Texas Bicycling Daily News Roundup February 4th

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Monthly FrankenBike Austin Event Thrills Enthusiasts and Newbies
by David Thomas            austinot.com

Austin is known as a bike friendly town. Bike lanes are all over the place, even in areas that see almost no bicycle traffic. City buses and MetroRail accommodate cyclists and there are seemingly countless bicycle shops in the Greater Austin Area serving countless riders with different preferences and riding styles. So it’s no surprise that an event like FrankenBike exists in Austin.
Franken-What?

On the morning of January 25, 2013, my girlfriend’s son and I loaded up our bicycles and headed south to 5th and Comal. We were going to…

State Parks: Big Bend Ranch Bike Fest
passporttotexas.org

This is Passport to Texas
Once called Dirt Fest, the newly named Bike Fest, at Big Bend Ranch State Park, is a mountain bikers dream. Our SP Guide, Bryan Frazier has details.

62—It’s a 54 mile epic ride trail, and you can break it up into various smaller rides. There’s a two-day option where people can stay at the Sauceda bunkhouse. The hose is the Lajitas Resort, which is a fantastic place. It really has become this draw for mountain bikers from all over the country to come every year for this event. It’s challenging, it’s incredible…

Texas Adventure Racing Club

Congratulations to all the Texas Adventure Racing Club (and Bikesport!) mountain bikers who successfully completed 6 hours of riding at Warda this weekend at Terra Firma Promo’s Dirty Dozen bike race! — with Vanessa Rowden, Fayza A. Elmostehi, Jeff Kage, Brandon Jackson, Patricia Bourassa, Chad Giardina, Anna Roc and Jeremy Reyna.

The Tour of New Braunfels Road Race
By Sheri            bicyclesoutbackracing.net

The Tour of New Braunfels Road Race began on a glorious crisp morning. The ladies Pro1/2 field was combined with the Cat 3 Women for a 60 mile road race. It was the first race of the season for our team Jubilee Subaru, and I was excited to race!

The gentle rolling hills and sweeping descents made for a very enjoyable but somewhat unchallenging race. There were no large teams, only single riders so constant attacking was not an attractive option for most of the riders. I tried a few attacks and was reeled back in on the descents, so I decided to be a little more reserved with my energies.

We made a sharp right hand turn into an incline just a few miles from finishing our first lap, and Jen Mix of Team 787 slid out and got hit by an oncoming car. The car struck the bike and…

Dirty Dozen 2013
By Kim On            bicyclesoutbackracing.net

Friday Night 5:30 p.m.
Claire: “Hey Kim, what are you doing?”
Kim: “Nothing, just washing my mountain bike. The Snow Leopard is a mess”
Claire: “Cool, that means you can come to Warda and do the Dirty Dozen this weekend!”

Next thing I know, I’m packing up the RV and heading south to Bluff Creek Ranch in Warda, TX for the Dirty Dozen mountain bike race. Kathy and Scott Hudson do a great job of promoting events through Terra Firma Racing , and I knew this one would not disappoint! I wasn’t even planning on racing this weekend and was going to visit my family, but my mom…

Flat Creek Crossing Ride Pics – 2-3-13
AustinBike.com

With the upcoming race, Flat Creek was open for a pre-ride and it seems like most of Austin was out for the pre-ride.  When you get an opportunity to ride Flat Creek, you take advantage of it because it isn’t always open.

The race lap was a different configuration this year, and the lap was only 7 miles.  I squeezed out two laps, one with the SA crowd and then one with the Austin crowd before I had to sneak home to get ready for the super bowl.

Anything in Dallas worth bringing a MTB from Arkansas?
by ArTech            forums.mtbr.com/texas
My wife and I are going to Dallas for a few days, and we are thinking about bringing the bikes to hit a trail for little exercise. Is there anything in the Dallas area that is a “must”?

Reply by JACKL
JACKL is offline
There are a lot of great trails in the Dallas area. What type of riding are you looking for? Erwin Park in McKinney is a fun trail and is not too difficult other than the expert section at the end (which you can bypass). Rowlett Creek has…

Suppliers ship 50,000 more bikes in 2012
by Steve Frothingham            Bicycle Retailer & Industry News
PHILADELPHIA, PA (BRAIN) — Bicycle Product Suppliers Association members’ shipments to bike shops grew a modest two percent last year to 2.6 million bikes. Sales dollars were up 6 percent, helped by strong sales of more expensive hybrids, full-suspension 29ers and 24-inch bikes, according to BPSA’s December report.

Shipments of 26-inch suspension bikes are falling like a rock, down more than 20 percent from 2011. In 2010 BPSA members shipped 565,655 front-suspension 26-inch bikes, last year shipments fell to…

All Level Ride @ Walnut Creek Fall/Winter hours
The Austin Mountain Bikers Meetup Group
Sunday, February 10, 2013        1:30 PM
Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park
12138 North Lamar Boulevard, Austin, TX (map)
We set up under the trees in the parking lot near the swimming pool. Look for the ARR Banner.

Cooler weather hours are in effect starting on December 2nd!!

It has been a little bit chilly in the mornings so it is time to change the start time of our ride to 1:30 p.m. Look for a change back to mornings sometime around March 10, 2013.

We know that this time change doesn’t work for everyone so we hope you considering hosting a ride for yourself and those who might want to ride at a different time or on a different day.

You do NOT have to be a ARR member to attend most club riders. You will need to sign a waiver and wear a helmets when riding.

This is for all levels of riders, which will break into groups according to ability. Beginners are welcome, and there will be no drops. Meet in the parking lot by the swimming pool. The route will make it easy for…

HBC Sealy West Ride
Houston Bicycle Club
02/16/13     Sealy West    9:00am     Don Johnson     dhj@rice
Description: Ride rolling pasture land to Bernardo, and Cat Springs. Long route visits New Ulm. Stores in Bernardo and New Ulm.
Meet at: 53 miles W on I-10 to Sealy (45 miles west of 610 loop), north on TX-36 to 2nd light, left to Abe and Irene Levine Family Park.  Park on 4th Street, South side of the park.

Ramsey Native Plans Bike Trip Across US
The two-and-a-half-month bike ride is to help spread awareness of a good cause, he says
By Jessica Mazzola            ramsey-nj.patch.com
After Ramsey native Michael Collins graduated from RHS in 2006 and the University of Maryland in 2010, he says he was eager to give back.

“Near the end of college, I was anxious to start making a difference in the world somehow,” he explains. “So, I joined the AmeriCorps for two years. It was a great experience, it really changed the person I am.”

For two years after college, Collins worked with the service group, “first as a member with the…

…Collins said he is one of four people who will lead a bike ride across the Southern US, starting in Florida and going through Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California. About 24 riders will be making the trip, which includes stops at various places along the route where participants do volunteer work for some of the affordable housing groups they are trying to support. Collins and his group will stop for a week in…

Best Mountain Bike Trail in Dallas
by Shawn McAfee            Texas Mountain Bike Trails
So finally the votes have been tallied, the lines in the sand drawn and there was at least 1 blood fued waged between trail stewards. After well over 200+ votes we finally have the overall consensus on what the best mountain bike trail in Dallas is!

For those of you that may have missed it or don’t know what I’m talking about, we did a community poll several months ago and asked our area riders to vote on what they thought the…

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A Rain Out – February 4th Bike Ride

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Winter weather changes quickly. Before I started today’s ride I looked at the weather conditions. The 13 SE wind and some scattered rain pockets south of FM1960 suggested I should ride one of my northerly routes. The rain that direction appeared to be a long distance to the north and west. So I set out at 2:16 PM with the intent of riding to Community Drive and then through Valley Ranch. Lately I have thinking about the route I leave Kingwood and decided to go west on Northpark Drive and then turn left onto Russel Palmer Road. I rode this route before but only on my mountain bike because there is a 200 yard section where I ride on grass and dirt to get into Kings Manor subdivision. I went this way and thankfully the grass was mowed on the section I needed to ride on.

As I went through Kings Manor I started to look at the sky and it seemed to get a little darker. Riding on Loop 494 I thought maybe I should shorten this ride from 25 miles to around 20 so when I got to FM1314 I turned left with the hope of riding through Briar Tree and Oakhurst and then back home. All went as planned but I needed to stop at the Stripes Store at Valley Ranch Drive for a restroom visit. When I exited the store I rode south over FM1314 and down Old Sorters Road but I didn’t get far before rain drops starting hitting my windbreaker jacket. This prompted a quick turn to the other store on the south side of FM1314 and under the gas island cover. I waited a few minutes and ventured out but the rain was still falling lightly. Back under the cover I waited another 5 minutes or so and then decided to head back east to US59. Riding along the rain picked up and by the time I reached the Shell station at US59 the rain was steady. Looking at the sky I could see the rain probably would around for awhile so I called my wife for ride back home. So my 20 mile ride ended at 12.8 miles in Porter. No rain in the forecast tomorrow so maybe I can get some riding in then.

There is a radar screen in the slides below to show what it looked like when I got back home. The February and year to date summaries are in the slides as well.

Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com.

[wppa type=”slideonlyf” album=”86″ size=”auto”][/wppa]

Texas Bicycling Blog and News Roundup for February 3rd

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City Park Trailwork Project Status Update
by michael_linden            www.bikemojo.com
Fellow Riders, I understand your concern for City Park.

I assure you the Austin Ridge Riders has been intimately involved with this project since inception. We have spent time designing a win-win situation building rapport with the City stakeholders as well as with the user groups. We brought subject matter experts to the table representing mountain bike trail design. We’ve also ensured this project incorporated IMBA’s guiding principles of trailwork into the decisions the collective stakeholder group committed to at our walkthrough of the 28 sites back in late December. This includes the City leaders and American Youth Works leaders.

So now we know groundbreaking occurred last week on Jan 22. I had hoped to deliver a project status update to YOU, the mountain biking community, prior to the exact date of groundbreaking. Unfortunately, groundbreaking started before receiving communications from the City to alert the user communities.

This morning I made several more calls. I spoke with the Trials stakeholders to get feedback on their…

Sunset Valley & Stephenson Preserve Trails
by gojo                www.bikemojo.com
Been riding these trails for about 4 years now and I’m seeing some changes to the Sunset Valley section. Just wondered if anyone had info on it. I’m going to see if I can get a GPS map logged, but wondered why there hasn’t been more trail-building/maintenance talk about the trails. I’m easily up to a seven mile loop, with more elevation and mixture of flowy and technical trails than Slaughter Creek, and there’s a lot more space to expand. With some work, I think it could easily be a great 10 mile loop. …(many replies)

…by AdamAlter
I live in Sunset Valley Meadows and recently bought my neighbor’s house and moved so my in-laws could take our old house. Ironically, I knew my father-in-law joined some city board, but never paid attention to what board. But after your post, I just realized the board he’s on manages the trail system lol
http://www.sunsetvalley.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={3E161ABA-1E1C-44C8-B484-089FFD644194}

If you’re referring to the trails that go around SSVM? For example, here’s a small part of it: http://app.strava.com/segments/2840923

It continues on from that link to a part where currently there are no bikes or horses allowed. There are some cool features, like…

Desert Wheeling
The Chihuahuan Desert Bike Fest returns in February.
By Karen Hoffman Blizzard            www.tpwmagazine.com
As fall moves in with cooler temperatures, it’s a perfect time to tune up your bike and start training for the biggest mountain-biking festival in West Texas. The Chihuahuan Desert Bike Fest features three full days of riding in Big Bend Ranch State Park, Big Bend National Park and the Lajitas Trails on Feb. 14 through 16. Most rides are guided, but folks can choose to ride individually as well.

Terlingua-based outfitter Desert Sports will again partner with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to produce the third annual Bike Fest as a…

No chill, but Freeze Your Fanny charity race still draws 400 participants
By Richard Yeakley            www.news-journal.com

A warmer-than-usual morning greeted bikers and runners in Saturday’s 25th annual Freeze Your Fanny fundraiser.

More than 400 participants ran and rode to raise money for East Texas Lightning, an organization that provides recreational and athletic events for residents with mental disabilities.

“That’s what this is about. It’s all about raising money for our…

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Texas Bicycling Blog and News Roundup for February 2nd

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Fort Worth Bicycle Association
Our most recent Paceline (the club’s online newsletter) was added 2-1-13

Irving’s Valuable Community Partnerships
Susan Wilcox        BikeTexas.org

Presenter Regina Garcia speaks to Irving teachers.Imagine living in a community where all students walk to school. Students meet at hub points around the school and walk as a group. There’s no pick-up and drop-off congestion in school zones because no cars are allowed in.

When BikeTexas Board Member Francesca Funk lived in Japan for many years, this is exactly what her community was like. After seeing the happy children, parents, and teachers who all think of walking to school as a normal part of life, she was motivated to improve the walking and biking journey—and get rid of congestion around schools—for students in…

8:00am – Harden Dental Team Ride
by Scott Franklin        Corinth Cycling Club
When: Sat Feb 16, 2013 8am to 11am  CST
Where: Ronny Crownover Middle School
Event Status: confirmed
Event Description: This is the weekly training ride for the Corinth Cycling/Harden Dental race team. This is a 62 mile loop on an established route. Expect a fast pace and be prepared to fix your own mechanicals. There are no stops on this ride. -8:00am- http://ridewithgps.com/routes/337788

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