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Lived in Austin for about 4 years. Wife and I moved to south west Denver July 30, 2020. Life throws a few curve balls and we are coming back to the greater Austin area in the next few months. We visited Austin for 4 days this past weekend in an effort to find housing and gather our thoughts as to what we really want out of our move back to Austin. Man was I wrong. This is unbelievable. Homes appraised for 400k are listed for 450k and selling for 500k. Every single cookie cutter neighborhood up in Leander is completely sold out. We showed up at a development off of N Baghdad in Leander. 220 home sites and not a single slab was poured yet. Every single one was sold. We even went over to Hutto and the 2 we visited said nothing would be available until 2022. We both grew up modestly well outside of any major city, and we want to maintain that modest lifestyle for ourselves and our future kids. I come here to discuss how, on many different fronts. How do people simply purchase these homes? I hear the excuse from realtors that say “Thanks Facebook, apple, google”, but not everyone works for big tech. How do plumbers afford these houses? How about civil engineers? How does a family that comprises of a police officer and a nurse afford a 600k home? How about school teachers? How is this sustainable? How did it even get to this level? I’ve been scratching my head for a few days now about this. My wife and I have zero debt and nice stable incomes, but I can’t for the life of me think that over spending by 25-40% is a good investment. How does everyone else think that it is? Lastly, anyone here work in real estate and want to offer some tips/input? Thanks for letting me rant here. Looking forward to riding bikes in Austin again in 2021.

Does this come with little blue pills or something?

Stopped by St Elmo today after work. So far the Tator is okay. Definitely a doppelbock meets cream ale vibe on this one.

Austin is getting to the head scratching point that California has been at forever. When I graduated, a LONG time ago, a friend and I were hired by the same company. He went to San Francisco and I went to Dallas. We both were making the same salary. But his apartment cost three times more than mine. How does that even work?! I still don't understand how it works. It has been fun getting the emails from Zillow telling me how much my property is worth these days. And it's not even yearly changes. It goes up month by month. Ridiculous. Of course it's no fun getting the property tax statements.

Welcome to Long Island, circa 2004. I bought my last house on Long Island for $125k in 1999 sold it in 2004 for $300k. After 9/11 nobody wanted to live in the city so they started buying houses in the suburbs. Drove housing prices through the roof. I suspect that some of that is happening here due to the pandemic. Good luck just be mindful that you're trying to buy in a sellers market. Meaning the house you buy my devalue once all the dust settles.

Sounds like you should burn your house down, collect the insurance, then sell your lot...twice. (remove bikes first)

A lot in my neighborhood sold for $950K. A teardown for $950K. They put two monstrosities on that lot. Two people spent $1.3+ for a big hot on half a lot. Ugh.

Less than 30 days ago we were in the single digits, today on the greenbelt I was squeezing sweat out of my helmet pads.

I have my eyes set on a really nice telescope and mount. I have to offset some of the $5K.

Got an email from my realtor saying she was running out of homes to sell and if i knew anyone that could be persuaded. I responded by saying if you list my place for a stupid high price, and get me close, I'll sell this summer and rent for a year until my youngest graduates from HS. Homes i wouldn't even consider putting my family in three years ago, are out of my budget now. Can't even imagine coming back to this insanity. Gonna get out while the gettin' is good Thank you Elon

interesting... I made a low offer, making sure the owner knew I wasn't trying to insult.... why not. Thanks for the tip!

That's a good find. It is a rear thru axle, so may require an adapter to pull the trailer. On the other hand, if the OP is serious about giving MTBing a good honest try, this will be a more enjoyable experience right away over a used or entry level hardtail. Keep pulling the trailer with that cruiser. And now is when the new rider learns the N+1 rule. You need one bike for trails and one bike for the trailer. (and a single speed, and an enduro rig, and a gravel grinder, and...........)

2021 Salsa Timberjack gets new geometry and 9 builds

It is insane. I bought my house 14 years ago for 1 years current salary. I have people knocking on my door to try to get me to sell. I'm in Falcon Pointe in N. Pflugerville and houses here sell before the *for sale* signs go up.

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You are asking all the right questions and you're now seeing what people in the big cities have had to deal with for years and why NYC has rent-control. We are worse off though, because we don't have decent public transport like those big cities, so living in a cheaper borough comes with the additional price of long commutes and a car to pay for and maintain. Partly to blame are speculators and short-term rentals. How do people afford modest $800k homes in-town? I can tell you I wouldn't be able to even consider one, except for my $210k (ca 2003) is now worth almost 3x that.

At least on my older Wahoo pressing page once would get rid of the auto-pause notification and not actually change the page you are on letting you read the page you are on while stopped. YMMV.

I've been taking this image to mean toilet and shower facilities are available. But yeah, maybe those guys are being attacked by an octopus? And maybe that couple are just standing on each side of a 2x4, perhaps to fend off the octopus?

Texas Hill Country Overnighter This was just posted on Bikepacking.com. It's a overnight ride that includes an overnight stop at Castell for supper and camping at the nearby Leifeste Campground. The ride starts at a campground on a private ranch on FM 16 between F-burg and Llano. I'll note that four years ago we did two rides starting at Castell and had planned to camp at Leifeste Campground. It was October -- I think this must have been just after the three-day Columbus Day weekend -- and the place was completely beat up; portapotties were overflowing. It was so unappealing we went to the Castell Store and found a little cottage rental with no kitchen. So -- we had beds to sleep in but we used our camping set up and cooked outside. Anyway, Leifeste Campground is right on the banks of the Llano, so a lovely setting. They are Leifeste Campground in Castell on facebook and the phone is 254-717-3305. Sounds like they have some electrical hookups now and call ahead to check on reservations. UPDATE: Leifeste Campground has gotten some love since we were there last. Sounds much better now.

Nice! Just jacking with you. I am fortunate to have some flexibility as well. Roglic looks super strong as expected. For the next few nights I will be trying to watch Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adtratico. The racing so far this year has incredible.

I work for an awesome company and awesome manager. We have flex time. If I get my job done they're happy. That means I'm working right to closing up a few items for the day at 11pm while Paris-Nice stage 4 is on in the background.

I personally don't like it because the frame is a bit too future proof! 🙂 64* HTA! yahhhh no thanks. Later, CJB

Weren't you supposed to be working hippie? 😉

woah. this thing looks amazing, and right at $1k! Apparently Sun-n-Ski is a registered dealer, I'll call around the Texas stores tomorrow. Thanks!! as for PB, I can't buy a bike without sitting on it... I'm too much of a noob.

Surprisingly they settled in really well. 3 Birria tacos, the consomé, and a carnitas taco and a 500mL coke and I was able to hammer on the way back. The tail wind was nice. The head wind on the way down was brutal. I definitely earned those tacos.

https://www.pinkbike.com/buysell/list/?region=3&page=1&price=..1000&framesize=23,27,34,35,36,30,31,47&wheelsize=10&reartravel=1 I've bought & sold a ton of bikes on PB. So far, no issues. Also https://www.bikes.com/en/bikes/growler/2021?tid=72

I’d pick the modern hopper over the dinosaur GF any day. As @CBaron mentioned above, $800 is a bit steep even for COVID pricing. A brand new one retails for $850. If you can snag it for $600 at most, I’d say that’s a fair COVID deal. If the seller is firm at $800, I’d advice to remain patient and walk away.

CBaron is generous to offer this, but one piece of advice, don't ride a nicer bike that you own (or can afford to own) if you are not ready to buy it. A used, quality hardtail 29er for under $1K is not hard to find. Be patient. Similar to the advice above, the most expensive upgrade you can make to a bike is $5000 carbon full suspension bike you'll want to buy after riding a crappy entry level bike for a few months.

Found a photo of our tent. We run an extension cord/power strip from the Jeep to fill the tall Q air mattress and charge phones. Propane burners from Hannah Mart is easier than a grill imho.

We started doing stealth car camping in NY. We would go to Ellicottville NY, ride the trails- park in an abandoned parking lot half a mile from the brewery for post ride dinner -back to the car to sleep on an air mattress in the back of our Jeep with the bikes locked to the rack. The second day of our trips, we would hit up Jakes Rocks Pa. In Texas we started doing a little car camping in the interior of BBRSP. I do a bit of solo car camping- Barry really was hung up on running water for a while. This winter we upgraded to a tent and queen sized air mattress from the full size that we were limited to in the Jeep. Most camp sites have showers so this is a pretty good plan until we upgrade to a 5th wheel.

Sabor Tapatio's Tacos de Birrira (properly termed, I think, Quesabirria Tacos) are glorious. Crunchy. cheesy and savory. Served with consume, you dip the tacos right in to make them even better. I think they are what you've been missing out of your life. And while they are a food truck, and don't have alcohol, they are right next to a Twin Liquors. That's where I scored this excellent Russian Imperial Stout. Just don't go on a Sunday.

For obvious reasons the weiner-mobile reminds me of the time @CBaron and I saw a freakin' C-130 on the side of the road on 360. Random vehicle indeed.

Throwback to last Saturday. Ice on the Blanco River. The pic really doesn’t do it justice.

79 hours without power and 30 hours (and counting) without water didn't stop me from getting in at least 1 good Walnut snow ride. This was the only time I was ever nervous about the Mark's Art log over! Riding in Walnut Wonderland. Breaking trail on .6. The good news is that all the deadfall from the first ice event and the first snow event (so until Wednesday morning) was cleared. I haven't been back since Tuesday so I don't know what the second ice event brought down.

Dog attack at Walnut Creek today. The rider put the bike between himself and the dog and the dog bit the tires. Apparently two other people were possibly bitten. This pic is from this KVUE article: 2 people treated after ‘possible’ dog attack on north Austin park trail

My brother bought a Honzo on PB. It had been repainted, not that great. So he had it blasted and was gonna powder coat it, and they found damage that had been bondoed over, and the SN filed off. Stay away from re-painted bikes.