BIKE: Moving back to Austin area

[Chuck_Thomas]

Hi Dennis, drop me a line when you start riding it.  I take that route
everyday from North Austin (Lamar & Rundberg area).  I wouldn't
recommend Greenlawn because as you noted it is rather narrow.  It also
has a lot of curves and motorists sometimes loose sight of you around
the curves.  I would recommend instead staying on the feeder road and
cutting arcoss the Target parking lot then crossing to the sidewalk
beside WalMart and following that up to the Dell campus.  It's really
not too bad to cycle through.  The motorists are usually so clogged up
that they can't move so you end up passing them.  It's hilarious hearing
people here complain about how stuck they are to their cars and how
expensive and time consuming it's getting.  They are surprised to hear
that I haven't bought gas since April, but still they sit in their cars
and still they complain.  

-----Original Message-----
From: forum-bicycleaustin.info-bounces
[mailto:forum-bicycleaustin.info-bounces] On
Behalf Of Dennis Abbott
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 10:45 AM
To: forum-bicycleaustin.info
Subject: Re: BIKE: Moving back to Austin area

OK, I am definitely headed back to Austin to work for Dell.  Let me just
say that the area around Dell now looks like someone took a Xerox copy
of the crappiest part of Houston and copied it over to Round Rock.  What
in the hell are they building all that road for?  Are they going to look
back in 5 years when petrol is $6 a gallon and say "hmmm, maybe we
misallocated a few resources over here".  From first glance the area
looks impossible to bicycle through daily.  I still can't believe they
built all that road and the possibility of something as simple as a bus
stop did not even occur to them.  Its not even possible to drive a car
to Dell, the parking is at its limit. 
While I poo pooed Wells Branch in my earlier post, it now looks like the
best option.  I can probably cut through Grand Avenue Parkway and run up
the feeder to Greenlawn.  Greenlawn has no shoulder and the lane is not
that wide either.  My best bet is to take the lane and arrive at 7:00
instead of 8:00 in the morning.  Since I will be temporary living for a
while maybe I can find a good route before I settle down.

Ya know they could have easily developed that area into a much higher
density mixed-use development.  The property value would have been
enormous over time.  What a missed oppurtunity.  That place was a
pasture 10 years ago.  There is absolutely no regionally-aligned thought
going into developing the Austin metro area.

That said I am just stuck on Austin.  I am mentally attached to the
area.  The first thing I am doing is packing my touring bike and doing a
trip from Blanco to Fredricksburg to Kerrville back to Blanco.  A trip I
took right before leaving Austin 2 years ago.  Something good is going
to come out of Peak Oil in Austin Texas and I plan on being part of it.
The city has lost its spirit but its still humming along right under the
surface.

Dennis Abbott


On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:23:46 -0500 (CDT), cjwyche <cjwyche>
wrote:
> @Chuck
> 
> Stop it. You've ruined my charade that I would be the ONLY nut to 
> commute from 45th to RoundRock (and back) everyday.
> You are talking about 2hrs and 10 minutes EVERY(week)day out of your 
> life listening to whizzing traffic. At my last job I biked 1hr 15 
> minutes EVERY(week)day, but had neighborhoods and a couple 3+minute 
> hills + a radio to keep me interested and I still felt (but not much) 
> the drain on my other extracurricular activities. 2+ hours? Every day!

> At least my son is out on his own now so neither he nor my wife would 
> be really missing me.
> 
> How do you do it?
> 
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 Chuck_Thomas wrote:
> > Welcome back Dennis.  I too work at Dell Round Rock campus and live 
> > in North Austin.  I bicycle commute 21 miles round trip everyday 
> > year around. [SNIP] We have two cars but the 2nd one is rarely used.

> > -chuck-
> --
> ge||ge   1/2 of cjwyche (see www.io.com/~cjwyche)
> 
> 


--
Dennis Abbott
902 Estes Dr
De Pere, WI 54115

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