June Bug

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.

Pedernales Falls is open Advance day pass reservations required: Online Phone: 512-389-8900

Donut Taco Palace I, 5446 W US Hwy 290 Service Rd, Austin, TX 78735

Using Maxxis Re-Fuse 700x 40c on Vuelta XRP 29er rims. The Re-Fuse is a textured slick that is considered a gravel/adventure tire and can be run tubeless. Maxxis Re-Fuse One flat or maybe two in over two years of use, including riding 3 x a week on Georgian Drive, the broken glass capital of Austin. How much do those weigh?

Microdroplets! How do they work?

Whole Foods has a 60+ geezer/geezette hour from 7-8 am. A drippy foggy morning, just right for a bike errand for groceries. Empty streets, almost empty store, all employees & customers wearing masks. The very cheerful morning person cashier suggested that I hold up each item & she scanned the bar code with her little gun for a contactless checkout. Somehow managed to get just the right amount of stuff to fill both panniers and the bag on the rack completely full, and still zip everything closed.

Link to the New England Journal of Medicine study discussed in the video posted by AustinBike: Universal Screening for SARS-CoV-2 in Women Admitted for Delivery The guy in AB's video is Dr. John Campbell. He's a retired professor of nursing, and worked as an A & E (Accident and Emergency) nurse and is a writer on a wide variety of topics. He has many youtube presentations and seems to be a bit of a treasure. His Amazon author's page is here.

Well yes. what are the chances that people got stuck in the conversation pit with a boring/obnoxious person with no easy escape? "The Death of the Pit" (Time Magazine, Feb 22, 1963) was quoted in this Curbed.com article Conversation pits make a comeback (Seeking social spaces in a tech heavy world), March 23, 2017, which has a great pic of the classic 1960s - 1970s conversation pit. Here's the torture aspect: "At cocktail parties, late-staying guests tended to fall in. Those in the pit found themselves bombarded with bits of hors d'oeuvres from up above, looked out on a field of trouser cuffs, ankles and shoes. Ladies shied away from the edges, fearing up-skirt exposure. Bars or fencing of sorts had to be constructed to keep dogs and children from daily concussions." Deep narrator voice: Conversation pits never made a comeback

By Governor Abbott's executive order, many Texas state park are reopening Monday, April 20. wear a mask social distance unless in a family group no group larger than five people

Abbott executive order: Reopen Texas parks April 20

Yeah, twitter: @Bry_Mac Don't be Phil! "Man, we've gotta open the gates." "We've been through this, Phil. The Mongols are still outside." "But I've gotta harvest my turnips" "MONGOLS" "Ugh. But we've been in here for WEEKS." "That's how sieges work, Phil." "But the Mongols have barely killed anyone in days." "That's because of the walls, Phil." "Are you sure? Maybe the Mongols aren't that dangerous." "..." "I'm just saying, how bad could it be. They can't kill ALL of us" "That is literally the thing they do." "But my turnips..."

Conversation pit with shag carpeting. Shag carpeting pulls the conversation pit together.

Nice! Looks like the afternoon monsoon thunderstorm has wrapped up; bluebird skies in the morning. Triggers some cabin fever, though. It's sad thinking about road trips but not really being able to plan.