Bicycle Tours

The Rear Admiral and I enjoyed our winter break in Georgetown Texas with my folks. We arrived in Austin by airplane on Saturday evening. Sunday we arranged with Mike at http://easystreetrecumbents.com to rent a recumbent tandem for 3 days.
Finding Easy Street Recumbents is not hard, if you know what you are looking for. Mike's shop is inside his house, so my image of a "bike shop" didn't work so well. Mike kindly printed out maps of Austin so we could have an easier time getting out of town. He set us up on a Bike E tandem with carrying bags, mirrors and a kick stand. He even invented a handle bar lock to help the bike stay in place, once we were parked.


THANK YOU MIKE!


Bike E tandems are no longer built. The main differences between SeeMore and Ernie (yes I gave the Bike E a name) is that Ernie has smaller wheels, weighs more, and the Rear Admiral sits father back from me. The first two points, illustrate why it a slower bike than our RANS Screamer. Since our seats were father apart, it harder for the Rear Admiral to hit me, when I make a silly comment. If you are going to be using Ernie for " around town ", then the Bike E would fit nicely in your riding fleet.


After a short test flight; and with Mike's highlighted maps we made our way through Central Austin towards Georgetown. It was Sunday morning, and we traveled under blue skies. In New Hampshire the temperature was a balmy 20 degrees. While in Texas, we had to suffer with it being in the high 70s low 80s for the whole week! There are MANY bike routes through and around Austin, Lance Armstrong's home town. Riding a bike through Austin is fantastic. Driving through Austin in a car (after 4:00 pm) stinks! I would recommend leaving the car behind. Here is our route north from Easy Street Recumbents to Georgetown: 45 1/2 Street, Caswell Ave, 50th Street, Duval Street, 56th Street, Avenue F, Skyview Road, Guadalupe Street, Bentwood Street, Grover Ave, Tisdale Drive, Wooten Drive, Lazy Lane, Beckett, Kromer Street, FairField Drive, Clairwood, Hunters Trace, Colony Creek Drive, Parkfield Drive, Bittern Hollow, Metric Blvd, Ceder Bend Drive, Park Bend Drive, Waters Park Road, Adelphin, and then onto West Parmer Lane.


West Parmer Lane is a four lane road that goes north through Cedar Park. This road is very busy but has a wide shoulder. We saw a number of cyclists on this route. In Leander, Parmer Lane turns into Ronald W Reagan Blvd and then into Williamson Co Rd 268. W Parmer will soon (in a year) replace these roads.


We were forced to ride on route 29 for a short bit, but thanks to Dad, we were able to follow some less traveled roads into north west Georgetown. Lake Georgetown and a number of quarries force you to travel in either a westernly or easternly direction, if you are trying to get to Georgetown from the south. We did not have a odometer today, but we believe we got in a 45 mile ride, YES!


Monday we did a short ride (about 20 miles round trip) to downtown Georgetown. We picked up a bike trail near the Georgetown Lake Dam, following it into town. This trail is a great place to ride or walk. My mom rode by herself, and then wanted to try the tandem, so about halve way to town, we switched stokers. Our goal was breakfast afterwards walked the main streets, before the Rear Admiral and I continued back on our journey back to my parents home.


Tuesday we followed Sunday's directions, backwards back to Easy Street Recumbents in central Austin. For these three days we got in about 110 miles of riding. It was great to see what kind of winter shape we are in!