News from the Texas hill country

[DavidD]

Hi guys,

Sorry I missed the club run today but I'm in Austin, Texas, staying with my son and family for three weeks.

I had intended bringing my bike over in a bag because I don't want to get even more unfit than I am already and I'm due to fly out to Mallorca two days after I get back for the weekend circumnavigation. Just the thought of those hills on the west coast coupled with jet lag brings me out in a cold sweat! However, at Graham's suggestion, I bought a bike on the US Ebay and had it delivered to my son's house. This seems to have worked out a bit better than the last time I bought a bike on Ebay but that's another story. This one was claimed to have been ridden only three times and that seems to me to be about right as it seems to be in mint condition. It is a Felt 35 which has a similar frame to my Felt 75. According to the Felt web-site the 35 is supposed to be all Dura-Ace but this one isn't: its a mixture of Sora and 105 with a few obscure American brands thrown in. But I can't grumble as I knew this before bidding for it.

Having reassembled the bike I found that the wheels were not quite as true as they needed to be but after a bit of juggling with a spoke spanner I managed to get them to turn without touching the brake blocks. Next step: pumping up the tyres. But what's this? Schrader valves? Is this an American thing? I've never seen Schrader valves on a half-decent road bike. The pump I'd brought with me wouldn't fit these so I swapped them with the two spare inner tubes I'd brought with me. Now I'm without any spares so... down to the nearest bike shop.

I emerged an hour later and hundred bucks lighter, having bought new inner tubes, a bike computer and saddlebag, reminisced with the owner about past cycling experiences, inspected his stock of bikes and arranged to join the next ride which leaves from outside his shop every Sunday morning.

I was particularly impressed by one bike he had for sale: a titanium road bike designed to be transported in a bag about half the usual size. The frame split into two pieces and so did the cables. (For anyone interested look at the Ritchey web-site).

Now for my first ride. This took a bit of planning because the roads here are designed for motorists. This is partly good and partly bad: there are no 'sleeping policemen', no pedestrian crossings, no buses and the surfaces are excellent (not surprising as none is more than five years old) but as soon as you emerge from the road you live in you find yourself in a four lane (at least) highway. I knew from a previous visit that I could find some good quiet back roads around Lake Travis (named after the character played by Laurence Harvey in 'Alamo'), but my hosts had moved since my last visit and I found that I couldn't avoid 10 miles of motorway-style cycling before I could reach them.

So it was with some trepidation that I set off. My fears were reinforced just after I had turned right onto the first highway. One of those ubiquitous (in Texas) open-backed trucks sidled up to me, the passenger window wound down and the rather unsavoury-looking occupants attempted to engage me in conversation. I haven't a clue what they were saying but their demeanour suggested that they thought I should be cycling on the pavement (sidewalk in the US, pavement is the road). Not wishing to provoke them more than necessary I just nodded and carried on. Eventually they moved off but at the first cross-roads they got caught at the lights where, turning right, I was able to sail past them, accompanied by some unintelligible shouts of derision.

It was a different story at the next set of lights where I was planning to turn left. Having successfully crossed three lanes of traffic I pulled up next to a SUV also indicating left. He wound down his window, explained that he was doing a U-ey and invited me to proceed in front of him. This was more typical of the kind of courtesy that I had experienced in Texas on previous visits.

Eventually I found the quieter roads round Lake Travis. Lake Travis isn't really a lake it is a very wide and winding part of the Colorado river with creeks all round running into it. For each creek there is a downhill stretch followed by un uphill bit. None of these is very challenging but climbing back out of the Colorado river valley I found myself using the granny ring (yes, this bike has three on the front and an eight gear cassette). Althought it is steep, it is not as long as some of the hills in Surrey and Kent. After this enjoyable part of the ride it was back through the traffic and along the highways to 'home'.

During the ride I saw two other cyclists, but both going in the opposite direction. I was really looking forward to some company and the ride on Sunday morning so today, Saturday, I phoned the bike shop to find out what time to meet for the ride only to be told that it was off because it might rain. If that was a reason for cancelling one of our club runs we'd never have one!

So... it looks like more solo riding before a possible opportunity next week. I look forward to being able to report an American club run...

DavidD

[Alan M]

Great report Dave - I guess you have some compensating good weather and will eventually meet up with other 'Freds'

cheers

Alan

[Andrew G]

Sounds interesting getting to experience riding somewhere so completely different from riding in Europe.