Texas Bicycling News December 24th

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EP Cyclists

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A good year for B-Cycle; Austin bike-share program doubled its expectations

by Michael Theis    Digital Editor- Austin Business Journal


In its first year, Austin’s bicycle-sharing program — run by Wisconsin-based B-cycle LLC — has seen riders complete 150,000 trips, more than doubling official projections when the system was launched.
“I think we can call year one for Austin B-cycle an unqualified success,” said Elliott McFadden, executive director of Austin B-cycle.
The system launched late December 2013 with 11 stations clustered in downtown Austin. Since then, the system has …

Christmas Present Puzzle

Pit’s Fritztown News

Yesterday I got a Christmas present I’m giving myself: another vintage road bicycle – a Gianni Motta from the 1980s:

I had found this on Ebay in Germany and had it shipped over to here. But if I had known that it would arrive taken apart nearly to the last bolt, I might have asked the seller if I could have paid more to have it shipped here in a more complete state. Now it really looks like a big mechanical puzzle, and I …

Reveille Peak Ranch – Super D 1 and 2 – Video Edit

hunrugger        forums.mtbr.com

We used the new Lonestar Granite Enduro start at the top – way much sketchier than the video makes it look. This run has great variety, drops, jumps, berms, rock gardens, bridge, creeks, just plain FUN.

Dec 24 (Day 358) – Another miserable day on the roads

Biking For Birds

If there was going to be more strong north wind tomorrow, I think I would just close up shop and quit for the rest of the year. The last two days have been miserable and relatively unproductive. Yesterday I managed just 37 miles before the wind shut me down. Today was almost as frustrating as I covered just 50 miles from Navasota, TX to Hearne. The wind that blew from 14-18 MPH all morning (gusting >20 MPH) did actually die down a bit in the afternoon. I thought about continuing on, but I was doubtful that I would be able to find food in the next, small town on Christmas eve. When I found out the Pizza Hut here in Hearne would be open until 8pm, that sealed the deal. I have now consumed 2 …

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Texas Cycling News Roundup December 23rd

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Reveille Peak Ranch – Sweet Skull Enduro Stage VIDEO

by hunrugger (Eric Burns)        forums.mtbr.com

This was my first and only run of the day and only my third time riding Sweet Skull. It’s an awesome little section that was created for the Lonestar Granite Enduro at Reveille Peak Ranch. I’m on a Devinci Troy Carbon (demo) and buddy up from is on a Giant Trance Advanced SX 27.5.
I’ll be posting up some of the Super D and Flow Track at RPR as well soon.

Quest Cyclocross Challenge

txbra.org


Rain leading up to the race weekend provide some extra challenges for the riders, as well as entertainment for the spectators.
Photo courtesy of Mario Cantu.

Fat Chuck’s revenge, Smithville, TX Dec 20, 2014 Results

www.usacycling.org

Marathon Women Half
Marathon Men 19-39 Half
Marathon Men 40-99 Half
Marathon Men 15-18 Half
Marathon Women Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Women 30-39 Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Women 40-99 Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Men Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Men 19-29 Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Men 30-39 Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Men 40-49 Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Men 50-99 Cat 1/2/3
Marathon Men SS Open

January 1st Heidi’s Annual New Years Day Ride

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Hill Country Bicycle Touring Club
January 1st, 2015 Heidi’s Annual New Year’s Day Ride all are welcome members and nonmembers alike.  This is a family leisure ride so bring out the kids.  The Ride will start at 11:00 am in McAllister Park.   We will meet at the Dog Park parking lot.  Ride is about 18 miles along highly shaded, paved bike trails in McAllister Park and along the Salado Creek Greenway.  For more information contact ride leader Heidi Lynn, at …

Beautiful map shows most used San Antonio running, biking routes

By Joshua Fechter        www.mysanantonio.com


A new map published by Mapbox shows where runners in San Antonio and Texas are making the rest of us feel bad about ourselves.
Mapbox developer Garrett Miller and his colleague Eric Fischer pulled data from the website RunKeeper, which maps running routes, and used it to make a map showing …

Crazy Cat MTB El Paso Texas

by Crazy event

Crazy Cat MTB El Paso Texas by crazy-event

 

CypressWOOD Ride today

Tuesday, Dec 30, 2014, 1:00 PM

5 Dirty SOB’s Went

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HBC New Years Pot Luck Lunch And Ride Ride

Houston Bicycle Club

Thu 01/01/15    8:30AM
Distance: 20(A) miles
Ride starts at 8:30 a.m.  Lunch at 11:30 a.m. Join us for the annual New Years Day pot luck feast. Start with a leisurely in-town ride. Then bring out your best dish for the traditional pot luck lunch!  Turkey, ham, and drinks provided by the HBC. Many attendance prizes will also be awarded. Start the new year right with riding buddies and great food! …

 

Dec 23 (Day 357) – Big winds shut me down, end of year “top 5” list ideas

Biking For Birds


I left Harvey’s ranch at first light this morning. I knew a very large northwestern front with associated big winds of 20-25 MPH was heading my way. I wanted to knock out at least some miles before it descended on me and made my life miserable. I was able to make ~37 miles to Navasota, TX before it the winds really escalated. I took a break for an early lunch and contemplated trying to continue towards College Station. The winds were ~18 MPH when I sat down for lunch. By the time I finished, they had grown to a steady 22 MPH. I decided right there to hang it up for the day. I could have probably pushed the 23 miles to College station, but it would have been …

 

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Texas Cycling News December 22nd

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North Texas Bicycle Bonanza Christmas 2014 Display

by Brian Hooten

Transportation planners present west Houston recommendations

By Robin Foster        www.chron.com


West Houston has arrived as a destination, as its own city within the Bayou City, and that’s not just in the minds of people who live, invest and work here. It’s according to data mined by regional planners who will use it to improve multi-modal transportation for this high-growth area in the years to come.
“I can’t tell you we’re going to fix congestion here, but to have the city, the county and other entities here come to agreement on goals and priorities is a great accomplishment,” Clark Martinson says of final recommendations to arise in the West Houston Sub-Regional Planning Initiative. …

… The study also recommends building out the network of bike and pedestrian routes along the region’s bayous, drainage canals and utility easements and incorporating the recommendations in the city’s updated bicycle master plan. Consultants involved in the effort are grading routes based on stress level for bike riders.
“If you want people to bike, you …

Elves & More delivers 10,000 bicycles to deserving children in need

By Alexander Supgul, Digital Content Manager        www.myfoxhouston.com

Video

A non-profit organization delivers thousands of bicycles to deserving children in Houston who are classified as at-risk.
The Elves & More motto is “Changing lives – one bike at a time!”
The organization uses the bicycles as incentives to motivate at-risk children to be achievers in the schools that they attend while staying out of harm’s way.
Elves & More serves an eight-county area in which 330,000 children live in poverty.

Bicycle brunch ride from La Madeleine SMU area.

Saturday, Jan 3, 2015, 11:00 AM

Location details are available to members only.

17 Members Went

Hello group will be leading and easy paced brunch ride starting and finishing at La Madeline near SMU. Start at 11:00am and ride a through the Park cities Estates touring the homes. Hope to finish and have lunch at La Madeline afterwards. Distance 10 to 15 miles.Ride pace 10 to 12 mph.Good beginner or first timer ride.As always please inspect yo…

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Along Turtle Creek early Saturday, cyclists say a driver attacked first with car, then with fist

by Robert Wilonsky        crimeblog.dallasnews.com


Elle Natchke and her friend George Wendt were still “a little bruised, a little sore” Sunday morning, hours after they learned the hard way what many cyclists know well: Dallas isn’t very bike-friendly.
In addition to their contusions, they’re struggling with confusion. They want to know why the man they say hit them — first with his car, then his fists — was only ticketed for simple assault, a Class C misdemeanor, and released. A growing number of …

Making It Up As I Go Along

Bike Noob

I got the bike back from the shop a few days ago, and things are better. Not 100 percent better, but I can shift much smoother than before.
I park my bike in the garage, along the left wall. It’s right next to my car. Apparently, I smacked the derailleur with the car door when I opened it a couple of weeks ago, and it knocked the derailleur off kilter. The bike mechanic pointed it out to me when I picked up the bike, and he said he bent the derailleur back. So now I can shift from the small to the  big ring. There’s a little bit of clatter, but I’ve found that if I concentrate on easing up my pedal pressure, I can make a smooth shift with no noise.
I practiced that on Sunday’s ride, because I missed the club ride departure by a few minutes. And since this was an ad hoc ride, separate from the main ride that left an hour earlier, they weren’t going to …

Sunday Decmber 28th Roosevelt Ride

Hill Country Bicycle Touring Club

We’ll start at Roosevelt Park (331 Roosevelt Ave, San Antonio, TX 78210) at 8:30am on 12/28/14.  Wheels down at 8:30am, so arrive 15-30 minutes prior please. Bring your hybrid or mountain bike because we will be riding some of the dirt trails along the river that are part of the Mission trails.  Road bikes are welcome and you can stay on the concrete trail. We’ll ride down to Mission Espada and back. Ride Leaders Randy and Debbie.  For more information Randy may be reached at …

Bicycling in the Houston General Plan

BikeHouston

Houston is working on general plan – which is great news as it provides a strategic framework for how Houston operates. BikeHouston wants to make sure it includes a vision for bicycles. We would like to see Houston commit to improving Houston’s ranking from a Bronze city to a Gold city in 10 years. These rankings come from the League of American Bicyclists and take into account everything that makes a bicycle friendly community from infrastructure to culture to enforcement.

UH Students Peddling Bikes Designed for Houston

By Mike Emery        www.uh.edu


Throughout the fall semester, a team of University of Houston student designers learned the ins and outs of biking in Houston. They then built and branded bicycles specifically for the Bayou City.
Led by professor Mark Kimbrough, 10 students from UH’s award-winning Industrial Design Program were tasked with creating bicycles for Houston riders. They also created aRoad Bike business and brand around these bikes. During the semester of researching, designing and constructing these bikes, the student company, TAU, was founded.
“I presented to students the notion that U.S. downtowns are being redeveloped,” Kimbrough said. “Downtown infrastructures are being rebuilt with bike paths and bike lanes in mind. With that in mind, we formed a bike company that focused on …

Dec 22 (Day 356) A long but pleasant ride capped off with Harris’s sparrow!

Biking for Birds


I will confess that I had an ulterior motive for spending the last two nights in Freeport. Two of my very closest birding friends, Victor Emanuel and Barry “The Body” Lyon, were it town for the Freeport Xmas count. Not only have I have I been close friends with the both of them for 25 years, but they and their affiliate, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT), have been incredibly supportive of my efforts this year. You will recall VENT put up the $2,500 for our first match event of the year. Ultimately this helped us to raise close to $9,000 during the 2 week match period. So, when Victor and Barry offered me the pullout couch in their hotel room for the last two nights, I took it without a second thought. I had a really …

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Reached My Riding Goal But Not Done Yet, I Hope

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With the year winding down I am running out of days to reach my mileage goal for the year. Today is the first day since December 12th that I could get out and ride. As I was getting ready my wife ask me if I thought I could stay upright since she saw some strong wind gusts in our backyard. With all of the holiday eating and lack of biking I told I her I had plenty of ballast to offset the wind.

I thought about some route options that would get the 18 miles I needed to reach the goal. Going north with all of the road construction is too much effort so I decided to ride my Atascocita – Walden – Huffman route. Usually this route is 30+ miles but today I cut off a couple of miles at the beginning and ended up riding 30.31 miles. This put me over my goal at 6513 miles. I might be able to add some more miles to that but right now the weather forecast does not look favorable. Saturday and Sunday look warm enough but the chance of rain is near 50% or more. The rest of the days may be too cool for me, below 60 is too cold for this older body.

If the sky had not been overcast I probably could’ skipped the leg warmers with 71 degrees but the stiff wind made it feel cooler than 71. I wore a long sleeve jersey and a windbreaker jacket in addition to shorts and leg warmers. At the start the wind was gusting to 23 mph but it settled down to 12 mph by the time I got home at 3:07. Riding east over Lake Houston on FM1960 the wind helped me but on the return going west I slowed down to below 14 mph going into the stiff wind. My average speed up to this point was 15.4 mph but I lost a .1 mph thanks to the wind. I was able to recover that lost mph and held it until I reached Kingwood Drive at 28 miles into the ride. Once I crossed over Kingwood Drive winding around the streets and parking lots I ended up averaging 15.3 mph which isn’t bad considering how little I have rode this month; 116.6 miles.

This year I rode this route 59 times out of 191 rides. Maybe in 2015 I can increase the northerly rides when the Grand Parkway construction moves west of US59.

I did see two other bikers. Both were on FM1960 over Lake Houston. They were not recreational bikers but more utilitarian bikers; a category I just made up.

Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS maps, metrics and charts. Click on an image to enlarge it.

Ride route – Google Earth
Today’s ride metrics
Airport weather beginning of ride
Home weather end of ride
YTD Rides on the same route
Week to date
December to date rides
Year to date ride summaries