by Captain Branfman convinced me to head down to Austin for the LiveSTRONG Challenge. LiveSTRONG is the successor to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Mr. Armstrong and LiveSTRONG went separate ways when he finally admitted to doping several years ago.
After landing in Austin, we rebuilt our bikes and went our for a short ride to make sure everything was working okay.
It wasn’t a lot of riding, but that didn’t stop us from ingesting massive quantities of fried chicken.
Thursday was intended as the long prep ride. I grabbed a recommended route from the Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop: The Dam Loop. The distance was right, but we ended up finding some of the steepest hills west of Austin.
It was more climbing that the crowd really wanted. But the tacos at Gueros were that more delicious. We didn’t ride enough to deal with an over-the-top doughnut from Gourdough’s.
After the Thursday ride, half the team was looking for a shorter ride and half was willing to follow me on another adventure. I was looking to burn off some of those margaritas from Thursday night and make room for some BBQ.
That 50 miles made room for Salt Lick BBQ. It was a night of all you could eat BBQ.
Saturday was a turn to the reason we were in Austin. We rode over to the LiveSTRONG Cancer Institutes at the Dell Medical School. It was an informative and powerful presentation on how the money we raised was being put to use.
Then it was off for a short ride to the east of Austin.
Sunday morning was an early ride at dawn for the 100 mile LiveSTRONG ride. The hotel was nice enough to open breakfast early for us. (Thanks Embassy Suites Houston!)
The sky stayed cloudy for the morning keeping down the temperature. The forecast called for temperatures in the 90s. The team mostly stayed together for the first 20 miles, then spread out at different speeds. I tried to stay with Debbie’s wheel. That fell apart when we came to “manmaker hill”, the Fulton Ranch Road climb.
The picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s steep. More than half the riders were walking their bikes up the climb. Debbie was nice enough to wait for me after I finally made it to the top. We rode together for the final 50 miles. The sun came out. It got hot. We spotted an armadillo, a very dead armadillo. We finished together.
Until next year?
