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.

The capabilities of the latest phones are pretty amazing. I’ve been using a Blackberry for work but recently I got an iPhone for a project. In many ways I’m not sure I like it any better than the Blackberry. The large touch screen is definitely very nice but it’s heavier and draws so much power it barely holds a charge for the duration of the day. The Blackberry on the other hand could go for days, even with Bluetooth on.

But after playing with it a bit, I’m finding the iPhone has some very interesting apps that take advantage of it’s more advanced capabilities. The phone has GPS built in and I found this free app called Runkeeper. The idea is that you start it when you go for a run/walk/ride and it keeps track of where you’ve been as well as speed and altitude. These are capabilities that have been in devices like the Garmin GPS’es for quite some time. But having it in your phone is definitely handy.

I gave it a try on the bike ride I did this morning. It was a ride I do often. Once you’re done and ‘stop’ the recording, you can upload the results to the related web site. There you can look at the stats and a map. I snagged an image of the display below. Very cool!

I did the usual hilly loop from the house this morning. Down to Ski Shores and back. On many occasions while doing this route I have encountered an older woman riding along on her red Bike Friday. I’ll wave and say hi as I’m passing but today I found her stopped by the side of the road. I stopped to check on her. Everything was ok but we chatted for a bit. She’s something of an inspiration out there on the bike. If she’s a day younger than 70 I’d be very surprised. I’d hazard a guess more like mid 70’s. She loves her Bike Friday and though she hasn’t really traveled with it, she’s out there all the time on it. Good for her. I only hope I’m healthy enough to be out riding at her age.

The Livestrong Challenge comes to Austin next weekend. It’s the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s signature fundraising event. While it’s a whole weekend of activities the main thing is the bicycle ride on the 25th. The whole point is to raise awareness as well as funds in the fight against cancer. If you happen by here and are able to donate, please do! Visit my site.

I’m riding for:

My mom – struggled with and beat colon cancer

My dad – dealt with skin cancer

In honor of Susie Wilson – brain cancer survivor

In memory of Lori Edel – breast/liver cancer

In memory of Brian Fix – brain cancer

From Spain and France it’s back to cycling the roads of Texas. From now through spring is such a great time to get out and enjoy the back roads. Thought I’d upload a few pictures from a recent excursion. The weather has finally turned cooler and the last few weekends have been excellent. I snapped the photos here a couple weeks ago on a route out in my favorite neck of the woods up near Liberty Hill and Bertram.

The mule here wandered over and must have been under the impression I was going to feed him something. The longhorns and buffalo (yes buffalo!) with him couldn’t seem to care less. Though I was able to get at least one to look up.

I have no idea what the purple flowers are but they were perfuse that day. They fact that they were blooming at all was impressive. Up till the last few days it hadn’t rained around here in a couple months.

I did an out and back ride this morning – with a bit of a loop at one end – from Liberty Hill to Bertram and back. 36 miles or so. I got up at the crack of dawn to make the drive out there. My attempt to avoid the heat. Not much chance of avoiding it today though – or any time this summer it seems – but I gave it a shot. Me and a bunch of other cyclists as it turns out. Other than the buzzards, hawks, cows and a few pickups, we were about the only things out there this morning.

Who knows what it got to today, it was surely well over 100. That’ll easily make 40+ days since May it’s been at or over 100. I lost count around day 37. This morning though, it didn’t actually seem that bad. Not sure whether it was just the early hour or the breeze, or maybe a little less humidity? Anyway, it just didn’t seem quite so bad this morning. Maybe I’m just used to it at this point. Maybe I got more sleep last night.

As I neared the end of the ride, I passed an open field with some cows in it. There was little or no shade to be found in the field except in one small place. A large real estate sign created a shady spot and that spot was home to as many cows as would fit in the shade. And I thought to myself: those must be some smarter than average cows. You’ve heard the old saying: “he hasn’t got the sense to come in out of the rain”. Around here, maybe we should say “he hasn’t got the sense to come in out of the sun”. Do you suppose those cows were thinking they had more sense than I did today?

It could be argued I need another bike like I need a hole in the head, but indeed I have been spending the summer readying a new custom built machine. This time from Seven. This actually caps a year and a half saga to build up an S&S coupled bike that perhaps I’ll go into another time, but when I finally got around to engaging Seven, things moved quickly. This weekend I got it out for its maiden voyage.

A bit of history… The whole point of doing this was to build a bike with S&S couplers. You’ll see a picture below of a coupler. As their site says, a coupler “is a precision lug that is installed in a bicycle frame […] to allow it to separate and pack for easy transportation.” In other words, they make any bike a travel bike. I had thought about maybe just retrofitting one of my older bikes. My old Trek would have been a decent candidate but it’s aluminum and there are many things that make it impractical if not impossible. Retrofits do work out though. Kem retrofitted her Merlin and it’s made it an excellent travel bike.

In the end, I decided just to go ahead and get a completely new bike. This time I went with titanium. The S&S website has a great list of framebuilders but I quickly settled on Ti from either Moots, Merlin or Seven. I chose Seven. The main reason was a local referral and a meetup with a Seven rep who just happened to be in town. But truth be told, they also just have a good website and it had the information I was after and a product line that met my desires.

The main reason for the Ti was I wanted an unpainted bike and Ti performs and looks great unpainted. A travel bike takes more abuse in handling than a normal road bike. Why worry about paint? And when you travel you can’t pick the days you ride. You’ll probably still go even if it’s raining. While I love the feel of steel, I wanted to avoid worrying about corrosion. The other reasons for frame material choice get more complicated. Suffice it to say, my choices during the process were designed to yield a bicycle that was lively to ride but comfortable.

So, how does it ride? I must say I’m very happy with the results so far. It’s indeed a lively ride, though not harsh. It’s light and responsive and feels great climbing hills. Out of the saddle and cranking hard on it, I find the stiffness pretty much ideal. There’s a solid feel to the ride and I felt confident in steep, fast descents. I did find myself feathering the brakes just a little though when descending down curvy roads that I otherwise wouldn’t. There’s nothing squirrelly about the ride. In fact, I’d say it’s very responsive and predictable. There is, however, a slight difference in the fork rake between this new bike and my Waterford, and it’s just different enough to be noticable and be something to get used to.

The couplers are rock solid. The one thing I did notice though was the cable splitters. These allow the cables to be split when the bike is disassembled. They’re kind of big and when the road gets rough, they make a noise against the frame not unlike the noise of the lines of a flag pole when the wind causes them to rattle against the pole. A light pinging sound. They have rubber bumpers built into them to limit the noise but it’s inevitable it’ll make some noise. All in all, I’m looking forward to the places I can go with this bike.

The details:

• Frame: 3-2.5 Ti, custom geometry
• Stem: Ti, custom
• Fork: Seven, carbon
• Headset: Chris King, NoThreadSet – in black (thanks Kem!)
• Seat post: Seven, aluminum
• Handlebars: Stella, aluminum (being a travel bike, handlebars are on and off often. You have to be too careful with the right torque to go with carbon handlebars on a travel bike in my opinion.)
• Water cages: King, stainless steel
• Groupo: Shimano 6603
• Pedals: Speedplay, Ti
• Saddle: Specialized Alias, Ti rails
• Wheels/hubs: Bontrager Race Lites

My fresh set of cycling gloves arrived and was there on the doorstep when I got home last night. Apparently my Monday must be pretty uneventful if that was the highlight of my day but, hey, we live for simple pleasures, right?

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t make much note of it, but I really like these gloves. They have gel inserts that are better than any I’ve run across. I routinely buy a pair every year even though my old pair may not be completely worn out just on the off chance Spenco might stop making them. Because in fact, there was a time when Spenco did just that. I had a pair years and years ago and then they quit making them. Apparently people couldn’t stop asking for them though because they started to sell them again. Now they have their own special site at http://shop.spencocycling.com/.

I’ve never gotten the Tour or Pro models, so can’t vouch for them, but the Elites, shown here are my favs and as I sit here sipping the morning cup before the morning ride, figured I might as well share.

I must admit I think I chuckled out loud when I came upon this sign recently warning me of the steep downhill coming up. Someone has more signs than they know what to do with.

While I was in Wisconsin recently, I took a short detour and drove over to check out Waterford Precision Cycles. I had a custom built Waterford done back in ’03 that I really love. I got the lugged steel RST-22. I thought I’d check out where it was born.

You have to be looking for the place. It’s off the beaten path in the small town of Waterford, Wisc. Richard Schwinn – one of the co-founders – greeted me with a friendly hello and proceeded to give me a quick tour of the facility. He was joined by Gunnar the dog – the name sake of the Gunnar Bikes. Gunnar’s are made alongside the Waterford bikes. And as it turns out, Waterford also makes Volae recumbents and some Terry bikes as well as some for Rivendell.

Gunnar was really a friendly dog. I snapped this photo of him and also a shot of one the new custom bikes in progress in the paint shop.

This is the third bicycle manufacturing facility I’ve been to over the years. I think they’re always kinda fun to visit. The first I ever went to was Bike Friday out in Eugene Oregon. I remember being surprised by how small an operation it seemed to be. But they were very nice and let us borrow a couple bikes from their show room to try out. I really liked it and ended up buying one. (You can see it in the picture here.)

The other was the Tommasini factory in Grosseto Italy. They were bigger but like Bike Friday had a showroom attached to check out the bikes. Kem picked up the lugged steel bug from me and decided to order a classic steel Tommasini. She was fitted by Mr. Tommasini himself. Pretty cool!

Is this summer hot enough for ya yet? Yeah, I know. As far as the calendar goes, it’s still spring. But we’ve already had as many 100 degree days as all of last summer so I think I can safely say it’s summer in central TX.

Despite the heat, we’ve managed to get out in the Hill Country and do a couple interesting rides recently. A few weeks ago we did an old favorite – a ride from Dripping Springs to Johnson City. The Creek Road route south of Dripping Springs is always a favorite. Low traffic and scenic countryside.

The only downside to this route at all is the relatively short section of Hwy 290 as you go from FM-165 to the park road FM-3232. It’s busy with only a narrow shoulder and that shoulder is about as rough as asphalt gets. FM-3232 is nice though with some fantastic views of the Hill Country. The entrance to the park has a nice spot under some trees to take a break – which we did.

FM-2766 into Burnet is a similar scenic road of rolling hills. The windmill pictured here caught my eye on the way out. There’s no house or barn there any more but the windmill still works. Some Prickly Pear cactus has somehow managed to take root and do quite well on the top of a rock gate post.

The same road has a winery named Texas Hills. We didn’t stop in but oddly enough, there was a wine festival in Austin the very next day and we went to it. Texas Hills was there. Surprisingly, one of Texas Hills wines turned out to be one of our favorites of the day. Their Due Bianco is a blend of Pinot Grigio (21%) and Chardonnay (79%) and it was crisp and fruity and perfect for a hot day.

The middle picture of Kem and I was taken on Creek Rd on the return. If we look a little red, well, it’s cause we were hot!

The other ride we did was the Real Ale ride in Blanco. It was a benefit ride done by Real Ale for the public library there. They had a huge turn out. By their report 1400 riders. Logistics were a bit of a mess at the start, but otherwise, the ride was great. The 50 mile route was pretty hilly and the heat pretty intense. As the morning wore on it appeared to take its toll. I think the medics were busy that day. We took it slow and were fine.

The bottom picture here was post ride at the Real Ale brewery. There were serving up mounds of BBQ and some of the beer they make on site. The Firemans #4 Blonde Ale which we’re raising a glass of here was perfect for post ride quaffing. More please.

Saturday was the annual Armadillo ride out in Liberty Hill. We ride out there all the time, but this ride is always well attended and fun to go to. This year, the weather was just plain sultry. Thankfully the sun stayed behind the clouds till we were nearly done with the ride. Even so, it was downright hot. But we enjoyed the ride a lot. Neither of us has been out riding much recently so it was nice to get out to LH again.

Things are still pretty spring like and green around here. We didn’t have a great crop of wild flowers this year but occasionally there are some nice ones to be found. I saw this field of pink flowers just as we were nearing the end of the ride and it seemed to be a perfect spot to get a shot of Kem and her pink Serotta, with it’s pink bike bag and water bottles.

The shot of me was at the first rest stop we stopped at. I don’t think this is actually a working general store, but it made for a nice back drop.

Meanwhile, a few days ago we managed to get an early sneak peak at Mellow Johnny’s, the big new bike store in town. One of Kem’s friends works there. It’s gotten a lot of press locally because it’s co-owned by Lance Armstrong. It’s a bit of a museum almost. It has several of Lance’s old bikes and some of his own art hanging up on the walls.

The name of the place seemed odd at first but as it turns out, it’s a play on words that makes a lot of sense. In French, the yellow jersey is known as the “maillot jaune“. If you don’t speak french and try to sound it out in English… well, you get it. Likewise the name of the coffee shop that’s within the store is also a play on words – of a sort. The coffee shop is named Juan Pelota’s. I would have never gotten it without someone sharing the play on words but then I don’t speak Spanish. Pelota is ball. So in other words, “one ball”. Read on if you’re still scratching your head…

Kem has added one more bike to her stable of bikes. This time, a tandem. And it’s very cool. For around town cruisin’, it’s really hard to beat the fun you can have on this bike. We got out yesterday in the nice weather to cruise around west Austin. Went down to Medici for a coffee and then up to Central Market for some stuff to grill. The bike has a detachable basket so you can take it right into the store with you. Handy.

Half the fun of the bike is just watching the smiles on people’s faces as you ride by. Seriously, we’d be riding by and people would just light up. Kids love it: “Hey, cool bike!”. Yes, it is.