Orny's Cycling Journal

I’ve been in Austin for six months – although only cycling for four – so it’s time to share my initial impression of cycling in Austin. I’ll cover the bike shops, clubs, group rides, organized events, routes, road conditions, drivers, online community, and weather.

These are my limited observations, so they may not accurately reflect anyone else’s experience. Ready?

Downtown Austin from Town Lake boardwalk

Mellow Johnny's Friday Truancy ride

The Fire Ant Tour

The Veloway

Bike night at the Circuit of the Americas

Looking back from the top of Ladera Norte

Bike Shops

Austin is still dealing with the fallout from everyone’s favorite independent bike shop being bought out by Trek in 2020, in an effort to force Specialized out. The friendly Austin Trek staff are trying their best, but they’re hampered by being brand-tied and the bad blood the company earned in that buyout. In a city preoccupied with losing “the old Austin”, it was a prime example.

Specialized is recovering, but slowly. They’re now based in a cramped showroom in an inconvenient mall north of town, but much of their operation is run from a sketchy, anonymous warehouse in South Austin, while presumably looking for more functional retail space.

Of course, you can’t talk about bike shops without mentioning Mellow Johnny’s, still owned and operated by Austin’s disgraced former pro cyclist. I found the shop unfriendly, but their support of the local cycling community robust.

There’s also a Rapha store, which – in addition to hawking their overpriced wares with a pretentious attitude – coordinate some popular group rides. And there’s also REI and several small neighborhood shops of unknown quality.

Clubs & Group Rides

There are lots of opportunities to ride, although surprisingly few of them are run by the local bike shops. Here are some highlights.

Mellow Johnny’s has a popular Friday Truancy ride of their own, but many of their rides are led by the Violet Crown Cycling Club, which I naturally refer to as the “Violent Crowd”. Due to time conflicts, I haven’t been able to ride with them yet.

The Phenom Cycling Club runs a couple challenging hilly group rides. That’s fine I guess if you want a hard workout, but they predominantly cater to young racers, and don’t spare much attention for laggards.

Long-distance riders are served by the Hill Country Randonneurs. However, they require membership in Randonneurs USA, whose policies I take exception to, so I really can’t ride with them.

There’s an exceptionally popular monthly Breakfast Club ride which again I haven’t made because of timing. I’ve heard mixed opinions about it.

There’s also an overnight Full Moon Ride every four weeks. I enjoy night rides, but it’s a pedestrian ride. Although they’re around, I’m really not interested in the casual populist rides like Critical Mass, Social Cycling Austin, and some of the Meetup groups.

Aside from many group rides happening at difficult times (i.e. early mornings and Saturdays), I haven’t found anything that suits my level: non-competitive but serious enthusiast. There’s lots of rides for young, fast, elitist racers; and plenty for slow, pot-smoking townies and commuters; but nothing for us devoted middle-of-the-road riders that I’ve found.

Organized Events

Here’s another area where I’m struggling to find my place. Perhaps it’s because of the Texas heat, but despite scouring the online ride calendars, I’ve found shockingly few organized events around Austin to suit my preferred ride distance of 100 to 200 KM.

One option is the infamous Hotter’n Hell 100 (August), although that’s a solid 5-hour drive away!

And there’s the Texas MS 150 (April), whose century route starts in Houston. I passed on it this year, having lost too much fitness over our move.

Austin is also home to the Livestrong Challenge, which several New England friends take part in, so hopefully there’ll be reunion opportunities when that rolls around in September.

And there are occasional smaller, less-familiar rides. Rather than enumerate them here, I’ll point you to my work-in-progress Austin Cycling Calendar webpage.

For my Pittsburgh friends, there’s a local semi-organized hill ride in the spirit of the Dirty Dozen. The Tour das Hugel takes place in November and incurs a whopping 175 KM with 3,200 M of climbing.

But so far I’ve only managed one 100 km ride, the Fire Ant Tour up in Gatesville, which I wrote about here. It was fine, but I’m still searching for my first century even as we enter the forbidding heat of summer in Texas.

Routes

There are a couple unique cycling facilities that are especially noteworthy. One is the Veloway, a winding 5 KM circuit that is limited to cyclists and skaters. It’s a delightful wooded loop on the south side of town. However, it’s a bit far to ride to, and I imagine it gets busy on the weekends.

And in the spring and fall, the Circuit of the Americas racetrack – which normally hosts Formula 1, NASCAR, and MotoGP races – regularly opens their 5 KM track to cyclists from 6PM to dark. It’s a memorable experience, but again it’s a bit far away to make it a regular event.

For racers, there are criteriums at the Driveway: a private track designed to instruct auto racers. Not being a racer, those are of limited interest to me, save perhaps as a spectator.

In terms of bike paths, there are a couple around town. The most noteworthy is the Southern Walnut Creek Trail, which is pretty long, quite rideable, and one viable way to get out of the city and into the outskirts.

Shoal Creek is partially an on-street bike lane, but there are off-street segments. While it looks like a straight route into downtown, part of it is shut down long-term, and it’s more suited to leisure rides than getting somewhere in good time.

And there’s an extensive network of jogging paths around Town Lake. While scenic and featuring an amazing investment in elevated boardwalks over the river, these gravel paths are crowded with oblivious tourists and locals, so they’re of limited value for road cyclists.

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring Austin’s roads, but I’ve still only just scratched the surface. As when I moved to Pittsburgh in 2015, I’ve had excellent luck identifying fellow roadies through Strava’s Flyby utility and then following some of the routes they frequent. That’s given me insights into popular local routes as well as further afield (such as over toward Manor, or out Spicewood Springs and the Volente loop).

And I’ve found several methods of getting from my base in the Northwest Hills across town or into downtown, including Balcones Drive to Scenic Drive or Pecos Street or Exposition; or Winstead to Atlanta; Jefferson or Bull Creek or Shoal Creek; 51st Street for heading east; and Mesa and Jollyville heading north.

As for hills, we’ve got hills. I’m on the border between the flatter terrain to the east and the hilly terrain of the Hill Country’s Balcones Escarpment to the west. In fact, I have to climb a short but vicious hill just to escape my little cul-de-sac. But I’ve explored some local hills that would be right at home in Pittsburgh, including the infamous Ladera Norte, which is now part of my regular workout. If you wanna climb, there’s no shortage of it; but (unlike Pittsburgh) there’s plenty of nice flat riding, as well.

Road Conditions & Drivers

My memories of Austin from before I moved were of narrow roads with no shoulder and high-speed traffic, and that’s proved out. But those are the urban roads and suburban highways that are popular for cars; there are other roads that are calmer and quieter, and in town there are a number of side-roads that are adequate for cyclists getting around town.

And there’s a fair amount of bike infrastructure, including my first experience with parking-protected bike lanes, which are about as appealing to me as licking an electrical outlet. God save us all from well-intentioned bike advocates!

Road surfaces vary a lot, but they’re generally rougher (and thus slower) than I’m used to up north. The rural roads bake in the sun and can develop dangerous cracks. I managed a quadruple snakebite puncture by hitting one of those on a descent! And down here they use the term “sealcoat” for their variant on the universally hated oil-and-chips road surface treatment, which Texas uses more than any other state.

Drivers… For the most part Austin drivers have been surprisingly conscientious, although there are hundreds of online tales of absolutely insane driving. Of course, there’s self-important drivers going too fast for the conditions everywhere, and streets that pit all road users against one another, but in 200 hours of outdoor riding over four months, I’ve only experienced one legit instance of harassment on the bike.

Connecting Online

Another surprise: I have yet to find any useful Austin cycling forums online. There’s the Reddit group /r/BikingATX, but it’s not especially active or useful. If there’s a forum that’s commonly used – say, hosted by one of the bike clubs or something – I haven’t found it. Honestly, Strava has been the most useful online resource for finding other riders, clubs, and routes.

The best events calendar I’ve found has been the state-wide WheelBrothers Texas Bike Rides page.

Weather

From February through May, the weather was absolutely stellar. Of course, we had temperatures below freezing for short periods (including a devastating ice storm), but most of our days were between 10 to 25° C. That was delightful.

Then the heat came. We’ve had four straight weeks with high temps around or above 37°C, which limits outdoor riding to either mornings or short daytime rides. Save for a couple major events, summer is the off-season for riding.

Which brings up the question of when and where to use the indoor trainer. Over the winter, I could get away with riding it in the unheated and un-insulted garage, so long as it wasn’t too cold outdoors; but I wonder whether it makes more sense to bring it inside. Over the summer, it’s too hot to ride in the garage, but I’m not convinced it’d be much better if I set it up inside. Still needs some figuring out, so we’ll see!

Conclusion

The bottom line is that I’m getting settled and finding my way around both the cycling community and the city, but with a lot more still to learn. I can’t quite say that Austin is a cycling utopia, but I think it’s quite workable.

Specific things that I still need to look at are:

• Check out the group rides I’ve missed, including: Violet Crown, Taking Care of Business, Breakfast Club, Major Taylor, and Rapha
• Find more organized 100 to 200 KM and imperial century rides
• Find the subset of roadies around town that aren’t hardcore racers
• Build up an inventory of routes and rest stops for longer solo rides outside of town

But for only having been on the roads for a few months, I’m pretty happy with Austin’s cycling scene. And delighted by the weather, even at its hottest!

Curvy, swooping roads: we all love ‘em. Whether you pilot a bicycle, motorcycle, or car, there’s nothing like the feeling of leaning into a tight corner.

A developer named Adam Franco likes them so much, he created an online map that highlights the world’s most curvy roads. Here’s what Pittsburgh looks like:

Thanks to our busy topography, we’ve got a good smattering of curvy roads, and locals will immediately recognize several of them in the above image. What’s interesting to me is that most of the roads I cycle on are highlighted. More on that in a second.

While one could take issue with the map’s methodology, I still found it fun to explore. And there's lots more to be found at Franco’s Curvature website, whether you’re interested in Pittsburgh, Boston, Maine, or anywhere else.

The indented bit that follows won’t be of interest to anyone outside this area, but I’m going to call out a whole list of Pittsburgh roads that are highlighted, going region by region.

In the central city, the eye is immediately drawn to the orange kink of Beechwood Blvd, one of the curviest roads on the map. That area also features Circuit and Overlook in Schenley, and Johnston Ave in Glen Hazel. Farther north, there’s Stanton Ave and the two loop roads around the Highland Park reservoir.

Farther east Brinton, Saltsburg Rd (380), and Lincoln Rd get called out.

The South Side is represented mainly by 18th St and Arlington, as well as Brownsville, Noblestown, and Chartiers.

The North Shore includes Brighton, Perrysville, Spring Garden, Mount Troy, Hoffman, Pittview, and the loop road inside Riverview Park.

Continuing up the west bank of the Allegheny you hit Middle, Saxonburg, and Dorseyville in Etna; Squaw Run, Fox Chapel, Field Club, then Gibsonia Road (910). Up toward Tarentum they include Days Run, Bakerstown, and Sun Mine.

Farther west in the Sewickley Hills there’s Little Sewickley Creek, Audubon, and Roosevelt, among others.

According to the map, the longest and curviest roads in the region are the artificial agglomerations of multiple roads that comprise Pittsburgh’s Green, Blue, Orange, Red Belts.

And one final note pertaining to roads...

In addition to tracking fastest efforts on a segment (KoMs) Strava recently introduced the concept of “Local Legends”, an award that goes to whomever has performed the most efforts on a particular segment over the past year.

So I’ve earned my first Local Legend award for a mere four reps on a segment going from Squirrel Hill to the Bud Harris cycling oval.

That’ll go just fine next to my only remaining Strava KoM, on an obscure, rarely-used 500-meter segment in the city.

There’s a few reasons why spring can be difficult for bikers.

I suppose the easiest to understand is the gravel. Living in New England, the road crews sand the public ways often. So in April we reap the harvest of gravel that has accumulated over the preceding five months. Gravel is dangerous because it’s easy to lose traction and skid or fall, and it also leads to punctures. Stones in the gravel can be kicked up into your face by cars with enough force to easily crack your glasses, assuming you’re wearing some. And let’s not forget the subtle pleasure of drinking Gatorade that’s been nutritionally supplemented with road dirt.

A related problem is the spring runoff. Fortunately, this year we didn’t get much snow, so the melt wasn’t bad. But often you’ll be riding along on a fine 60-degree day, only to pass through an area where water from melting snow is flowing across the road. Riding through it gets you and your bike horribly dirty, and gets water and more gravel in your drive train. But the worst thing is that overnight those flows of water will freeze, meaning they’re not water but ice for your morning commute. Joy!

Drivers will understand the problem of springtime potholes. After frosts and water seepage, plus being scraped up by five months of snowplow blades, whole sections of road will be torn up, causing cyclists to weave back and forth like an inebriated hermaphrodite. No one repairs roads in the winter, so the damage is cumulative. By springtime, most towns have more than blown their feeble DPW budget on snow removal, so the most ambitious repair you’ll see is someone shoveling some loose asphalt into a hole. Since it’s not steamrolled or even tamped down, the repair lasts a few hours before passing cars have torn it back up again, throwing sticky tar asphalt chunks all over the road. It’s a very special time!

Then there’s the wind. Here in Massachusetts, springtime seems to be “wind season”, when there’s a steady 30 mph breeze for weeks at a time, and I don’t think it’s an artifact of my post-winter legs (or lack thereof). Wind is a nightmare for cyclists, because you are never going with the wind; unless it’s directly behind you, you are fighting it, and it’s a formidable opponent, easily reducing you to a crawl as you pedal with all your strength downhill. The stuff should be outlawed.

And in greater Boston we have a special extra bonus in April: the Boston Marathon. Throughout the year, you don’t see that many joggers in Boston, but for two weeks before the marathon, everyone and their mother is out. Runners. Walkers. Grandmothers with walkers. Infants. The recently deceased. Even lawyers! They all jam up the paths and roads in a vain attempt to make it look like they lead a healthy lifestyle, and getting in the way of those of us who actually do. Then, a week after the marathon, they’ll all disappear back to their nursing homes, mausolea, and small claims courts, leaving the magical summertime riding season to us.

Spring. It’s always a wonderful thing to see, but I’m reserving my love for high summer.

If you’ve ever driven in Boston, you know what it’s like to have no idea where you are, no idea how you got there, no idea where you’re going, and no idea how to get there. New arrivals are often amazed that Bostonians can successfully navigate the constantly-shifting maze that is our downtown street network.

Each year, the Charles River Wheelmen run a 20-mile New Years Day bike ride around the city of Boston. It’s a pretty fun ride, and hits some of Boston’s more interesting landmarks, as well as a couple of the city’s hills. These rides attract one or two hundred participants, including people who have lived and ridden in Boston all their lives; people who have been members of the Boston Bicycle Advisory Committee for decades; the city’s bicycling coordinator; members of the MassBike Board of Directors. In other words, people who should know these streets like the back of their hands.

Yet it never fails. Despite the fact that the route is almost entirely the same every year, and despite the fact that every rider is given a cue sheet at the start, every year the entire ride goes off-course. Not just once, but a half dozen times. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a new configuration of surface roads near the Big Dig, or side streets in Charlestown that haven’t changed in centuries. It always feels a bit more like a scavenger hunt than it does a directed tour.

Did a 50-mile loop from Boston to Waltham, the DeCordova Museum and Walden Pond in Lincoln, Concord, Kimball's ice cream stand in Carlisle, Bedford, and back via the Minuteman trail. My average speed of nearly 17 MPH was my highest since last August, but it feels like I've only got about 40 miles in my legs before they give up, tho.