On Saturday I rode the 15 miles from my house to Liberty Hill for the Austin Cycling Association's Liberty Hill Loop ride. This was my first time riding with the ACA. My riding buddy, Skipper, from Keller Williams Realty joined me. He hasn't been riding that much, he did compete in the Urban Assault last weekend, so we decided to go for the 28 mile route. Since I was going to put in an extra 30 getting to and from Liberty Hill that was fine with me.
There were about 30 riders in 3 different routes (62, 48, 28 miles). In the 28 mile route there were only about 10 to 15 riders. I've ridden the roads around Liberty Hill quite a bit over this last year, but this was my first time up to Andice. The pace wasn't all that tough, we were going between 15 and 18, just outside of Andice I joked with Skipper we needed to pick up the pace to 20 mph. So we briefly did, but I knew we had the wind at our back and as soon as we turned and started to make our way back we had the wind to contend with.
Once we got out of Andice, which seems to be composed of the country store and a fruit stand across the street, the wind started to push back. We had to consult the route map several times to make sure we were on track.
Here's skipper giving the thumbs up that we are on track. We hit a few hills on the way back into Liberty Hill, nothing too big, I didn't think, but Skipper might have a different opinion on that. We did the 28 miles in 1:48:39. The route is 1019.2 feet of climbing, the steepest point had a grade of 22.1%, we averaged 15.17 mph, my max speed was 27.84 mph.
This is a keeper route for me, when I need a good 60 mile ride this is one I'll keep in my arsenal of rides. The back roads are low traffic and peaceful. However, there are a few places that warrant some caution, there is a short section on Hwy 183 and there are 2 crossings of Hwy 29, but I don't think it should distract anybody from this route. I had a good time riding with ACA, I'll definetly try to catch more rides with them.
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