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Favorite Rides — Buda

10.06.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

I skipped the club ride this morning, because we had a thunderstorm over night, and our little chihuahua needed comforting. By the time I got moving around 10:30, I knew I’d be  riding alone. But that didn’t bother me, since I picked a favorite route of mine: Buda (BYOO-duh).

Buda has nothing to do with the great Hungarian capital. Instead, it is believed to be a corruption of “viuda,” the Spanish word for widow. Someday I’ll have to track down that story. For now, I knew it would perfectly fill the bill for a guy who has been riding little lately. It’s a 30-mile out-and-back, which gives the rider the option of adding distance, or cutting the ride short.

The rides starts out in an east, then south, then east routing. I live in a nice suburban development on the southwest side of Austin, and we are limited in the number of routes we can take to get out of here. So, during the first several miles, we’re riding in stuff like this — nice to live in, but more car-centric than I’d like.

Burbs

It’s not too long before we hit our first objective: Old San Antonio Road. It’s more downhill than uphill along here, and cyclists can get in some good times.

OldSARd

At 15 miles, we’re spit out of Old San Antonio Road onto Main Street. Because we’re still a mile from the business district, we get to pick our way through sprawl development. But people around here are used to bikers, and are generally courteous.

sprawl

I like to go up to the historic district, and ride the side streets. Here, you can get a sense of what this town was like before the Interstate highway came through. I think the Buda Elementary School is a pleasing building to admire.

skul

“Downtown” Buda is lively for a city of this size, thanks to the infusion of cash from a huge Cabela’s outdoor shop on the Interstate. Most of the businesses are small restaurants or antique shops. Some attractive public buildings have gone up since then, including a large, clean public restroom — a nice perk for cyclists.

buda

I took a detour through some residential streets, where the little town displays the characteristics of a small farming town — including some nice large old houses that would be at home in a similar place in Iowa.

DSCN0690

From here, it’s not far to Old San Antonio Road and the return trip. Huge stands of prickly pear cactus dot this road.

cacti

A little over two hours — a little under 15 mph for an average. The ride to Buda is a nice one, and if I’m on my own, it’s likely to be the route I take.

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Taking Advantage of the Weather

01.05.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

Pat had to make a business trip out of town, so I was planning to do a longer ride than I have done lately. A glance outside showed that conditions would be excellent for riding. It was sunny, and the wind was light. By the time I finished attending to some duties around the house, by late morning, we were enjoying unseasonable weather once again.

Much of the country is enjoying this mild winter. The high in Austin today turned out to be 70 degrees (21C), with sun throughout the day. Some places much farther north got up to 70 as well. So my biking experience was probably not different from that of many folks.

I decided to ride to Buda, a town south of Austin, that would give me a nice 32-mile round trip. I do this ride several times a year with the club, but not so much by myself. I was interested to see how traffic in midday on a weekday would differ from traffic early on a Sunday morning.

It wasn’t bad. One spot about four miles into the ride was under construction, and the road was narrowed to one lane. I had to wait for the guy with the stop/slow sign to spin “slow” my way in order to continue. And the high school parking lot we cut through on Sunday mornings had the gates shut, because school was back in session today — so I stayed on the main roads for a little while longer.

The last six or so miles into Buda is along a two-lane road, paved with chip seal. It’s pretty bumpy, and because it crosses a creek, it climbs out of the creek valley for quite a way before leveling off. Once you reach the Walgreen’s in Buda, there’s still one more mile to go to get to the town’s historic downtown. Such as it is.

Buda's Main Street.

I pootled along some of old Buda’s residential streets, because we ignore them on club rides. Really, there’s not much to this town, although it’s seen explosive growth over the last seven years or so as new retail places open along the interstate highway, and new housing developments spring up on the outskirts.

The return trip was just as uneventful. I didn’t get honked at once, and two or three times, drivers waved me through intersections ahead of them — even though they had the right of way. (I have mixed reactions to that. It’s great to be waved on, but sometimes when drivers want you to go out of turn it can cause problems. You might be unclipped from your pedal, for example, and have to react quickly.)

When I pulled into my driveway, the temperature had risen from 61 at the start to 67 (16-19C). I had worked up more of a sweat than I’ve done in the last week, even though I was dressed the same. And I noted that I had exceeded 100 miles ridden for the first five days of any month. The closest I’ve come to doing this was in 2010, when I rode all but one of the first six days of January. I went on to over 4,000 miles that year.

It’s too early to predict if my mileage will be that high this year. I know that in two weeks, work obligations will cut into the amount of time I have available for riding. But the weather is supposed to hold until Monday, and I’m going to get bike time in every day until then. Unseasonable weather patterns to have their advantages.

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B Rides Are the Best

06.26.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 11 Comments

After last week’s rant about giving up on club rides, I got an email from someone who suggested that if I were to lead a B ride, which I hinted at in the post, he and a friend would join in. Since neither of them had been on a club ride before, I was happy to encourage them — so I announced on the club’s group site that I would be leading a B ride to Buda, Texas today.

It’s an easy 30-miler. I figured the ride would attract others who hadn’t been doing club rides. But I wasn’t prepared for the number that came out. We had eight in all. Debra and her husband Russ, who usually ride in Dripping Springs; Jerry, who is really an A-level rider but seems to prefer the laid back approach of the B rides; Barbara, whom I’ve met before when riding with Debra; and the newcomers — Denise, Mike, and Patrick, who instigated the whole thing.

As and Bs intermingle before the start of today’s ride.

I think we outnumbered the A group this morning. It didn’t matter, because soon after the start, some of us got caught at a stoplight, so the As were able to break away and were soon gone.

We Bs settled into a steady pace, and quickly put down the first several miles. Mike, who rode a hybrid, caught up to me on a wide, smooth downhill.

“Howya doin’?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said. “When we [he and Patrick] ride together, we average about 13. So this is at the outside edge of my ability.”

We were probably averaging about 15 mph.

“But I think that’s always just been a mental barrier, and I think I can crack it today,” he added.

He had no trouble keeping up for the rest of the ride.

New riders. From left to right: Patrick, Mike, Denise.

Barbara arrives at the convenience store.

 

We got to Buda (pronounced BYOO-duh), a small town just south of Austin, in about an hour. First stop was a convenience store, where Patrick bought a gallon of cold water and refilled everyone’s water bottles. But the convenience store offered no shelter from the bright sun, so we headed back a few blocks to the town’s gazebo, in a little park along Main Street.

Patrick tops off Denise’s water bottle.

Bikers are common in Buda on weekends, because it’s either a destination or a pass-through on several area bike routes. The gazebo is popular among more than bikers, though. We knew it was time to leave when a bride walked up to have her picture taken.

Bikes and brides — just another Sunday morning in Buda, Texas.

The route back was equally uneventful. No flats, no mechanicals, no dogs (although one of our club members suffered mild injuries when a dog went after him on this route the previous day). As we worked our way back into Austin, Patrick and Mike peeled off from the group when we got to their neighborhood. We hope to see them again on future rides. The remainder made it back to our starting place, and several of us stuck around for brunch and chatter.

The brunch bunch, left to right: Jerry, Barbara, Russ, Debra.

We didn’t set any speed records — I wound up with a 14.9 mph average — but we had a ride that everyone seemed to like, and most said they’d like to do things like this again. I’ll bet we do.

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