In preparation for doing the Ride2Walk to raise funding for the Lone Star Paralysis Fund on Saturday, we drove out to Austin Friday afternoon. Since Elgin, the ride location, is about an hour east of Austin, we combined our planned ride with a brief visit to our daughter Marie.
After arriving and hauling the bikes up to her apartment for security, we went for a walk in the local park to explore the spring fed swimming area and the Town Lake which is basically where the Colorado river is held back by a dam as it passes through Austin just south of the downtown. There is an extensive network of bike hike trails in the park that were being used by everyone from fit young moms jogging with babies in strollers, roller bladers, skate boarder, bicycle riders, mostly without helmets and not really showing any regard for anyone else moving along the path, and a couple of very old looking oriental men trudging earnestly along with their heads down and their hands behind their backs. There were a variety of boats including crew skulls, kayaks and canoes out on the river/lake as people enjoyed a mellow fall afternoon.
Marie also gave us a quick drive through downtown where we saw the capital building, an impressive bulding similar to many other capital buildings with a tall central dome and side wings, all in Texas limestone and granite, which tends to be a soft verigated yellow. The Texas legistlature meets by mandate every four years, with an occassional "as needed" meeting every 2 years. This is one of the ineteresting quirks of government left over from when Texas was briefly an independent republic. Mari drove around all sides of a very modern steel and glass structure which apparently, when looked at from the correct side angle, looks like and owl. Apparently the architect was a graduate of Baylor University, one of University of Texas' rivals, and their mascot is an owl. I'll take her word for it as we never could find the correct angle.
The rest of the dowtown buildings were a wide range of modernist construction with old Texas hill town buildings, late Victorian edifices and post war constructionist offices interspersed. You can read the town like a time line depending on which area you are in.
Just as a statistical aside, in Houston, the San Jacinto Monument (which is not in the right place anyway) is 10 feet higher than the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. In Austin, the capital building is 10 feet higher than the Washington capital building, while the football stadium for University of Texas (Hook em horns) is 12 feet higher than the Colesium in Rome. These height advantages were all purposefully planned.
Why? You ask..... because everything is bigger in Texas.
We went out to dinner with Marie and several of her friends, ate well, laughed a lot and finished the whole southern style homecooked meal with hand blended ice cream with add ins from a local ice cream shop. Austin allows very few chain restaurants into town, but instead has encouraged a large number of individual eateries and drinkeries which were all doing a brisk business on a lovely fall Friday evening. Replete,we wandered back to Maries' apartment, figured out a wake up time and went to bed.
Marie was going to run in the Lance Armstrong Foundation Run in Austin while we were riding in Elgin, so we got up early to accommodate her need to get to a friends'house to grab a ride into the center of town. This meant we got to Elgin with plenty of time to spare.
The ride itself was a first time attempt at an organized ride by the AT&T team out of Austin. I was a bit nervous about the rides' description of "gently rolling hills" since the last time I saw that in a description it was mentioned so that they wouldn't have to mention the various not so gentle and downright vicious hills that were in the ride as well. Fortunately the ride description had taken no poetic license, and the hills really were gently rolling.
With rest stops every 15 to 20 miles, and constant walkie talkie contact between the 8 sag vehicles and the various rest stops, the ride was very well supported. The organizers had made adequate signage to indicate the turns and put colored arrows down on the road as well. They even had made "wrong way" signs to post after every turn. I took full advantage of those as the route zigged and zagged between farm to market roads, two lane highways and four lane highways with wide shoulders. The terrain alternated between gently rolling hills, flat farmland, Texas prairie and some stretches of local road complete with hedgerows.
Since it was a first time ride, there were only about 150 riders in total but the weather was perfect for the ride. It was mid 70's, sunny, dry and the brisk headwind didn't really develop until about halfway through the ride and even then the route changed direction often enough to allow some tail wind rest periods. The gently rolling terrain seemed to go up more than it went down but according to the road profile, they were almost exactly even so maybe some of the stretches I thought were easy because of a tail wind were actually gradual declines.
Since I stopped at the first rest stop to get a banana and Phil didn't stop, he got ahead of me. It was a surprise to see him at the second rest stop, but also very nice since we could ride a bit together before my 62 mile rout split off from his 45 mile route. By the time we split up, the riders had all settled into a pace and sorted themselves out into solo riders or groups, so the rest of the ride was pretty much solo for me although I did see an occassional rider either behind or ahead of me at the remaining two rest stops.
I thought I was maintaining a pretty decent pace until I got to the last rest stop and heard them talking to the SAG driver about waiting for three more riders and then closing down. Ah well..
I completed the ride into town and pulled in to the parking space to be applauded by two of the ride marshals who were talking to Phil. He had blown a hole about the size of a thumbnail in his tire just a couple of miles out from the finish. One of the marshals had helped him do a partial fix which didn't last so he had had to Sag in which had him really irritated as he had really been wanting and able to finish this ride since injury took him out of the Lion's ride earlier this month. I guess the marshals were relieved that they didn't have to ride back and find me. I was relieved to discover I wasn't quite the last one out.
This particular ride had been planned to coincide with the 22nd Annual Hogeye festival( Pig Puns And Fun For The Whole Family), so that non-riders would have something to do while their spouse, child, significant other or family member was riding. We had made tentative plans with Marie that she might drive out to Elgin and indulge in the festival with us after we got in from the ride. As it turned out, she was tired and needed a nap and texted us that she wasn't coming and since and were both pretty wind shot after the ride , we opted to skip the festival as well.
It would have been interesting to see some of the various activities such as the Road Hog Car show, the Hogeye Hoedown Talent Show, the Hogalicious Dessert Contest and the In a Pig's Eye Dart Contest, but by the time we had finished, loaded our gear, partaken of the post ride beer and bratwurst, and changed, we were ready to head for home.
All in all it was a nice weekend, a good ride and both of us have yet another memorial t shirt to add to our collections. At this point we will never have to buy aother t shirt and will still have enough left over to clothe a small nation.
Ride stats:
distance 63 miles
ride time 4:10
speed 15.2 average
No comments:
Post a Comment