Day 34 – Last Chance to Donate

Miles Completed: 54.5

Cumulative miles: 1757.5

Miles to St Augustine: 1308

Public Service Announcement:

Many of you have made donations to Pedal the Cause and your contributions have exceeded $2500 which Pedal the Cause calls the Yellow Jersey level. THANK YOU!

If anyone wants to still make a donation, you have until the end of the day on October 31 (2 more days). That’s the day Pedal the Cause closes the website for the end of the season. To make a donation, look in the menu in the upper right corner and find “Donate to Pedal The Cause” and then you’ll find the link to the donation page.

Thanks for considering a donation.

And now…back to our regularly scheduled programming:

Today’s ride took us from Austin to Buescher State Park. As much as I disliked Monday’s ride into Austin, I liked this ride out of Austin even more. This was one of my favorite riding days.

It was a cool, windy morning in Austin with wind chills around 42 degrees. Anticipating an “easy” ride, we decided to leave the Holiday Inn Express later than usual. I rode out with a group of riders at 9:00 which turned out great because the sun was out and temperatures were warming. The route out of Austin included great bike paths and bike lanes. By the time we reached two lane roads with no shoulders, the traffic was very light. We also rode a reasonably fast pace because the 20 MPH winds were helping us most of the way.

The main town along the way was Bastrop. Felix, Chris, Brent, and I stopped at a Starbucks for about 30 minutes for a nice break. After leaving Bastrop, we entered Bastrop State Park. We were on a 2-lane park road from Bastrop State Park to Buescher State Park, for about 14 miles. The park road was beautiful, well-paved, had a lot of curves and some challenging short but very steep hills (Mark’s computer said we went up a 16% incline in one spot). During that 14 miles, guess how many vehicles I saw on the park road…wait for it…Two!!! Imagine riding on a scenic fun road with no traffic for 14 miles. That was my favorite 14 mile segment of the whole trip so far.

Also, I’ve told you before that I ride solo a lot, but today I rode with Felix, Chris, and Brent essentially the whole day, so that was a nice change.

We got to camp by 2:00 and had the entire afternoon to pitch tents and relax. It was a nice sunny afternoon but never reached 70 degrees. We are going into a mini cold spell and expecting the low to be around 43 tonight. I’ll report tomorrow how the camping turned out.