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Tag: camping

On the Road: Evergreening Austin

With the relative calm the holidays bring, we thought we’d go someplace warm and ride our bikes on trails and roads we’d never seen before. We got on a plane and headed for Austin…where it was colder than Boston. Oh, well. Adventures seldom work out as planned. Otherwise, we’d call them vacations.

A large portion of Austin is in a flood plain, so extensive measures have been taken to provide safe runoff for flash flood waters, which means an extensive network of wide culverts, intersecting and rambling across town below street level. Graffiti artists and vandals alike have decorated these subterranean spaces. Nature has intruded in interesting ways. Because Texas is in a prolonged drought, we spent some time exploring this alternative space, evergreening a place that is often not green at all, but still super fun to ride through.

Another great thing about riding in and around Austin is the variety of terrain, everything from primitive mountain bike trails to manicured and paved river paths.

Here is sunset in one of the many arroyos, dry creek beds, that spider through the countryside outside town.

Exploring the arroyos was maybe the coolest thing we did on this trip. They’d twist and turn, test your skills, force you to get off and carry the bike, and then reward you with a waterfall, like the one below.

The landscape surrounding Austin is one of those magical places where you can find yourself spinning through a desertscape one minute, broad stands of thickets the next, and then on under a sprawling hickory at the edge of green meadow.

We woke up on a sunny Christmas morning, snug in our sleeping bags, unzipped the fly and cooked breakfast on the fire. It was colder than we wanted it to be, but it’s funny how a campfire breakfast will put you right.

All photos by Rob V.

 

Summer Seven Style

Riders in the sun

We rolled thirteen deep, our course winding seventy miles north and west of our Watertown home. It featured a variety of classic New England highlights like olde town centres and ice cream parlors, lakes and rivers, farms and country stores, cows and chickens, hawks and herons, mountains and views. And best of all, a company picnic and camping at the finish!

It has been a big, big year for us here at Seven. We’ve worked hard. So, for the first time in years we decided to have a non-holiday party, simply for the sake of enjoying the weather, a long ride, and each other’s company.

There are several camping trips in the folklore of the company. Senior Seveneers have long alluded to these trips of yesteryear, but until last weekend, the young ‘uns could not relate.

We were excited as we left the Boston-area. We had no idea what to expect, even as pavement gave way to dirt, as we crossed into New Hampshire, as the road turned up and up and up. And when we arrived thirsty and exhausted, we found that a dedicated few had arrived early and prepped the food, grills, chairs, darts, horseshoes, and quite lite rally every other amenity a party-goer could want. Our fatigue quickly faded.  Every few minutes people would arrive, by bike or by car, until every chair was filled.

A plate of cookout food and craft beer

Seven Cycles fire barrel

Based on the laughter and smiles it was clear that the company, as a whole, was looking to cut loose and relax. Kids scrambled in and out of the circle. People left for short hikes and took naps in the hammock. By 6:00 there were three grills cranking out burgers, dogs, kebabs, and plumes of smoke.  Tents were set up and as the cool mountain air descended upon us, the bonfire was lit.

It carried us to midnight.

It’s no secret that we have a pretty special group here at Seven. That more than half of us rode our bikes the 70 miles (and some rode further), tells you all you need to know about who we are and what we do. These would be our sixth and seventh consecutive days together, but the only arguments we managed were over horseshoes.