Rambling Roads

Yesterday it was time once again for what is now the 6th LBJ 100 bike ride. This is my 3rd. Conditions were a lot like last year – except not quite as photogenic. In fact, if you link through to my write up from last year much of those notes hold again for this year. The ride is well planned and I’d say logistics were even better this year. Gone was the crazy late registration tent a half mile from everything else and there was less fiddling around at the beginning of the ride. There were intros, a short talk by Luci and then we were off in waves. At the end of the ride, they also had people driving out to the north instead of through the finish line like last year. Maybe people just did it wrong the last couple years.

The price had gone up to $55 for late registration – a price I still maintain is too high for these kind of events. Skip the shirts and water bottles. Keep everything else. At least they had shirts for late registrants this year though.

Sausage and beer at the end of the ride. Same sausage arrangement as last year. Gone was the potato salad and instead there was mounds of corn plus some cole slaw with cranberries in it. Actually the combo worked pretty well. This year in addition to 3 beers from Pecan Street Brewing there was also Lobo from Pedernales Brewing.

I did the same route as last year too. In both cases I wanted something between the 42 and the 62 miler so I did a little mixing and matching of the routes to come up with my 54 miler alternative. I haven’t had a lot of time in the saddle this year so the 54 miles was plenty. I hit a wave of fatigue around 40 miles into it but it wasn’t too bad. If you click thru that link to the route you’ll see you do a bit of climbing before hitting mile 41 and then it evens out and is mostly even down hill toward the end. There’s also a handy rest stop about 8 miles from the end.

Wild flowers were not as prevalent this year. I didn’t even bother taking pics. Click thru to last year when they were in abundance. The pic below is maybe 10 miles into the ride along North Grape Creek Rd. Here’s the google street view of that spot.

Finally getting around to posting some notes on the 2012 River Region Classic. This is the 2nd year in a row that I’ve made the trip out to the Leakey area to do this ride. I enjoyed the 52 mile route last year and this year I managed to convince Tony and Jim to join me as well. Jim’s got a friend that has a place to stay out there just north of Leakey. Very handy. Jim’s friend Pat joined us too.

If you linked through to last year’s post you’ll find a surprisingly similar photo of me. This year I was ready for the guy at txmotofoto.com and gave him a big smile and wave. The photo turned out pretty good I’d say.

No surprises on the route this year. Having done the same route last year I was more than aware of the big climbs in the latter half of the route. Tony and I have been riding a fair bit this year and made short order of the back to back climbs. The descents on these climbs and the scenery make the huffing and puffing worth the effort. Something Jim had eaten had him feeling pretty punk before we even started and he just wasn’t feeling well on the ride. We didn’t see much of him till the end. Pat did the 100 miler and took off fast. We never did see him again. He finished much later then we did and headed back to Austin as soon as he did.

Rest stops again this year were well stocked and nicely spaced. I don’t think the food at the end of the ride was as good though. This year there was some BBQ chicken but it was a tiny little squab. The potato salad was kinda runny and blah. I was starved though and gobbled up anything available. There was a keg of beer available too. I don’t know what kind it was but it wasn’t really hitting the spot either. All in all we took time out later and ate at a Mexican restaurant in Leakey.

This route is one that could be done on your own pretty easily without much support and that’s likely the way I’ll do it again in the future. There’s a general store at the start of the route where you can stock up and then you’ve got places in Utopia, Vanderpool and Leakey that you can restock. No doubt I’ll be back some time. The route is great for cycling.

Update: One last photo of Jim and me at the end of the ride, taken by Tony.

Cyclefest is an event I’ve heard about for years but I’ve never taken the time to travel to it.

Cyclefest is put on by the Permian Basin Bicycling Association out in Ft Davis, TX, and Ft Davis is way, way out in west Texas. All these years I’ve lived in Texas and I’ve never been to west Texas yet. So this year I signed up and geared up to make the long trip. Somehow I managed to convince Tony to join me and we loaded up their Honda Element and hit the road.

In my estimation it’s a pretty good drive just to get down to Kerrville but getting out to Ft Davis is 350 or so miles more west of there. We left Austin in the morning and spent the better part of the day driving west. We got gas in Fredericksburg and then pulled in for food in Kerrville – oh, and pulled into Specs too since we didn’t figure we could find a decent bottle of wine for another 350 miles.

I10 is a long road and there’s not much to look at. Tony was going 80mph and it seemed like we were standing still. The Honda Element is basically a box on wheels though and at that speed it drank gas like you can’t belive. Somewhere west of Ozona Tony looked down and realized we were about out of gas. Uh oh. Not good. There’s literally nothing out here. The gas warning light went on… We dug out the owners manual. We had about a gallon left. Not going to make it to Ft Stockton… Somehow our prayers were answered though and at the Bakersfield crossroads we managed to see an Exxon sign! Click through to see what I mean. There’s nothing around except for a tiny little Exxon. Saved!

The plan for Saturday was to cycle a scenic 75 mile loop from Ft Davis. About 5am though I woke to the sound of rain. I looked out and sure enough, a steady rain was going. You don’t expect a rain to last too long out here. It’s very arid most of the year. The temps were hovering in the mid to upper 40′s. Not good. I rolled back in and hoped it would move on. At breakfast a bunch of folks that were staying at the B&B were all geared up and ready to ride but nobody was too excited by the prospect of riding in the wet, cold weather. It was still raining. It kept raining. Sigh.

By 10am some hardy souls decided they would give it a go. It was still raining and hadn’t made it to 50 degrees yet. From the porch I wished them good luck. Not my kind of weather.

In another hour or so though it let up. Not great weather but at least it wasn’t raining and radar showed it’d moved on out. Probably not a good day for getting the 75 mile loop in so we loaded up the bikes and drove them out along the route. We parked and got maybe 30 miles or so in that afternoon. Not what we had geared up for but we enjoyed the ride and scenery even though temps were chilly and skies were grey.

By Sunday morning though the weather was pretty close to perfect. Skies were clear and it was chilly but just right for riding with some cool weather gear on. Destination: the McDonald Observatory. We left from Ft Davis and biked all the way out. We thought we would catch up to other riders for a mass start at the Prude Ranch but there was nobody there. Only later did we come to realize that the mass start was from a spot further up the road. We missed that mass start but it didn’t matter. We climbed to the top just the same. As it turned out, we caught up the the tail end of the mass start group by the time we hit the step section that climbed up to the Observatory. The photo above of me is after we’d climbed to the top. Nice view from up here!

The ride from Ft Davis up to the Observatory is steep and challenging but not as difficult as the European climbs I’ve done. Those were overall longer and steeper. Still though, this is a great ride! We particularly liked the ride back to Ft Davis. We rocketed back down the hills and practically coasted into Ft Davis.

I would really like to see what the 75 mile loop ride is like though and so I hope one day to return out to Cyclefest and take that ride in.

The photo below was taken later in the day after cycling and before the sunset. We drove into the Fort Davis State Park and up into the hills. The views in all directions were great. The setting sun made for some great light for taking a few photos.

Looking East over the Davis Mountains