The Tip

I know I'm the SATN pimp, but...the SATN has lots of kid friendly stuff. I put your kid's skills a little above my wife's. We can do pretty much as many miles as we want. Sure, she has to walk every now and then, but not a lot. Start behind ATX Bikes. Slaughter Creek is running right now and is very scenic. All of that is prettier and "away from civilization" as many state parks are.

People are amazing. This is a picture from under the Lynnbrook bridge at the end of "Over the River and Through the Woods" in Bauerle Ranch. A perfectly good armored crossing ignored to get one's bike all muddied up. Very strange. This is not a "look how ruined the trail is" picture. It's more of an illustration of how poor people's powers of observation are. Speaking of Bauerle; there is an interesting thing happening on the north side of the loop. There is new tread developing where folks are cutting several of the corners. Not big reroutes, just new, faster lines. I'm assuming this is happening because more people are choosing to ride Bauerle in a clockwise direction as opposed to counterclockwise. I know I do this now. Making the north side a downhill run is a lot of fun. I used the little short cuts yesterday and it makes it much faster. So I get it. I'm not condemning the fact that it's happening. Just observing how different uses affects things. When I use to slowly climb that trail I would have never thought to cut the corners any. Train Spotting, the trail up from Canterbury to get to Mary Moore, is very passable now. Mary Moore Searight continues to entertain me greatly.

When I first saw that picture I was jealous. Jealous of having a great activity to share with the entire family. Very cool

I'm not talking about trail maintenance. I guess it's better at raking leaves. But this is about making new trail. Like through grasslands. Those big tufts of vegetation are very difficult to remove with the "light weight" Mcleod. Chop chop chop scrape chop is about how it goes. With a mattock its "whoosh" done! But even just scraping the easy grass off, down to the dirt. is easier with the mattock. I will run two 4" wide lines to break it up, then smooth it out with my boot. Believe me, I have used my Mcleod a lot in the past. So what I'm telling you is not based on a one or two time use of it. Or 20. lol So even on what a Mcleod is supposedly better for I disagree that it's better. And then there is all the other things that the mattock does that it was designed for. Like removing rocks. The leverage action of the mattock is superior to the Mcleod. The Mcleod usually bends when you try the same thing. And then there's shaping dirt, like bench cutting. No contest. Now you have me all worked up. I hope it rains soon so I can stop riding and get out there and have some real fun! (sigh) It's a sickness, yes?

Fiskar's lifetime warranty is a very good selling point. A better selling point would be to fortify the handle better so that they wouldn't break ALL THE TIME. I have purchased three of these saws. They have now sent me twelve saws total to replace those three broken saws. All broken at the exact same spot. They even sent me two of a different model to try. They don't carry them at Home Depot. The blade would slide out from the handle instead of unfolding. I thought, "that might be the solution." But the blade was so thin it literally broke the first time I used it. Fiskars use to use wood on their folding saws. I wish they would again. My mattock would be the next most used tool in my arsenal. I hardly ever take my Mcleod out because the mattock can do the same thing. Can't say the reverse. Lastly would be my steel toed boots. It's hard to explain how much has been accomplished with the kicking, stomping, smoothing, and just "walking hard" I have done with my boots. I am mad at my loppers. I snapped the handles together over a month ago and whacked my finger with it somehow. My finger is still swollen and hard to bend.

This is another good entry in my bullet point "Why Trails are Good" list. -Trails are such a valued amenity that some douchy HOAs actually charge admission to use them. And to Mack Turtle; this would not work in Sunset Valley. That lady wants it all to herself no matter what the revenue. And Ha!, like Sunset Valley needs it anyway

Trail conditions are good enough to ride. Be smart of course, but ride while you can. I'm going to say that a jewel in our SATN crown is the Meridian Bowl. It is dry and ready. I suppose it's because there is not a lot of tree cover and it's on a hill. Dries faster. There are now seven trails there. One of the new ones is called Up or Down. It can be ridden uphill, unlike four of the other ones that have ledges too high to get up. At least too high for most of us mere mortals to ride up! Now all we need out there is a lift chair. But that would be crazy here in Texas.

What I have observed is that it only takes ONE adamantly opposed person to be the driving force. Then her neighbors seem reluctant to "cross" the vocal one and just remain silent. A very interesting phenomena. Sharing my list of advantages to urban trails again so anyone that is up against an "anti" group can use for ammo: Mountain Bikers and Urban trails are GOOD -Homeless Camps. They are discouraged by our presence and move on. We can monitor them for city if asked. -Bad Guys Discouraged by our presence We will report suspicious activity Why fear “access” to the back of your house? The street is closer and they can use the street to back up a van! -Wildfire help Would report smoke or flame Trails are natural fire breaks Trails provide access deep into the woods for fire fighters To repeat, less homeless camps, that have caused wildfires. -Trails increase property values Cities and developers pay millions of dollars to build this exact amenity. Just like swimming pools and soccer fields. People pay high prices to have a house with golfers practically in their backyard. What’s the difference between these two activities? -Mountain Bikers are the most active trail maintenance group Keeps trails open for all user groups Most mountain bikers will pick up trash, not generate it. Work days remove invasive plant species that could enter homeowner’s yards if allowed to spread. -The Maintained trails are for more than just mountain bikers Great place to walk dogs (mountain bikers have been known to find lost dogs too!) Nature trails for children

That is disappointing. Were these the homeowners along Yellow Rose Trail? That group was present at a Violet Crown Trail routing discussion several years ago. They totally lost any sort of credence in my mind when a lady jumped up and almost screamed, "I don't want the value of my home to increase (when presented with the fact that urban trails do that) because my property taxes are too high now!" We've already heard that "kills wildlife" thing. Ridiculous of course. This just proves to me that the anti-trail homeowners just make things up. I'm sure I heard some out right lies from the Sunset Valley people in our presentations there. Perhaps we could try and find and recruit sympathetic to our cause homeowners prior to any of these meetings. It would be great if we could find, if not an actual biker, at least a biker that knows someone that lives along the route that could refute some of the dumb accusations that these vehement anti folks make.

I concur with Matt. Just got back from a visit this morning. Lots and lots of stuff. Definitely worth going to see. They were bringing in boxes and boxes. Truck load. "Is this new stuff that's going to be put out?" "No, I think most of it is going right back out." I didn't try to clarify why they would be using the showroom as an interim storage facility. Doesn't make much sense, BUT the company is going out of biz, so...

Ya know, everyone keeps apologizing for causing the rains, but it never seems to stop them from buying new bikes. What's up with that? Congrats. Hope you can ride it soon. sigh

Your punning is very cutting ledge type stuff. Much boulder than mine.

Gosh, I hope your confidence hasn't eroded away. I'm ready to play for all the marble(s) now.

Well geez, don't get all sedimently on me.

No kidding. Remember when a 1/2" of rain was no problem? "It'll just settle the dust." Not now. 1/2" puts out of biz for three days. Arghh!

Please, no more punning. It gets me highly aggregate-ed. Now leave me a loam.

Can your Mudder change your diaper so you can dust yourself off and get back out there?

Signage won't cure the problem, but it will help. A good salesman will tell you to make a sale easier by telling the buyer why the sale is good for that buyer. So it would help to put on the educational material that "riding mud tears up your bike components" as a way to "sell" to those we are trying to get to "buy" in to the not riding wet trail concept.

Post trip report: We ended up not riding. We got there and a huge storm was blowing in. 40 mph winds. Then it blew that hard the next day. So we just hiked around as much as we could. We have been to a lot of state parks. This was NOT a favorite. The dried up lake and the scruffy trees were sort of depressing. It's not desert exactly, so it doesn't have that Big Bend "other wordly" appeal. The trails we saw were not that exciting looking either. Sure if you are passing through give it a shot. But we don't think it's worth a specific 3 1/2 hour drive.

And remember, always double down on eleven:

Slalom is good to go. Some bad spots still but they can now be avoided. You won't be creating anymore damage. The good news there is now you and your buddy can ride side by side on lots of it. Fun! That's a facetious statement to illustrate that the trails have been widened due to people riding it when they should not have. The west end of Phoenix South was a sloppy, don't ride it, mess. The downed trees on Digo's Shortcut have now been cleared so that would be the best route through there for the next couple of days.

Remember how you hated all that moon dust? Sliding out on turns, taking a shower after a ride and your tub is brown from the coating of dust that stuck to you sweaty legs, that same coating that got on everything on your bike, and group rides where you inhaled so much dust that you could spit brown? Remember? Yeah, me neither! About geology; I was standing on the Escarpment bridge over Slaughter Creek after a big rain watching the flooding below. A man came up and commented about the geology of the soil upstream from us. He was talking about the area where DiscGo DiscGo is. I forgot what he called the rock and soil combination, but he explained that it was like a sponge, and that it holds lots of water. That water would continue to leach out for a long while after the flooding subsided. I think our SATN recovers faster than your stuff in Yankee land north of the river does. It seems we are always ready to go sooner than Walnut or Brushy is.

Almost a perfect work shop. I'm assuming the the beer cooler is out of frame somewhere?

We had a discussion about this at our Violet Crown Trail Stewards Committee meeting yesterday. A park ranger supervisor and a member from Austin Parks sits on the board and were both there. Part of this discussion was saying that the pilot program is only a few months long. I asked what they are considering electric bikes. With throttles? Only peddle assisted? They said that they realized the difference and were trying to come up with classes for them. I think they said they identified four different categories. I felt that they are handling the situation as well as they can at this point. They certainly are not just ignoring it.