The Rosedale Ride was this morning. Great weather for it, though it was a little more challenging than anticipated. Met up with Jim and his buddy Ken Herman for the ride. While I think we’d all thought maybe we’d be doing the 42 miler when we started, the ridin’ was easy for the first 25 or so and at the fork in the road we veered onto the 62 miler. Never mind we’d been enjoying a tail wind for that first 25’ish miles.

While most folks were enjoying a nice breezy spring day, temps in the 70’s on their way to 80’s, out there east of Austin on the barren plains (barren at this time of year anyway) we were thinking it felt a lot more like “wind”. What had been effortless became real work. None of us had ridden much more than 40 miles in recent memory so the extra 20+ against the wind felt a little tough. Thank God for the rest stops. I piled in the food to stoke the fire.

Ride participation seemed a little lower this year than other Rosedale Rides I’ve been to. Could have been due to other events. As we rode out north of town we went by the Champion’s Triathalon event at Lake Pflugerville. Lots of bikes/people out there. And today was the LBJ 100 too. So many rides and choices at this time of year.

Finished up the ride pretty much spent, cramping and dreaming of what I’d have for dinner. 😉 But no doubt, I’ll be back for more another year.

Finally a decent weekend for cycling in the Austin area. Not just decent, pretty much ideal. You know, a mid 70’s, cloudless, light breeze kind of day. Spring has arrived on cue. Trees and bushes have all decided now’s the time to bloom. And the Live Oaks are doing their best imitation of what passes for fall color – in the spring. Now’s when they finally get around to dropping their leaves and sprouting new ones. All in a few short weeks. This year they’ve developed a kind of brownish yellow that’s seems just a bit brighter than usual.

Couldn’t presuade anyone to go out to Liberty Hill but that’s where I headed. Got a late start because of the time change but still on the ride by about noon. For a change of pace I did a bit different route over otherwise pretty familiar roads. Here’s the route map. About 37 miles.

The route included one of my favorite stretches of road out in that neck of the woods, and that’s cty road 336 between Oatmeal and Liberty Hill. It’s not a long stretch, but it rarely has traffic and runs along a creek that’s just pleasant to look at. The picture below was taken along this route. You can see the creek in the background. I couldn’t honestly tell you what the pink flowered bush is. There seemed to be one of these around every bend today. I don’t remember these in other years. Maybe we’re in for a good display of wildflowers this year. All the creeks are flowing so we’ve definitely had enough moisture this winter. No doubt I’ll post a picture here when they arrive.