65

So we didn't do the 90. We did the 65 instead. We rode up to the check point like right at 11, so our options were 1) skip the rest stop and do the 90 or 2) take the rest stop and do the 65. We opted for the latter. Besides, at 30 miles we were already feeling like 90 would be very tough to do.

I did meet a lady (though we never exchanged names, so perhaps it's not even 'meeting') who has become my hero - she was doing the 65 mile ride one legged - mostly because she only had one leg. BUT there was a huge hill that we had to go up - 1) she passed us, 2) we have gears on the tandem that people don't have on road bikes (we've got a super granny gear like mountain bikes whereas with road bikes you actually have to have some leg muscle) and 3) she Only. Has. One. Leg.

Would I do it again - most likely. Would I try to do 90 next time - probably. Would we end up doing 65 instead - likely (especially if we ride the tandem again - which, by the way, Shawn said was much more fun than riding his Formula 1 in the MS 150).

Quite honestly the ride was quite moving - I mean it was 7 am, it was cold and almost everyone was wearing these tags that said "In Honor Of" for people they knew who were currently battling cancer/currently in remission or "In Memory Of" for those that lost the battle with cancer. There were many, MANY people who had multiple names or multiple tags. I mean really - 2300 people got up at 6 in the morning on a Sunday (and there were plenty of people who traveled from out of state or out of the country) to go ride a bike to fight cancer.

Bi-sickle! Bi-sickle!

Tonight, we have a wedding (for Shawn's boss).

Tomorrow we have the Livestrong Bike Challenge. 90 miles of riding fun! The most we've ever done has been 45 I think...but we never take enough food and so we energetically crash somewhere around mile 35 and never really recover. That shouldn't be the case on the actual ride since they have rest stops every 10 miles or so. But just to be safe, we can choose to do the 65 mile ride after we get started if we want.

PLUS! Matt and Ross will be coming over to the house in order to take care of Ivy-cat. Who, at this point, has suffered an acute kidney attack (kidney stone), liver failure (from not eating enough and going into starvation mode), and now, anemia (because the kidneys tell the bone marrow when to make red blood cells, and since they've been pulling blood with some frequency, it makes for a cat with a low red blood cell count). So yay...

Association of Caffeinated Wheelmen: Training

Yesterday, Shawn I did 40.5 miles in just shy of 3 hours. That means we did about 14mph.

So, that was good.

What's not good, is the fact that we'll be riding over twice that amount in the actual ride.

The other fun part is that we could conceivably ride to my in laws' house. I want to do it just to see the look on their faces when we show up on the bike.

Association of Caffeinated Wheelmen. Take 2.

For those of you I don't talk to all the time, you'll be surprised/gladdened/appalled that Shawn and I are doing the Livestrong Bike Challenge on October 16. Shawn's work has a sponsoring deal worked out so we don't have to do fundraising, we just have to show up and ride.

Ride 90 miles.

At one time.

Through the hilliest part of the state.

And Shawn has decided that we will do this on his parents' tandem.

Last weekend we did an almost-18-mile out and back. Today we did a 25-mile out and back.

At this rate, I'll be able to do 67 miles on the day of the ride.

Better up the ante.

Bike Ride

Today Shawn and I rode our bikes to the McDonald's for dinner.

Yes, I do realize how funny that sounds. Also, I had a salad, with light balsamic vinaigrette. And of course, the whole reason for going to McDonald's? well, 2 reasons--1) to get points on our May Commuter Challenge which we have been sucking at, and 2) to use the buy one get one free fruit smoothie coupon.

The quickest route to the McDonald's is to go along the busy highway-esque type road (McDo's is about 1 mile away), but because that seems way too dangerous, we decided to go through our neighborhood, under the highway, and then up the non-busy road to the McDonald's. And then back again. All in all the trip was 5.5 miles. Nothing at all like Grinder's 100-mile rides he does frequently.

We are so pitiful.

Association of Caffeinated Wheelmen

Caffeinated...My favorite state.

Soon we will be starting the commuters challenge. Soon I will be riding my bike again. Soon you will have to hear ALL ABOUT IT. Better prepare yourselves.

Riding, Riding, Riding...all the way to Crown Donut Shop

After taking a breather for two weeks (because of my knee), we were out in full force this weekend. Okay, so really only a ride to the grocery store on Saturday, and a ride to Crown Donuts for breakfast this morning. Too bad Shawn isn't participating in this bike ride thing. He gets all competitive and has taken it much more personally than I have that our team is losing by 100 trips. As our Team Leader said, "every person on the team needs to do 10 trips just to catch up to the other team." A trip is either 1 recreational ride (no matter the distance), or one way to work, or one way back from work, or one way for an errand, or one way back. Thus it makes the most sense (bang for your buck so to speak) to run errands, or bike to work. This is why I have been riding my bike to the grocery store.

So, right. Today's ride.

Because Shawn feels it's a pain to get the bikes out just to ride the less than half a mile to TJ's, I suggested that maybe we go try the place over at Anderson Mill Road and Pecan Park. It's about a mile and a half away, and we'd never eat there otherwise. So at 9 am this morning (when it was only 75 degrees out. I know!), we rode off to Crown Donuts.

The inside reminds me of the Dunkin' Donuts in Glenwood Springs. Only yellow instead of orange.

Crown serves a variety of kolaches, croissants, and donuts. I had a sausage and cheese kolache, a sugar covered cake donut, and a chocolate glazed raised donut. Shawn had a sausage croissant kolache, and a filled long john.

The kolaches are more expensive than TJ's (by about $0.40), but the donuts are cheaper (by about $0.20), so all in all we spent about the same amount of money...actually less because we got a bunch of donuts instead of our normal bunch of kolaches. Crown does have a beef kolache (which TJ's doesn't), but they don't have any fruit kolaches.

The kolache I had tasted very similar to TJ's, but just didn't seem like it didn't have enough cheese, and that it wasn't fully cooked--the bread around the sausage was doughier than I like. Shawn said that the croissant kolache was good, but still said it was on par with TJ's kolaches. Winner: TJ's.

The cake donut was very good. It was moist, it tasted wonderful, and it didn't fall apart when I bit into it. As I said, the donuts at Crown are cheaper than at TJ's, and it seems that they have perfected their recipe for the cake donuts. Winner: Crown.

The raised donut was very airy. VERY airy. I'd start to bite into it, and it would depress by about half before my teeth actually cut into it. The actual donut part was good, I didn't care for the chocolate frosting (but I normally can't bring myself to order a plain glazed donut because I find them un-appetizing...unless I'm ordering for work). The glazed donut had just been put out so it was ultra fresh. Winner: Tie.

Based on the fact that when Shawn ordered a long john, and the lady asked if he wanted it cream filled, he said yes, and she went running to the back carrying the donut. About 30 seconds later she came back with the donut. I can only take this to mean that they fill the long johns to order. And there was a bunch of cream in that thing. Plus it was the eclair type cream (which I don't care for--i always preferred the frosting filled long johns), which was good for Shawn since he likes that stuff. I've always been surprised that he can eat eclair cream after watching Van Wilder. But anyhow, since he's never had the long johns at TJ's, they obviously can't be compared. He did say, however, that Crown's long johns are good and he'd order them again if we went back. Winner: Wash.

So there you have it. Normal and fruit kolaches from TJ's, Croissant kolaches from Crown (based on the fact that TJ's doesn't make croissant kolaches), and cake donuts from Crown. I think next time I bring donuts to work I may get a dozen kolaches from TJs, and a dozen donuts from Crown.

Crown Donuts is located in the small strip mall at Anderson Mill Road at Pecan Park, it is located in the middle of the center, half way between Mesa Rosa and Emler Swim School.

Riding, Riding, Riding...

On Sunday, before I went and gashed up my knee, I went for a bike ride. Odd, I've hung out with so many people who have gone and gotten totally effed up from riding bikes, I somehow just always assumed that if I ever got messed up it would be because I was doing something on a bike (most likely trying to keep up when I'm obviously inept).

[Aside] Have you ever tried to keep your leg straight--like no bending of your knee? because let me tell you, it is fricking tough. For example, right now I'm contorted in some weird position where my right leg is resting on the other office chair, but it makes it so I'm turned at a 90 degree angle from the computer. Sucktackular. However, the cut is looking fabulous and hopefully I won't have any problems with it getting infected or anything. [/Aside]

So anyhow, I got up all bright and early (aka 9 am) and set off on a bike ride. To the bank, then to the grocery store, then to TJ's to get some kolaches and finally back home. I also found out that only the new buildings in Austin City Limits have bike racks (the bank is a new building, but it is on the far side of 620, thus putting it firmly in Cedar Park land, and apparently they don't have rules like the COA does requiring the installation of bike racks). So I rode from the house to the bank and brought the bike into the bank with me. I then off-roaded it to the grocery store to pick up my prescription. As I was riding home, I decided to make a side trip to TJ's for some kolaches since we hadn't eaten breakfast yet. Yes, I can barely control where the bike goes when I'm using both hands, so let's see how I do while carrying a doggybag of food.

Now then, as I joked about earlier, I have decided that I will write a pseudo review much like the Caffienated Wheelmen. But because I dislike coffee, I must find something else to review at the various shops I stop at.

So, I will review the food at TJ's Donuts and Kolaches.

TJ's went into the strip mall by our house maybe a year or two ago. Since I had just had my first run-in with kolaches shortly before, I figured "what the hell, let's get some kolaches" And thus started my love affair with TJ's.

TJ's meat kolaches are always served warm, and while they don't have many flavors (sausage, sausage and cheese, sausage/jalapeno/cheese, and ham & cheese), the flavors sure are good. The kolaches range from $0.89 to $1.09. They also have a wide selection of fruit kolaches that cost $0.79 each.

I, on occasion, bring these kolaches to work where they are snapped up very quickly by my co-workers, thus also attesting to the greatness of this place (and while my coworkers will eat a bunch of stuff that I normally wouldn't, you can always tell how good something is by how quickly it disappears from the break room). I have noticed that the longest lasting kolaches are always the blueberry ones, but that may just be because the filling doesn't look very appetizing (of course I don't think the cream cheese filling looks very appetizing either, but those always disappear almost as quickly as the meat kolaches).

I have, recently, also eaten some donuts from the shop, and while they do have cake donuts (for whatever reason the stores down here do not sell cake donuts), they just aren't as good as the cake donuts I had growing up. The bear claws and apple fritters, however, are very good. I don't think I've had raised donuts, the breakfast tacos, nor the filled long johns from the store yet, and I probably never will because if you have the choice of kolache, why would you go with donut?

As far as I can tell, TJ's is a mom and pop business, and the high school aged kids work on the weekends. The best part about this shop is that it is open at like 5 am. Okay, I don't really know when it opens, but I do know it opens much earlier than the other kolache shops around and it ALWAYS has someone else in there buying some kolaches/donuts. The only other place I've seen this busy in that strip mall is the Dairy Queen.

The funniest part about TJ's is that the family that owns it is of Asian descent. As one of my coworkers always jokes while he's eating a kolache, "He must be one of those Czech Asians because these things are GOOD."

So, if you're ever in the 183/620 area, look up TJ's Donuts and Kolaches. They are located on the southwest corner of 620 at Lake Creek (in the Papa Murphy's/Dairy Queen/Subway shopping center).