Use Your Bike Rack

Part One: Before I ride.

So, the plan is to ride to work sometimes, but I don't want to ride the entire way. I've done it, and it's not that far. According to Google Maps, it's just under 8 miles which is not bad, but still.


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This is where my bike rack comes in handy. I drive part of the way and then I ride part of the way. I mean, I cannot complain about stores and malls not having a place for my bike if I don't even have one myself!

However, Round Rock has changed a lot in the last 10 years. Hairy Man Road is not as safe as it used to be. Not that it was ever safe -- it doesn't have a shoulder and it's a curving road on which people have always driven over the speed limit.The road is simply used more and in the near future, the city plans to alter its course so it doesn't run along the creek the entire way.


Change is good, though. Change is good. A hike-n-bike trail and a parking lot were also built along Hairy Man, so I'm going to park my truck there and cut into a neighborhood via a sidewalk that leads from the trail to a street. I don't know where I'll end up exactly. The Google Map doesn't clearly show me a sidewalk where I guessed it would be. More later...


Okay, so it's later!

Had to use MapMyRide.com to create the route. I'm liking that program more and more. It even shows the elevation. Maybe climbing 157 feet is not much elevation for some but it felt like I was riding uphill for too long. It didn't help that I did this at noon. (Memo to self: Self, don't ride at frickin' noon o'clock.) Here's the route:


Once I got to school, I meandered around a bit. I noticed few kids (or some adults) had their bikes locked up at the bike racks at school. Two of them had U-locks attached to the front wheel, and that was it. Near our school is the Brushy Creek or Cat Hollow (IDK) M.U.D. Rec Center. It's a loverly place. They had these strange bike racks which looked like egg beaters and your only choice was to stick your front tire in there, and it looked like everyone who had locked up their bikes only locked up the front wheel. (That's a horrible sentence.) I'll have to take a picture of them.

There's a bike trail behind this place -- a fun trail! It pretty much runs west and downhill the entire time. It leads to O'Conner, right behind the HEB on 620. The trail did break off so I turned back to ride that one. It leads to a residential area: I ended up on a street called Liberty Walk. I back tracked again to the main trail and rode back to my truck. Like I said, it was hot out so I didn't try to figure out if there were any other roads.

When school starts, those roads, particulary Great Oaks Drive, are going to be packed with cars. But, there is one good thing. I get to ride downhill at the end of the day. :)