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Climate Today in Austin
An Austin Experience by Jim Morris
Austin, Texas is for outdoor people! I spent the holiday there and had a most pleasant change of pace. The city has large open parks with game fields and courts, a long downtown lake, hiking trails, mountain bike trails, walking paths, nature study areas and trails, rock climbing and repelling. Bikes are everywhere. Just outside the city limits is the National Wildflower Research Center and a Veloway consisting of a three mile paved loop for bikes and skates which is provided by the Austin Parks Department.
I intended to ride my mountain bike on trails at the Bluff Creek Ranch east of Austin, one of several privately owned areas with mountain bike trails, but I learned that rains forced the owners to temporarily close the trails, so I rode my new road bike. I began riding in the Circle C residential area near the intersection of Slaughter Road and Loop One south, just outside of southwest Austin city limits. Riding south on Loop One (MOPAC) for about a mile, a left turn takes you on a half mile road to the Veloway and Wildflower Research Center. The Center is dedicated to reestablishing wildflowers and native plants. The gardens and native stone buildings make for a most interesting visit. The Veloway was very popular with rollerbladers and bikes of all sorts. I returned to Loop One and rode south on a four lane divided road through rolling hills. The road was well striped, had wide paved shoulders and very little traffic. Wildflowers are common on Texas roads, but they were exceptionally prolific and spectacular along this road. I counted four varieties blooming thick and hip-high. The road median was about fifty yards wide through grass and woodlands with no litter. It was hard to imagine a more beautiful road to ride, and as would be expected there were several riders. A good network of county and state roads in this sparsely populated region makes for rides of durations to suit anyone. Being primarily a flat-land rider, I decided to practice riding the longer and steeper hills. I continued to ride south over four or five hills and returned to do the hills two or three more times. I was on this road all holiday weekend and never got tired of the same place to ride.
I encountered an attitude of automobile drivers I was not used to, which was very refreshing. At four way stops in the residential areas, drivers waited their turn and motioned me to take my turn to cross. I was used to waiting until there was no traffic nearby. There seems to be almost limitless places to bike ride in the Austin area and it is most enjoyable when the wildflowers are in bloom. If you like to ride a bike and are going to Austin, take your bike with you!
References:
National Wildflower Research Center
4801 LaCrosse Avenue
Austin, Texas 78739
(512) 292-4100
Mountain Biking in Austin and Central Texas by Becko Y. Ricardo, Box 161862, Austin, Texas 78716
Mountain Biking in Texas and Oklahoma by Chuck Cypert, 1995, for Dennis Cello's Mountain Bike Series, Menasha Press.