June Bug

Main Walnut Creek is the divider line. Everything on the swimming pool side of WC is off leash. Everything on the other side is on leash.

How many miles?

Holy schmoley! TxDOT's Texas Roadbed Surface website has a searchable dirt/gravel view! I looked up some towns and also searchable by address and (I think) street name. Another resource: gravelmap.com

I've already started cleaning the drain line. We had an incident awhile back with the old AC where the AC drain line became clogged with algae, overflowed and ruined part of the carpet in Mr. JB's office. Stan's put in a sensor that shuts everything down and prevents overflow. Even with that, I treat the drain line every two or three weeks by pouring a cup of vinegar into the line, followed by two cups of hot water. Funny thing: We also have the Stan's service contract. When we got our new AC a few years ago, we got a nice new programmable thermostat, which I still have not gotten around to programming. During the installation, I asked the technician about programming it; he laughed and said he'd never programmed his home thermostat either. He just adjusted as needed, which I've discovered works pretty well.

Saturday, May 23: Not a state park, but Pace Bend is already closed for the day due to the large number of visitors. Pace Bend is currently day-use only and they'll reopen tomorrow until they reach (currently limited) capacity.

Here's the link to a listing of trails in the St. George area on UtahMountainBiking.com

Been a Strand Bros then Stan's customer for 20 years. Consistently reliable.

Demystifying the Illusive White Squirrel has a link to report white squirrel sightings.

SRSLY?

Confirmation as of 4:37 pm. It's not the heat, IT IS THE HUMIDITY. The section where you come out of Tangle of Trails and head over to Church Hill is completely overgrown with PI at WC. Solid. Also, there is an infestation of squirrels; they're everywhere. The internet offered this helpful information.

Ditto! The Website (in English) is still active: Marino Bikes. The prices are still insanely reasonable.

Two things. First, my impression is that state parks are limiting the number of day passes -- just as many businesses can only operate at a reduced capacity to preserve social distancing, state parks are only allowing a very reduced number of visitors each day to avoid crowding. However, when we were riding the trails at Buescher, the day passes were sold out. Overall, very few people there, but it was apparent everyone was there to use the trails. Social distancing was not observed and most people were not wearing masks. Re hoarding: State park Annual Pass holders can reserve, for example, a day pass every day for a month, and then go whenever they want, even if they use only one or two of those days. This was confirmed to us by someone who knows Annual Pass holders who live by a state park who do this.

Armor! Little gloves! This is beyond wonderful and he's ready for some trails. This is the best new bike post ever.

We were at Buescher Monday a week ago. I went online Sunday evening and reserved a day pass for Monday morning. When we arrived at the park, all the day passes for Monday were filled. Many of the visitors were not observing mask requirements on the trails.

timely.

I'm not prone to impulse buys, but I just ordered the Box 1. There may be a domino effect.

Fred said 87 on his facebook post and I'm going with that!

Fred Schmid turned 87 yesterday. He celebrated by riding 87 miles. Today he's attempting a 150-mile day because he's training for the Dirty Kanza 200, a gravel event. The date has been changed from May to September.

Trip report: We checked out the trails at Buescher State Park since we already needed to be in Smithville for a brief errand. Reserved a day pass on-line last night for today (Monday) and I thought we'd have the park to ourselves, but all of the day passes were sold out. The trail is interesting -- I assumed it would be a wide flat completely smooth developed trail for mindless cruising, but it's actually rooty, eroded in numerous places and once you get towards the northern end, actual narrow (18" wide max) single track. We did an out and back - about 6 miles total. There is a loop option on the map, but the turnoff wasn't marked, we only had a single water bottle each, it was hot; exploring wasn't an option. I think a carsonite post with a small red arrow was the turnoff to the upper part of the loop (Roosevelt Cutoff) but nothing was labeled. There were also three or four fallen trees across the trail; they aren't keeping up with trail maintenance, but the trail wasn't particularly overgrown. With the exception of two very short trails (Owl and CCC), all trails are open to mountain bikes. Trail map Heading out on the trail, about a third of the people hiking were wearing masks. Just saw one other cyclist and passed maybe 8 people total. This isn't piney woods, it's mostly mixed oaks. The northern part of the trail goes through an area that was burned over during the Bastrop County Complex Fires in 2011. It's interesting to see how the area is recovering. For those relatively new to the Austin area, 2011 was an extreme drought year with record heat from April through October. The Bastrop fires in Sept and Oct. burned over 34,000 acres, killed four people, destroyed over 1,600 homes and dozens of commercial structures. Quite a bit of piney woods acreage in nearby Bastrop State Park was burned over. This is why these high temps this early in the Spring are concerning. If you need to get in some road miles, Park Road 1C connects Bastrop and Buescher State Parks. It's wooded, hilly, shady (unless mid day) and not too much traffic.

How to build a mountain bike manual trainer (video). 2 x 6s and 2 x 4s are involved.

A DIY Guide to Building Backyard MTB Practice Obstacles There's a link in the text to the pdf with details.

I did cross post to the maintenance thread; the mullet conversion was posted on bikepacking.com yesterday (April 21).

This may be of use -- also posted in the Gravel thread. From bikepacking.com Mullet Drive Trains: Pairing Road Shifters with Mountain Bike Derailleurs and Cassettes

This may be of use and I'll cross post in the Technical/Maintenance section. From bikepacking.com Mullet Drive Trains: Pairing Road Shifters with Mountain Bike Derailleurs and Cassettes

Heartbreaking. Sounds like she was a vibrant amazing woman. Condolences.