Yesterday was the Pedal Power Wildflower Ride out in Stonewall. Actually, it starts from the park at the LBJ ranch, but I guess that is considered Stonewall. The ride name is a bit of a mouthful to say so I just way “Pedal Power ride”. I love the 60 miler route they do on this ride because it includes the Willow City Loop.

Kem’s off the bike for awhile so Jim and I did this ride. It’s a bit of a hike out to Stonewall so we were up before sunrise packing things up and heading out. Leaving from Jim’s up north we routed through Marble Falls on the way out. We had plenty of time so pulled into the Bluebonnet Cafe – home style cookin since 1929 – for some breakfast on the way. I don’t usually go for a big ranch hand style breakfast, but I figured I’d be burning more than a few calories on the ride so opt’ed for a really big breakfast. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, biscuits – with gravy of course! – and coffee. Holy cow! Lots o’ food.

Gravy for breakfast is over the top but then there was the rest stop food along the ride. There was the usual bananas and cookies and things like that, but a couple of the stops had full sized sausage wraps, slices of what appeared to be summer sausage and two kinds of cheese cubes! Not your typical ride food. Had I not had the monster breakfast I might have given some of that a try but instead stuck with the bananas.

Ordinarily the route through the Willow City Loop is loaded with flowers at this time of year. Might have just caught it at the wrong time but this year, very few flowers. You really had to look for any at all. Last year Kem and I rode the same route and the area was blanketed with them.

Rosedale Ride

Although I have no pictures of it, I thought I’d also quickly mention last week’s Rosedale ride. It was cold and damp last week but I decided to go anyway. That ride is always really well attended. The routes are pretty flat ones northeast of Austin. Thankfully it never rained though it did sprinkle for a bit. For some reason people have a tendency on that ride to take off fast. The group seems to have this collective pent up need to race. Winds were out of the north and yet we were still humming along at a 20’ish mph pace as a group.

I was humming along quite nicely at the 24 mile point when bam! I snagged a nail in my rear tire. That’s actually a first for me. I’ve never picked up a full sized nail before. I hadn’t even seen it. Stuck in there it made quite a racket. Thankfully the tire wasn’t destroyed when it blew so I was able to just put in a new tube. I had trouble getting air in the tire though but some really kind soul named Tom happend by, stopped and filled it with one of those air canisters.

I’m finally getting around to jotting down a few notes from this year’s Easter Hill Country Tour. Aside from a woeful fall that Kem had – which I’ll get to – the rides and weather were really great this year.

For those following along, last year’s EHCT was largely snuffed out mid stream by freezing temps and sleet on Saturday. Though as you can see from the link, the flowers on the ride that Friday were amazing.

Easter came much earlier this year though and consequently there were very few flowers to speak of along the routes.

Friday we opt’ed for the 44 miler. Last year we had done that same route and done the 60 miler but we figured this year we’d save the longer ride for Saturday. The route north of Fredericksburg is one of my favs. The views back over the valley after climbing Lower Crab Apple are always worth a short stop. And I love the section along Welge-Hausen where you zoom down hill with Enchanted Rock looming in the distance. The picture here is one I took on last year’s ride.

Our Friday ride was nearly complete – we had maybe a half mile or so to go – and Kem took a tumble off her bike. Thankfully she had a good helmet. It cracked instead of her head. Aside from a headache – not surprisingly – she otherwise seemed fine though we would later find she had injured her shoulder in the fall and is currently in a sling and off the bike for another 4 weeks or so.

Kem opt’ed wisely to just rest on Saturday. I made the trip down to Kerrville and did the 60 miler. Another really nice hill country route. The first hour of the route was largely up hill and got us warmed up pretty quickly. The hill on “Freedom Trail Rd” had a lot of people slowed to a crawl. The section along hwy 27 is not my fav because of traffic but at least there’s a wide shoulder. The rest, particular along White Oak Rd and Zenner-Ahrens are quiet scenic sections of the route.

Friday night we managed to make it back to one of my favorite restaurants in that area. The Hill Top Cafe. Johnny Nicholas played the piano/harmonica and sang a little too. We’d gone out there last year too. The food’s great and oh yeah, they make great pies!

Finally, a few notes for anyone involved in planning the EHCT that happens along this write-up. Two words: More toilets. The rest stops had only 1 portable toilet. The start of the ride had only 2! Sigh. And a little variety at the rest stops would be nice. Bananas, pretzels and pickle juice at every stop.

In contrast to that wet stuff of the previous weekend, it’s all sunshine this weekend. Seems like everywhere I go I’m seeing Iris and Daffodil flowers up. As if it weren’t otherwise obvious, Spring’s coming.

In a quest to get ever farther away from traffic, so far this year several of the rides have been way, way up north and far from the maddening crowds. Liberty Hill and Bertram continue to be one of my favorite places to ride. Unfortunately I have to drive a ways to get there and come home which seems ironic considering the point is to ride my bicycle. The ‘commute’ + the ride makes a ride of any distance take a fair chunk of the day.

Ok, so the ride was a loop ride from Bertram to Burnet and then back. See map. All familiar roads that I’ve been on at one time or another, but just never in this configuration. As it turns out, I’ll probably do this route again and again. I really liked it for the combination of low traffic, mileage (not too long at 40 miles but just long enough) and the fact that it has a nice break point to refuel in Burnet – in the 20’ish mile range.

The picture of the state of Texas done up as the Texas state flag in corrugated metal caught my eye as I rode along at some point south of Burnet.

The picture of the guys was done by Kem on a ride out in the same area a few weeks ago. That’s Austin, a friend of Jim’s (center), and me in blue of course.

This weekend Kem’s out tailing the Tour of California with her cousin and his wife.

While we’ve had some wacky winter weather here in central Texas, it’s been warm enough to get out and enjoy the outdoors recently. On Sunday it was easily 60’s if not better and Kem and I wanted to find a ride with some rolling hills away from traffic but not way, way out if we could avoid it. (Who’s got the time?)

We settled on a ride out in the Dripping Springs area. I really like the Creek Rd route and thought I’d try to put together a loop route that kept us away from the major traffic and got us somewhere near 30 miles.

The map of the route I came up with seemed like an ideal route to do just that. Although, what looks good on ‘paper’, doesn’t always pan out in real life. Don’t trust this map. Many of these roads I’d ridden long ago – like years ago. But toward the southern end of the route, none of it was familiar. The road that took us back to Dripping Springs, didn’t seem to be where we thought it should be. We took a guess and thought we were going the right way, but ended up way off course. At some point, as we T’d into a busy highway, that became pretty obvious. Now what?! We were way down by Wimberley.

As we began to backtrack, I noticed another cyclist approaching us and we flagged her down. We all came to the realization pretty quickly that we had a long way to go to get back to where we were going. It wasn’t all that long and it was going to be dark too – and did I mention I hadn’t brought anything to snack on? We probably had more than 20 miles to get back to where we started. Thankfully, our new biker friend Polly had an office and her car just a couple miles down the road though. Fantastic! We rode over there and piled the bikes in and got a lift back to Dripping Springs. What a life saver!

Our new friend Polly turns out to be one of (or perhaps “the” only person?) behind Climb On! Products line of skin care products. We really can’t thank her enough. She really went out of her way – literally – to get us back to the car.

Saturday morning was the Rip Roarin’ Ride in Liberty Hill, which is not too far a drive from here. 30 min give or take. The area is one of my favorites to ride for the rural scenery and low traffic. Thought I’d jot a few notes and post this picture of Kem and me.

Was a pretty good turnout – would guess somewhere around 500+ riders – and the Lions Club that puts it on did a nice job with the rest stops and support. Once again my registration fee nets me a t-shirt of questionable value. Though, I’m sure I’ll find some time/place to make use of it. We noticed a few ball caps with their ride logo on them. I think I’d much prefer a ball cap than a t-shirt.

Kem joined me on the 49-miler (which was 50 when all was said and done.) Was a really pleasant route. Rolling. One steep hill the whole route. None of the roads were new to me, but always fun to ride again.

We caught the picture here at one of the later rest stops. They’d really outdone themselves with the scarecrow decorations at this stop. It doesn’t feel like autumn weather here at all yet, but the decorations that people put out at this time of year are starting to come out in force. The stores have piles of pumpkins already too. I guess it is October next week already so I should expect it. Still so tropical around here right now though.

The barrage of catalogs have started to arrive in my mail too. I know, I know, time to starting thinking about Christmas already isn’t it. It’s too early…

Don’t see any organized rides for next weekend. Bound to be something that comes up though.

It’s Fall! Time once again for the round of fall rides in Texas. Last weekend was first one of the season for me and Kem.

The Hill Country Challenge ride was last weekend in Burnet. Finally getting around to some notes on it. We chose to do the 64 miler. I’ve ridden out in that area before, but as it turned out, a fair bit of the 64 mile route (actually 65 by my count) was on roads I’d never done before. Nice change of pace. And I really liked the route. Way off the beaten path and for a good part of it at the start, practically zero traffic. Some places I’m likely to return to ride again.

You put up with a lot of cattle guards, rough roads and low water crossings in these remote areas though. Not a big deal, but you really have to be careful. In this case, many of the cattle guards had a gap right up the middle. Don’t see that too often. Very easy for the wheel of even a mountain bike to get snagged in there. Even though someone had gone out in advance and spray painted such obstacles orange, someone took a header on one of the cattle guards. Apparently she was ok, but the helmet she was wearing is no more. I don’t know for sure, but might have been a case of some folks in a pace line. I don’t really think these kind of rides/roads are all that suited to the pace line crowd but you always find them anyway. The problem is, a rider in back doesn’t see that the cattle guard has a gaping crack right down the center – even if someone shouts it out.

They chose the weekend of the Austin City Limits music festival to do the ride, so I’m not sure they got the turnout they were expecting. Still though, there was a decent number of people that attended considering that for most folks participating means driving an hour or more out to Burnet. The food after was good. Salad, pasta and some chicken. And for a change, I actually liked the t-shirt they were giving out. Overall, great ride.

The pink bike in the second picture is undoubtedly Kem’s wonderful Tommasini.

The new PedalTours catalog arrived in the mail this week and had me longing for another tour in New Zealand. I had a great time there in ’05. It had me digging out my old photos and reminiscing about that trip. Thought I’d post a couple of them.

Yes, that’s me with the SpongeBob jersey on. And as you can see, it was chilly there that morning even though it was summer when we did the ride. (Their summer that is.)

Maybe another year in the not too distant future I’ll go again.

The second picture was one of those rare moments on the west coast of the south island when it didn’t look as though it were just about to rain.

TOMRV, the Tour of the Mississippi River Valley, was last weekend and what a great ride it was.

I have done this ride a few other times, but that was in the late 70’s, and early 80’s. In other words, a long time ago. The route was a little different from way back then. But then, so was I. In spirit though, it was essentially the same ride.

Personally I thought it was a challenging ride then and I still think so. On the first day though, we were blessed with fantastic weather. The temps were cool – starting off around 50 degrees at 6:15 in the morning – and later warming into the 80’s. We had light winds most of the time and what little wind there was at our backs or a cross wind. Not a bad way to start things off.

The morning of the first day was pretty flat, going by huge flat, fields of corn and beans. By late morning though we’d crossed over onto the Illinois side and things started to get rolling, then downright hilly. There was really only a few big hills though. The big one on the first day had a reputation that preceded it and was called “the wall”. It wasn’t really that bad though and Kem, who took the “country lane” alternative said that option was probably just as hilly.

The challenging part of the ride was mainly just the distance. By the time it was all said and done we’d ridden 107.7 miles (according to Kem’s GPS) on the first day. And that last hill up to Clarke college at mile 106 was just plain mean.

Sunday started off through some wandering tree covered roads. (See the upper right picture.) Very pretty countryside. Then it was up and down through one hill after another. The 2nd day’s hills were more interesting/challenging than the first day’s. Not really steep, but just long and they were plentiful. By lunch time we had gotten to Preston and I had really worked up an appetite for lunch. It wouldn’t be an Iowa ride unless somebody was selling pork chops, would it? And not surprisingly, the Lions club in Preston was cutting up some great chops at the lunch stop on Sunday.

In general, the food on the ride was awesome. Every rest stop (“sag stop”) had plenty of fruit, liquids, and snacks of all kinds. I loved those bagels and peanut butter & banana snacks late on the 2nd day. Perfect timing. The buffet at Clarke on Saturday night was massive and plentiful. All you wanted and more.

It seemed like not all that many people fully finished out the ride. Lots of folks seemed to bail out at the lunch stop on the 2nd day in Preston. Maybe there were more people doing the shorter alternate ride from Preston than I imagined. Anyway, the riders got pretty sparse toward the end of the 2nd day of 88 miles. My guess was that had more to do with the headwind we faced on the ride south of Preston and all the way to Bettendorf. We knew we had 40+ miles remaining once we left Preston and it was all into the wind. There was little or no cover either since this is the part of the ride through mainly open country. Just fields and not many trees.

All in all, a great ride. It’s a little out of the way for me, of course, but I’d certainly do it again some time.

It seems like I’ve been reading way too many of these sorts of incidents of violence against cyclists recently. What’s going on? Short of taking up mountain biking instead of road riding, not sure what any of us can do to avoid crazy, evil people.

You don’t have to be a cyclist to be the object of crazy, evil people. You just have to be particularly vulnerable. Like the 91 year old guy in Detroit that was widely reported on and that got beat up and car-jacked while people stood around and watched.

I always like the Armadillo Ride. I can’t remember how many of them I’ve done over the years. Several. This year’s was blessed with some great weather and a nice showing of wildflowers. And, as usual, a really large turnout. Opted for the 61 miler, though my computer showed 62 when it was all said and done.

Things at the start seemed a little chaotic. The routine jam-up of cars trying to park and then a start that didn’t seem like it had any orchestration to it. Perhaps we just got over there too late and missed it. Though I preferred not having to wait anyway.

Rest stops were great. Lots of PBJ’s, animal crackers, fruit, and lots of other goodies. That stop at about 30 even had some sausage on the grill! Not bad. Though the sausage and dill pickle at that point might have been ill advised, they were tasty.

The back side of the 61 mile route was great. I think that area over by Oatmeal and southwest of Betram is the most scenic of the riding up in that area.

No surprise, things thinned out quite a bit toward the end of the ride. The picture of Kem here makes it look like we were the only ones out there. Just good picture timing I guess.