Ride with the herd at Burnt Orange event

By Ian Dille
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, October 30, 2008

Four years ago, the University of Texas Cycling Team (of which this author is an alum) decided to raise money by hosting a bicycle rally. It was the start of the fall semester, and they needed money for travel to opposing colleges and cash to pay race entry fees. They conferred with the leaders of the local cycling organizations, who told them putting on a one-day tour within their estimated time frame would be an impossible feat. They'd need at least six months, the experts told them. They had six weeks.

The team members chose a date in November, tempting the gods of weather, and a route starting in Blanco, a jewel of a town in the Texas Hill Country but also the bane of many a hill-hating cyclist. They persuaded locals to let them place portable toilets and rest stops on their properties. They printed T-shirts, and then printed them again because they'd ordered the original shirts from a non-university-licensed vendor. The team taped fliers to the windows of local bike shops, disseminated post cards and e-mailed the cycling community relentlessly. Only 75 people pre-registered for the ride, 60 of them in the last week.

On the morning of the inaugural Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour, it drizzled and spit rain in San Antonio and Austin, where most of the riders would drive out from. Still, 100 people showed up. The riders called the perfectly smooth one-lane roads some of the most scenic they'd ever pedaled. They conquered the climbs, even if they had to walk them, and refueled with free cookies and Gatorade at quaint rest stops - like the one stationed under the looming oaks of the honky-tonk haven, Luckenbach, Texas.

Afterward, everyone reconvened along the banks of the Blanco River, just off the town square, in the shadows of the historic courthouse, with a keg of beer graciously donated by Blanco's own Real Ale Brewing Company. The rally riders and the UT Cycling Team members, who hadn't slept in three days, gorged themselves on brisket and ribs, and sides of potato salad and beans, delivered from Riley's Bar-B-Q, just across the street.

That initial, last-minute event set a precedent for what, four years later, has become one of Central Texas's most rewarding bicycle rallies. Sunday, the UT Cycling Team is expecting more than 400 registrants at the Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour. It's an event perfect for families, with a "candy stop" along the 10-mile route, as well as hammerheads, who'll take on the lung-busting hill up Old Tunnel Road on the 80-mile route. Twenty-five and 40-mile routes are offered, too.

Last year, the proceeds from the Sweatin' Burnt Orange Bike Tour helped the cycling team win the conference title.