Happy Palm Sunday to all who celebrate! 🌿
The weather is warming up again. The start time temperature was around 61°. 87° when we finished.
The route was through the hometown of Lance Armstrong, Austin, Texas.
We started with a little spin around some upscale suburbs, then dove into the heart of the urban area, and immediately got lost. It’s all part of the adventure! It took a while, but we found the right bike path (the Lady Bird Lake Trail).
We were doing well until we ran into a 10K road race following the path we were supposed to follow. We waited, and waited, but the stream of runners never ended. We attempted to go around the race on a parallel dirt path, but it soon diverged from our course, so we joined in the 10k riding at the same pace as the runners around us. Nobody seemed to mind. I think we blended in. 🤣 🏃♀️🚴🏻♀️
There was also a huge motorcycle event this weekend in Austin, MotoGP at the Circuit of the Americas (The Grand Prix of the Americas). Thousands of motorcycles (and people) were in attendance for that.
Eventually, our route turned off the race route on to the Lance Armstrong Bikeway. There were too many fits and starts on the way to describe, but eventually we found Mellow Johnny's Bike shop. Mellow Johnny's was founded by Lance Armstrong. The name came from one of his children trying to pronounce "yellow jersey" in french "maillot jaune". And, yes, I purchased some things!
There were a few nice sections to the ride. A mile or so of bike path in the city was relatively quiet and easy to follow. There was a nice five mile stretch of not too terribly rough chip coat. A couple of busy roads had nice wide and smooth shoulders. But a significant number of miles were on busy roads with no shoulder or bike way.
By the way, we have seen quite a few Blue Bonnet flowers along the way. So far, they've been growing in spots inconvenient for a bicycle to stop and take a picture.
And, of course the wind. I get tired of talking about it, writing about it and most of all, riding in it. Today’s winds were wicked during the last 16 miles. Headwind and crosswind.
Thought for the day: Hats off to Austin. It was a very bike friendly city!
At Mellow Johnny’s in Austin
10k runners 🏃♀️
Austin City Limits
Field of Indian Paintbrush
On our way to Austin
Inside Mellow Johnny’s. LA’s jerseys.
Such a fun bike shop!
