AustinBike

Yeah, this morning didn't suck. It was a bit chilly (67F) when I started, but it warmed up quickly. 20 miles, 1790ft of climbing. And a flat ~1/4 mile away from the hotel on the way back.

Me and my big mouth. Snagged a goat head on the way home from my mountain escapade

I’m raw dogging it with tubes in New Mexico right now because my commuter wheel set was messed up and I got too busy to do it right. So far I am about 20% through the trip without a flat. Gonna Stan’s up the squishy when I get back home.

You’ve seen me. The odds that I could be the kinda guy fathering children with random women are exceedingly low. When my wife sees me leave to ride she looks at the way I am dressed and says “well we know you aren’t going out to meet women.” She has a point.

That is a solid use case. To date I have never seen anyone older than me on an eBike on the trails. Most could be my children.

In China they were doing anal swabs, so those are the REAL pain in the ass tests.

Thanks for sharing, I’m living vicariously through this.

Wow, that sucks. S get well and take it easy when it comes back to riding. I know how antsy you get if you’re not in motion, but they think that trying to snap back too fast can bring on the long Covid.

Tom’s point was college students and commuting. I’m gonna guess there are a lot of cheap electric bikes there. And a lot of electric scooters. Go through the bike racks at UT and tell me how many cheap bikes you see vs. Santa Cruz or Pivots.

For reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/MTB/comments/uava47/ebike_caught_on_fire/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

I would venture to guess that a.) bike manufacturers are not necessarily using the same technology as auto manufacturers and b.) a lot of these electric bikes are probably built around cheap OEM deigns. I would guess that the average electric bike has more in common with a MagicShine light than with a Tesla.

I have found 3 key tricks that work exceedingly well for handling hot Augusts in Texas. Step 1: Wait until after 10AM to ride so that it has warmed up a bit Step 2: Finish before 2PM, that is when those brief, scattered rain episodes could happen. Step 3: Be in Santa Fe

That is a perfect use case. I think that there is an arc that we'll see in demand. Once battery life starts diminishing and you are just stuck with a heavier bike, the fad will die down a bit. I think we are in the earlier days of ebikes. Based on how long laptop batteries last, I would think that before the end of the college stint the batteries will be mostly depleted.

This sounds like a good alternative, also wanted to check out the Railyard.

Third week of October. I know Little Sugar has a lot of climbing, the guys I will be with are not fans of climbing, so that would not be on their list.

Heading up in October with some folks for a few days of riding. I'm planning to go up a day or two early and do some solo rides before they all arrive. Looking to ride something that I have never ridden before. Right now I have Kessler Mountain on the docket and am looking for a second trail that is not something I have ridden before, so NOT one of the following: Slaughter Pens Back 40 Blowing Springs Hobbs State Park Coler Mountain Lake Leatherwood Passion Play Is Little Sugar worth the ride? Any other options?

That would be nice. 12 miles could be a nice little double lap 🙂

It seems like everyone has construction or remodeling jobs going on these days. If you have that, be sure to let these guys know if you have leftover lumber or other building supplies. Don't let it end up in a landfill.

We saw that pop up. Pics look legit. It is on the list, hope to get there soon.

Anyone riding tomorrow? Have missed the last few because of temps and will miss the next few as well, was hoping to ride tomorrow night.

Ouch! Were you wearing full finger gloves?

I've generally found that after about a dozen rides your brain totally locks into the differences between bikes. I can walk into my garage and grab any bike and my brain knows "ok, it's the purple one, it will handle like this..." Basically, once I've dialed it in for the first time, muscle memory takes over. I can go from riding the FS carbon on BCGB on the weekends to my street bike on Monday and then my steel hardtail SS for the R&I and my brain runs on autopilot. But each of those needed about a dozen rides to lock it in.

We now have substantial wildfires in the general Austin area. This does not bode well for future riding. It is just a matter of time before the greenbelt has a major fire.

Pharma is totally helping. It's people who aren't. Here's a snapshot from Canada: And here's a snapshot of the US around the last wave: Hospitalization and death are what Pharma is focused on and they are nailing it. But it is even having an impact on overall infections. I think the issue is that a.) too many people thought that vaccinations would just wipe it all out and b.) too many people thought that if enough of the population got vaccinated, that would not need to. This is going to be endemic, like the flu. We'll have a yearly shot eventually, but it will always be with us.

Boosters are not really designed to prevent you from getting it. The boosters are designed to prevent serious infection, hospitalization and death. Be thankful you are boosted, that is probably one of the reasons that you are doing well so far. Early on the vaccine helped prevent infection on the OG strains but the stuff we are seeing today is incredibly transmissible. But hospitalization and death have stabilized, they are primarily in the unvaccinated ranks, vaxxed people are a tiny part of those numbers.