HCD SHINER RECAP

Sitting in with Veej-

Dykes, Charlie and I joined up with Dr. Goldfinger's friends from Castle Hill Fitness for the Shiner Ride.  Of course the hardest part of this ride is getting a ride back to Austin from Shiner.  Thanks to the Castle Hill team not only did we have a ride back on some spacious vans but also a personal SAG vehicle all along the route.  The Castle Hill team is mostly the staff there and from what I could tell, they rode for their founder Paolo, who tragically passed away last year.  We heard a lot of great stories about Paolo and his contributions to Austin and the biking community.  A neat guy from all accounts that gave back in many ways.

The ride started well enough, overcast with a little wind.  The plan was to hammer it out of the starting gate and skip the first stop to create some gap between us and the crowd.  Well that broke up the group pretty quickly and my bladder issue forced me to stop at the first rest area.  As I pulled in, Carlson was directing traffic and Kim was there feeding the crowd.  It was great to see both of them; thanks for the support guys.  I left the stop and hammered it to catch the group and caught them by the time they pulled into the second stop.  The group stayed together for a while, then Dr. Goldfinger sped up the pace.  I stayed with the lead group for a while then had to pull back when I realized it was only 35 mile and I was burning way too many matches.  I stayed with the rest of the Castle Hill team for most of the rest of the ride and did not see the Dr. until the end.  After the 50-mile lunch stop, the temperature and the humidity started to rise and along with the constant headwind, it made for a difficult ride the rest of the way.  I don't think I ever remember seeing so many people using the SAG; a lot of people getting hit by heat exhaustion.   Well we finished the ride and enjoyed a few brews and braust wurst and headed back.  Along the way, Charlie picked up a few tips on women from Celeste and we convinced the driver to stop in Lockhart and picked up some bbq.  That really hit the spot.  Nice ride and Castle Hill is a great group to ride with. 

/s/ Veej

Off the front with Goldfinger-
Heck yea!  Very good write up.  Vijay and Celeste were hammering out of the second rest stop and started a reaction in Shannon and myself.  The rest of the morning we traded pulls and gave a ride to the occasional passenger.  By mile 70 we were both pretty cooked and Shannon was waving me on so he could spin easy the last 25.  As the winds were increasing exponentially, I resorted to motivational barking so we could finish together.  Shannon dug deep and stayed on while we evened out the efforts and survived the final miles.  The last 10 from Moulton on in to Shiner were right into the screaming headwind and it felt like a blowdryer.  Each rest stop progressively looked more and more like one giant Med tent with very little conversation audible by the last one.  Highlight suppor food for the day was pizza at mile 50!  The Brats and sausage at the end were decent but by that time I think a fried grasshopper would have been just as tasty.  The Shiner Ruby Red Bird is beer of the day IMO.  The ride back was supremely comfortable thanks to the Castle Hill gang and that BBQ at City Market was a complete treat after a great day of biking.  The Dough came, saw and conquered some Shiner!

/s/ Goldfinger

Scheibs' Ride North

Quick recap on our ride. I rode from the W to meet Steve and Sam (last name escapes me) at the Arboretum. We rode up to Parmer, then north to RT 29. On the way back we had an ugly head wind. However the 3 of us ran a disciplined pace line, rotating every minute. This was my first ride with my new power meter and I felt like an "OnStar" operator with Steve asking me countless times....what are "our" watts now. On the way back into the headwind we got passed by a guy on a time trial bike. He must have been on the red line trying to catch us and Steve sensed the guy was about to blow. Steve let out an animalistic grunt, moved to the front and dragged our pace line single handily (which was now up to 5 with the addition of 2 strangers) to catch and blow past the person who disrespected the Doughboy colors.

My low light was while I was sitting at a light and a hearing a somewhat feminine voice say..."hey you don't look so doughy to me." Turning around, expecting to see someone reasonably hot, I was greeted by a rider who looked like the twin of the landlord in the movie King Pin. What a bummer. Don't remember her....here is a short clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zIDgPVg9HM