10 top places. Six judges from the Posse rated the brisket, pork ribs and sausage at each on a scale of 1 to 10. We averaged the scores for each meat and then added them to determine the overall winner.

Kreuz Market wins best sausage in BBQ Posse's Best of Texas Tour

Jalapeño cheese sausage at Kreuz Market in Lockhart. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

Regular readers know we had some internal Posse conflict before our recent Best of Texas Tour.

Should sausage count equally with brisket and pork ribs when trying to rate the best joints in the state?

Initially, we decided, no, sausage should count less. Then we got an impassioned defense of the sausage maker's art from Posse member Bryan Gooding, the sausage king of Oak Cliff after his victory last fall in the Blues, Bandits and BBQ cookoff.

Portraits of the great pitmasters, from Best of Texas BBQ tour

Herschel Tomanetz, Snow's BBQ, Lexington. (Photo ©Daniel Goncalves)

Check out this amazing set of portraits by Dallas-based editorial and commercial photographer Daniel Goncalves, featuring the pitmasters behind the BBQ we ate last week on our Best of Texas BBQ tour. Daniel and his wife Magda recently moved to the area from Jacksonville, Florida.

His love for both photography and barbecue led him to get in touch the Posse, which is mainly made of photographers, writers and editors from The Dallas Morning News. We invited Daniel to come along and help us document the trip, while eating the best BBQ that Texas has to offer. You can see more of his work at www.fotobia.com.

Is Lockhart losing its title as the BBQ Capital of Texas?

Smitty's Market oak wood pile & Caldwell County courthouse. (Photo ©Chris Wilkins/Texas BBQ Posse)

At the Posse, we're ready to declare State Highway 130, the high-speed tollway that skirts Austin, the Barbecue Super Expressway.

However, we're beginning to wonder whether Lockhart, one of the main stops on that highway, still deserves its title as the BBQ capital of Texas.

Yes, we know that's borderline smoked-meat heresy. But on our recent Best of Texas Tour, we ate at three Lockhart joints and only one -- Kreuz Market -- made our top tier of six. The others -- Smitty's Market and Chisholm Trail Bar-B-Que -- were well off the pace.