The SATN Episode

Brooks I'm going to start recording here. We're going to give it a clap. Do you want us to all do that? No, just me. Okay. Are you everybody ready? Yeah. All right. Hello and welcome to the Mountain Biking Podcast. This is your host, Brooks Lawson, aka the Mountain Biking Realtor. And you can find all things Brooks at brookslawson.com Today is April 1st, it's April Fool's Day How many times did you guys get got today?

Dale Zero so far My.

Greg Kids got me twice this morning They said the dogs had an accident in the house, maybe search around the house for it And they got me at the end and said, no, you're faking it Seven year olds, So.

Brooks We're going to do a quick guest intro trail this is going to be the satin podcast we're talking about the south austin trail network and here we have if you know anything about south austin trail work you know these people already but i'm gonna go ahead and let them introduce themselves we'll start with you over here uh.

Greg My name is greg clip i uh i lead the uh the group one on uh the tuesday crank and drink rides uh i've been riding the the satin trail network for i mean probably 10 years at this point.

Carl Um i am uh carl zapfi.

Brooks There goes my camera, Nailed it. Thanks, Greg.

Greg Dynamic.

Carl I'm a dynamic speaker. I knock over phones.

Brooks Good job. So I want to just get straight to it because of the brass tacks.

Greg What about Dale?

Brooks I'll edit that out. Sorry.

Dale Hi, I'm Dale.

Brooks Dale, go ahead. Sorry.

Greg He's just Dale, guys.

Dale Yeah, I'm just Dale.

Greg That's all it is.

Brooks Just Dale. Okay, well, we're going to have a follow-up. we're gonna have a follow-up episode with dale he's gonna talk a lot more but he's you know part of the satin crew so he's just here with us to talk about satin we're talking some other things later um so let's get straight to the brass tacks uh greg why is your profile picture on strava a parrot uh.

Greg At this point it's a legacy image from the original graffiti that was underneath mopac bridge uh i took a photo of it and then a few weeks after i took that photo it got covered up And I was like, well, that's going to be the perfect image to represent me in Strava. And anyone that's been around the trails long enough knows that particular image from underneath Mopac.

Dale Do you know the artist?

Greg I do not. I have no idea.

Dale Dribb on social media, Instagram.

Greg Okay, all right.

Dale Give him a shout out there.

Brooks Dribb, how do you spell that?

Dale D-R-I-B. Yeah, or excuse me, his street name is Dribb. His Instagram name is That Bird.

Greg Is he responsible for a lot of the octopuses as well?

Dale No, actually, the octopus is his buddy as well. That's Taco. Okay. So you can find him, Taco. Or no, he's the main fish on Instagram. So yeah, our satin street artists.

Carl Street artists are under bridge artists or whatever.

Greg I think that's one of the joys of the trail network is the artwork throughout the entire system. And finding all those little tidbits that are left behind. And someone posts a particular image and I try to seek it out on my ride the next time I'm out.

Brooks Yeah, there's a lot of it too. um so do you want to do kind of a longer introduction like greg tell us how you got into mountain biking how you started mountain biking in south austin like how old did you start with other kind of biking or i.

Greg Uh believe it or not despite my lack of any technical skills right now i used to work at a shop up in chicago uh late 90s uh started in 1998 all the way through 2006, a shop called Deerfield Cyclery. I worked there. There wasn't much of a cross-country scene, but it was more of a urban free ride. So I had a nice little hardtail, was doing drops off of loading docks, going downstairs. And back then, it was hard-pressed to find people wearing a helmet. So I think about the stuff that I used to do as a kid. I'm like, I would not have allowed allowed myself to do that if I, if I had tried it nowadays, but, uh, I took a break from mountain biking, um, in the mid two thousands, late two thousands came down to Austin when I met my lovely wife. Uh, we were up in Rhode Island, um, moved here in 2009. Um, and when I got here, I had my bike shipped down from Chicago. Uh, and at that point it was a, a, it was a 1999 S works hard hardtail with the linear pull brakes. I had 100 millimeters of front travel on it, which, you know, back in 1999, I was like, you know, that's like a free ride bike. And I started to ride the Barton Creek Greenbelt around here. This is before I knew about satin and broke the frame within the, I think the third ride and just realized I was under-biked for what Austin had in store. So I got a new hardtail, a Giant Ecstasy, ATX bikes was the ones that Introduced me to that bike, Um, and that's when they started pointing out the, uh, the, the trail network behind the shop there, started riding it. Um, it was before Strava. So I just kind of explored and every time I'd go out on the bike, I'd go a little bit further on the trail and notice that, you know, a cut through and, and explore that the next ride. Um, but then the trails are really just what was behind ATX bikes, uh, behind the Velo Way there. Um, then a buddy of mine introduced me to Strava on, you know, I know it's a, you know, A lot of people dork on this stuff, but Strava is what allowed me to find the trails that were beyond the main network and doing the flyby feature. I could see where other riders were riding, and I tried to locate those trails the next time I was out. And for years, I just rode by myself. I was not a group rider. I didn't know any other people that rode. So just solo out there on Strava, trying to follow that stuff, putting up top times for myself and just trying to compete against myself. Um, and that's where I met Carl. Uh, I started some, you know, messaging you on, on Strava about, you know, trail maintenance that you were doing and new trails that were, were being discovered and, you know, kind of exploring that and, uh, you know, doing trail, you know, reports. And after a few years of that, uh, you know, a buddy of mine, uh, said, you know, here's a, you know, there's a bunch of guys behind ATX bikes on Tuesdays, you know, doing these group rides. You know, would you would you come out? I'm not really going to do that. But then there was a visitor from out of town that came in. No one that I knew, but he did the Strava flyby the same way I was discovering trails. He discovered me on one of the flybys and he messaged me on Strava and says, you know, hey, I'm from the East Coast. I see you do a bunch of trails around here. here. You know, would you, you know, take me out and show me, you know, what satin has to offer? And, you know, I did a few rides with him. It was the first time I've ever ridden with another person here in Austin. Um, and then he had to get going because, you know, Hey, I want to ride Tuesday before I have to leave. Are you available? And I was like, no, I, I gotta work. But I was like, I've never ridden with these guys, but I know they meet up behind the shop at Tuesdays at six o'. And so he went to the crank and drink ride by himself and messaged me that night and said, if you haven't been out to the, you know, that group ride, you are missing out. Those are a bunch of crazy mofos. The group, you know, the attitude is positive. The competition is strong. I was like, all right, fine. So the next week I went out with him, did the first crank and drink ride. ride. And Carl, I met you face to face for the first time after, you know, messaging out Strava. Oh, so you're Greg Clip. Yeah. You put me in charge of leading a group the very first time I was out there.

Dale Sounds about right.

Greg I think you had me sweep.

Carl Imagine that.

Greg I think you had me sweep group one and you talked me up and I was so nervous because I had never done a group ride.

Carl Yeah, but I'd known your speeds and stuff. I could see what you were capable of. So I knew where you fit.

Greg It kind of you know yeah uh strava.

Carl Is good for you know a lot of things you.

Dale Were a legend.

Greg Yeah a lot a lot of people knew me before i knew them showing up then um but i ended up sweeping group one um and i think i had maybe just two or three people that that tagged along with me um i think chris felts was probably one of them um and everyone gave me positive feedback and And then I think whoever was leading that group, group one, the next week, they didn't show up. Uh, and I ended up leading it. Uh, and it's just, it whooped my butt. Um, but it was a, it was a push that I was unable to do, you know, myself. And it was a type of an exertion that, you know, it, well, you know, you got people breathing down, you know, your neck and you're constantly aware of the riders behind you. And you keep trying to go faster and faster and faster. And it just became addicting at that point and now I'm obsessed with not only leading groups but working with you guys on route ideas and things that will. Not only allow, you know, newer riders to, to participate, um, you know, the, the shorter routes, but having longer variations of those short routes on the same ride. So the, the more competitive riders can also do the same, you know, the, the, the same route plan, but also extended at the end of it and get everyone back to the shop at the same time for, you know, a social gathering and hanging out and, you know, talk about the war stories of, you know, who did what what during the ride and uh you know poking fun uh at each other and you know showing scars yeah so i mean i was and i think there was a it's a little bit of a tangent brooks i'm sorry uh that's okay i think that's what you wanted though yeah.

Brooks Well i got it no i got another quick tangent um let's just settle this right here and now uh is it satin or satan.

Carl Uh don't get me started.

Greg It's it's satin but i love it when people think of uh you know they look at it just quickly and then see and see Satan, and I said, well, you know, it's kind of an aggressive, you know, hardcore.

Carl Pronunciation is in the mind of the reader or sayer, you know, so why are you saying Satan when you're looking at the definition of the smooth cloth in the dictionary is S-A-T apostrophe N. That is satin. That's how the dictionary pronounces satin.

Dale Nobody who has written satin would say it's smooth.

Greg That is true yep when.

Carl We were talking about um smooth crew i thought oh i missed a uh great opportunity instead of calling it smooth crew call it the satin angels you know the satin trail angels and then that really confused people of satin trail angels you give us a longer satin that was one of the reasons for the satin social just to be able to get satin out there in the um, media land to so everyone would say okay satin that's how you say it satin.

Brooks There you go.

Dale On the record i've since yielded i've since yielded and i agree satin but uh yeah in the beginning it was satin.

Greg I'm curious where did you first see that you know that phrase used satin you know for the south austin trail network was it did you did you start that or was that.

Brooks Just coined the phrase carl.

Carl There was a um, bulletin board called uh bike mojo which is now gone it was uh taken over by korean bots or something and it was a great great thing and so a long while ago since i wanted to discuss this system or network of trails in uh south austin go what are we going to call it so i I started a thread that said, and I thought of the acronyms and everything before I started the thread. I go, here's, we're going to talk about the South Austin Trail Network. And this is, and the rest is history.

Brooks Well, that's a good segue, Carl, because you're known as sort of the godfather of satin. So tell us about yourself. Tell about your history with satin, your history in Austin. How long have you been here? How long have you been riding? All that fun stuff.

Carl Oh, well, it started in 1973. And when a bunch of my friends, we took a road trip on bikes from Norman, Oklahoma to Sulphur, Oklahoma to this guy's ranch. And that was a big thing. It was on the front page of the Norman transcript. And so it was a deal. So I've been a roadie for a long time. And when I graduated high school, I went with a friend to Europe. And we stayed over there for two and a half months riding around and put on about 2,000 miles seeing Europe on a bike. And when I came to Austin in 1983 to open my restaurant, I was still a roadie and I rode, you know, and I'd ride down Mopac and, you know, crazy, stupid places on a 360. And then on the news about the third time a guy got killed on 360 doing what he was supposed to the one hey look at me the situation is he was just on you know doing what they were supposed to be doing and then distracted driver killing him um i go i'm not gonna do this anymore i'm not gonna be a i'm not gonna be a roadie it just scared me you know and i knew i'd seen some trails and I'd seen some guys on bikes. And so I bought a, uh, a track card, uh. Uh, rigid, uh, Trek rigid, a 26 inch course and, uh, started hitting the trails and, and, uh, soon of course I saw these trails and I go, why does that trail not connect to that trail? And the rest of that is history, of course. So, yeah, so that was a long time ago.

Greg Was that a, was that the green belt or.

Carl Was there actually? No, you know, even to this day, I don't appreciate the green green belt that much. Cause I tell people I like to ride my bike, not carry my bike. And, uh, and in the green belt, I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, it doesn't matter how, well, I'm not going to say that. Cause I, some of our group is crazy and good, you know, but a lot of people walk a lot in the green belt to get from here to there, you know? So it's not, it's never been my favorite, but, uh, yeah, no, just all around the house and stuff. I've lived in the same house now for 30 years so uh you know and that's another great thing about satin that everyone's house is two blocks three blocks four blocks whatever from a trailhead you know to get onto the satin and it's amazing how many of us are this close to the to the thing so yeah so that's uh that's that's my deal well.

Brooks Dale do you want to go next uh what's your history i know how long you've been in austin how long you've been mountain biking how'd you get into it.

Dale Yeah sure um so yeah Yeah, I was born and raised in Austin. Been here all my life. And I think I got into mountain bike riding when I worked at United Heritage Credit Union right there at the corner of Slaughter and Mopac. It's right next to the Walgreens there. And the owner of ATX Bikes, different owner at the time.

Carl Across the street when it was across the street.

Dale Yeah, where the Bird's Barbershop is now. And so this was circa 2010. And so, uh, the owner from ATX would come across the street to deposit, uh, business checks and he would, he would be on his bike and, uh, and I'd sometimes see him right in from behind the credit union on his bike too. And, um, you know, I was probably close to 195 pounds at this point. Like it was the heaviest I ever was in my life after being a scrawny guy, pretty much all my life. Yeah. I had, I do have pictures, um, to prove, right, right. Right. Yeah. Um, but I just figured I need to start doing something physical and I hate running with a passion. And, um, so I saw him on this bike and I thought, well, that looks fun, you know? And so I started looking into mountain bikes and I bought a Trek, uh, 3,700 with disc brakes from, uh, bicycle sports shop at the time it was still open.

Carl And, uh, We need to support the local guy there across the street.

Dale Hell yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Um, Hey, I did buy some accessories from him, but, uh, But yeah, I wound up buying the Trek from Bicycle Sports Shop and I spent about probably a year riding, I think, mostly Walnut Creek. Some buddies took me up there and showed me Walnut Creek and it was pretty much all for fun. And then I kind of fell out of it. And then fast forward to 2019 and the pandemic, well, 2020, I guess, pandemic starts up and they send us all home. So we're working from home and I'm kind of going stir crazy. I enjoy working from home, but I'm going stir crazy. So I start running, right? Trying to do something physical, even though I hate it. And I quickly remember after like three days of running that I hate running and I'm laying laying on the floor of my bedroom, like passed out, dying, trying to catch my breath, wondering what am I doing? Um, and I'm looking up and my bike's hanging from the ceiling. I'm like, shit, that's right. I have a bike. Um, and so I just kind of looked into what I needed to do to get it fixed up and started riding again. And so I headed out to circle C metro park. I remember some of the trails out there. And for the first time I thought, well, I'm going to go underneath the bridge here under Mopac, you know, cause I saw a bridge and I saw the trail. I was like, well, I never crossed over let's see if there's some more trail and that's kind of when I started realizing wow so there's a whole bunch of other stuff and got on uh trail forks and strava and started trying to figure out where everything goes and um and then realized like trail forks was all misnamed and misrouted and everything was weird and um so I started changing names on there and I referred to I think the onion park trail right as three kings and the first time I met at Carl was Carl posting something about like, why is this trail called this or something like that? That's not what it's called. It's called this. And, and so that kind of started my relationship with Carl and cleaning up South Austin Trail Network on trail forks and all that. Um, so I guess.

Carl You've done an excellent job. It's, it's perfect.

Dale Well, thank you.

Carl Trail Forks is perfect.

Dale Even, even to this day though, believe it or not, I mean, we have 140 miles of trail. I don't know how many like individual trails there are, but there's a lot. And so even like yesterday we had somebody pointing out that one of them was mislabeled. And, uh, and so we're fixing it even to this day and we'll probably continue for a while. But so that was my first kind of experience with South Austin Trail Network. work. And then the second was when we went to Bentonville with Brooks in 2020. And I experienced that for the first time. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then came back to Satin and I was like, oh, we need features.

Brooks And I've heard this story so many times. I went to Bentonville and I came back and I was like, we need this here now.

Dale Yeah. It's a broken record story, but yeah, that's eventually what happened is just, you know, you see other people and what they have and you start navel gazing. You're like, wow, that's really nice. And, uh, and so I just wanted something like that in South Austin. And so talked to Carl, kind of figured out a spot where we could start doing some digging. And lo and behold, now we have tunnel vision and East Bank stuff and all of that. But shout out also, as long as I'm on that point, I'm not the first person to dig out there. That was Alex Weir and Andre Kashkin. And so they're kind of the guys, you've got that whole spot going with the natural drop, that step up, a couple of little doubles along the fence line. And then I came in added the berms the step down and the three tabletops and had a lot of help along the way but yeah how.

Carl How did everyone find that spot.

Dale Well I, uh i guess exploring mostly um.

Carl What trail were they on while they well east bank.

Dale So east bank um.

Carl Where did that come from well.

Brooks Yeah you want to tell the story carl.

Carl I think i think i think.

Dale Carl's trying to say something here um but yeah that that segues into like maybe one of the best trails we have in south uh south austin trail network east bank.

Carl Yeah it really is uh well tell us the.

Dale History about that actually because i'm kind of curious is well.

Carl I discovered that trail after um the school bought the piece of property where the, peacocks are where you hear the peacocks are so what's now the school over there used to be a farm and so that side of the creek the north side of slaughter creek there was owned by someone and And you shouldn't discover trails on Farmer Jones's property, I say all the time. I go, that's too invasive and you're asking for trouble. You know, just don't do that. That's wrong. And so, but then as soon as the school took ownership of that, East Bank. East Bank. Which is the east side of Slaughter Creek Bank. So East Bank.

Brooks Top three favorite trails dale for.

Carl What on set for what though for for what purpose because people on your favorite purposes you know people on facebook all the time hey i want to write trails and what's a good trail and then i.

Brooks Mean your personal favorite.

Carl Oh okay so.

Dale Let's see uh top three i would have to say well chip chop would have been one um that's rest in peace.

Carl So so.

Dale Rest Best in peace, Chip Chop. I would have to say, I think North Bank is very flowy. Bunny Gravel has a lot of potential. And then East Bank.

Brooks What about you, Carl? What are your favorites? Too many it's like choosing your favorite band.

Carl Well i i'm east bank is very scenic and very, different from a lot of even austin stuff you know and so it's and it's different from a lot of the satin so i like it a whole lot um there's too many and when i'm out riding a lot of times i go this is a good trail you know a lot.

Brooks Of times carl's gonna pass.

Carl Yeah i i gotta pass greg.

Greg Oh i i I preach this trail, and I know it's a controversial subject for some, but disco disco behind that trail. I love that trail to death. I remember the first time I did it without dabbing, and it was just a personal accomplishment. And I feel like for any rider out there that has trouble with it, once you get through without dabbing once, you've kind of figured it out. It does feel good. And you can do it every time after that. But it's a challenging trail. It's a skill check trail. Um, it's got, you know, some, some, some techie rock gardens, you know, there's flow in there. If you get the speed up, uh, you know, a lot of people don't see the flow, but you know, a lot of those features are really easy. If you get the speed up, um, disco, uh, a newer trail right now, a lot of people like, um, Meridian Highline or, uh, you know, as Carl likes to call it, pineapple upside down cake.

Carl I do not like that name. He's teasing me a lot because that's a stupid name and people come up with stupid names and people that don't have anything to do with the trail come up with the names and that's totally wrong. And that guy in there worked hard on that and we communicated with him. What would you like to call it?

Dale Whoever named it that, shame on you.

Greg Meridian Highline, though, for anyone that's been out there to check it out, it runs parallel to the Bear Lake Jeep track out in Meridian. Meridian connecting to avania uh and one of my reasons i like it is not only is it a challenging trail um but it serves a purpose and it provides an alternative way of coming and going out of meridian there uh before you're kind of just stuck with the jeep track and you know as as carl you know knows when we plan the routes that the last thing you want to do is double back on on a segment that you've already taken to go out there repeat trail yes you don't want to repeat Pete Trail, and we don't want to cause too much issue with the golf course out there, so I prefer anything that would keep us away from that. So Highline, Disco, and... I mean, Dale, I would, I would agree with, did you say North bank?

Dale Yeah. I think North bank as well.

Greg North bank is like the OG trail.

Carl And my wife calls it, we, we called it the fun trail for a long time. That's the fun trail.

Greg Yeah.

Carl Cause she liked it, you know, and, and, but we like it too. You know, that's.

Greg Well, it's, it's, it's, it's nice. Cause it's got the, the, the, the, the G outs that you can dip in and out of, if you want to add a little spice to it, but it's, it's, it's a fast trail. It's got great flow and it's open to all riders. You know, my wife rides it with me. She can do that trail. My kids can do it. I mean, they have a little challenge with, you know, some of that, that, that, that rocky part. Yeah. But, you know, that's one of the OG trails and, you know, no matter what happens that, you know, that'll be one of my top, you know, top trails out here.

Dale It's amazing how different it is from like, you know, you got aesthetic, you got Javier's, you got South Bank, Dixie, every single one of those trails. Very, very rocky. And then you have North Bank, just this perfect, pristine, smooth flow trail with one little rock garden.

Greg I don't know how it stayed that way. I mean, all of the trails just from erosion and just from use. I mean, North Bank is one of the highest used trails around here. And, you know, look at Maxwell's Slaughter Creek. You know, five, six years ago, it was fast, flat, and flowy.

Brooks Hill of life.

Greg Yeah. Yeah.

Brooks Let's talk about erosion.

Greg Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, you know, you look at those trails now and, you know, they're still great trails. I love them, but they're completely different from where they used to be. And I feel like North Bank is just kind of that trail that never changes.

Carl I get a lot of pleasure out of looking how trails mature from inception and 10, 15 years later. I think that it must, it's like bottom land, like bottom farmland, that it just keeps depositing dirt on it as opposed to.

Dale That's exactly it, man.

Carl Washing it away. Yeah, we're lucky to. Yeah, you think you're in the great northwest forest or something when you're going through there because it's dirt. What's this? What's this underneath our tire? Can we segue from here? Greg said something.

Brooks We can talk about whatever you want, Carl.

Carl Oh, great. Great. Because Greg said something that was important about trail sanitizing and altering trail because you had great joy from conquering Disco Disco. And if someone had removed a bunch of rocks or something.

Dale And they have.

Carl Well, yeah, that that trail wasn't meant to be. I sanitize trails a lot. I'll go out with a hammer because that trail was not designed, not necessarily that one, but trails were not designed to have annoying rocks. And it's a, it's a, it's a balance. I'll say that it's a balance that, you know, something that will just tear your tire. That's, there's no skill in, hey, look, my tire didn't rip on that jagged rock that has now come up from the tread going down that much, you know.

Dale Yeah, can I piggyback on that actually? Actually, you know, there's another example and this actually gets brought up a lot. And so I kind of want to address it because it's a bugbear of mine. And regarding like Walnut Creek, for example, is a good case. BMX loop, you know, from time to time we'll throw dirt on roots or something like that or cover up something that's getting eroded and somebody will complain that like we covered up their favorite route and the names in the trail, right? So it's BMX loop and it's intended to be a smooth fluid trail and that's the way it was intended to be. And so when trails start getting eroded and somebody goes and puts more dirt on there, they're not sanitizing it, they're restoring it. So, yeah.

Brooks Exactly. He who builds the trail decides the way it's supposed to be. Correct.

Carl Well, no, I'll even, there's an argument against that because after a while, like, okay, that's not designed, that's not how the original trail builder might have designed it. But it's become such an iconic thing that don't change it. You know, so, and yes, I, of course, I agree with that sentiment of, you know, that the trail better, whoever that is, should have pretty good say about what it is to be. But, yeah, after a while, the public domain becomes a more trumping cause, you know. Yeah, once it becomes the community thing and not so material thing. Yeah, mm-hmm.

Greg I don't know if it's, you know, some of the stuff that gets me though, it's not so much sanitizing. I understand like the need to, you know, knock down some rocks, but, you know, and some trails where someone does a cheater path or something around a techie feature where the feature itself is part of that trail. Um, and then once that, that, that cheater path gets cut, it just naturally starts being broken in and then it becomes a mainstay of that trail. And that's hard for me sometimes just because I want to see people try to challenge themselves and do the original lines. Lines but you know sometimes those original lines disappear um and they just become. This this this new cut through that people you know had put in there and i know there's a few spots on disco um not so much before but there used to be that really techie um was it was it was the rock garden right at the the far west part of it um and used to have to barrel straight up through the rock garden and you know used to challenge a lot of people and then something And then something like a cheater line broke in on the right-hand side. So you can always cug the far right side of that line. And, you know, every once in a while I'm riding out there, I'm like, you know, I want to throw some, you know, some sticks down or something and try to discourage people from taking that new line that's formed and try to get them back on the OG line. But, you know, there's also the part where that's just kind of the natural evolution of the trail. And as things erode and become, you know, too difficult, I mean, I guess I got to just reframe from, from having that reaction and just allow that to naturally just kind of evolve.

Carl My, my philosophy on that is, is, um, there's only so much land out there, just like a golf course. I use a golf course as a, uh. Example, at a golf course, they have four different sets of T's because they know that there's only so much land that they can build this golf course on, but they want to accommodate a wide range of skill levels. And so I am adamantly opposed to altering a feature, but I'm okay with an alternate line. I mean, I mean, like a whole separate line, like you were defending the thing on Disco Disco and I just discovered a alternate line on that one rocky thing that's that was not that rocky when it was built. I'm pretty sure. So the alternate line is slower and it's not going to enable a Strava KOM guy, you know, that's trying to. Uh, so that's not a concern, uh, but it's safer and doable. And, and I, even like when you said, oh, you, you, you're telling me, oh, Carl, all you have to do is go up this line. I go, oh, I did it that night before, you know, when we on a crank a drink, when we did that, yeah, you just power through it and, you know, it's really easy, but sometimes I don't want to do it. You know, sometimes I go, you know, sometimes it's at the end of the ride and I'm tired and I don't want to, uh, put myself at risk. And so, uh, alternate line to me is, is a fine thing, you know, and I, uh, EMBA says the same thing. They, they're okay with, uh, alternate lines, you know, because they know there's more than, not everybody. body. Our perception of mountain biking skills are very skewed because our group, a lot of them are pretty skilled. I mean, there's state champions. But then there's those new people that say, oh, well, this is not fun because they took us all over this stuff. And so, You know, I, I build it for you and I build it for, uh, oh, you know, these jumper guys. And, uh, but I also have to accommodate my wife who is not the strongest rider, but she enjoys getting out there, you know? So, and she, and she goes, oh, North Bank's so hard. I go, what are you talking about? Well, you know, there's that rock garden. I go, that's 20 feet. That's 20 feet. walk your bike 20 feet and and enjoy the other nine tenths of a mile and she i've finally convinced her that okay yeah but so always walk if you can't do something you know don't alternate don't don't you know don't smack down that line because i think a lot of us enjoy going through that rock garden and seeing how fast we can do it right the on north bank the one rock garden yeah Yeah, below the little jump thing.

Brooks Well, let's talk about Crank and Drink. So for those of you who don't know, Crank and Drink is a weekly ride. It happens on Tuesday nights, 6 o'clock, behind ATX Bikes. Talk to me about where did it come from? Whose idea was it? How did that come to be?

Carl There's a lot of fuzzy history. Why is it fuzzy? Well, because, because I'm old. Shut up. Uh, and it was a long time ago. Um, yeah, so we used to do some stuff out of Dick Nichols. We'd start out Dick Nichols and then we'd have a beer afterwards. And, uh, and then maybe that stopped for a little bit. And then, uh, Hey, how about behind this bike store? And, uh, because they'd moved to the new, you know, ATX bikes moved from across from Dale's old workplace to where they are now. And so I started going. But the reason I promoted it was because the satin was a –, underutilized resource. I thought, you know, there wasn't, and still is when the, you know, you think about going to Walnut on a Saturday afternoon, are you going to run into anybody? I mean, not literally run into, but could you run into somebody? Yeah. Pretty easy. Cause there's a lot of use there. Well, you spread out our users over 140 miles and you never see anybody. I go, this was a beautiful Saturday morning and I just rode 30 miles. And to be fair.

Dale This was also pre-pandemic right so.

Carl Things things definitely changed oh yeah long this was a long time ago how.

Brooks Long ago was it.

Carl Well the name the name uh going back to that same bike mojo uh, 12 12 years ago we started talking about it and i started a thread and i go we're gonna do a um I'm riding a vibe South and somebody says, oh, you can't use that. That's a trademark. That's a trademark name. You can't say riding in vibes. So I thought, oh, what else can we call it? So crank a drink. So that was. Yeah, maybe. 12 years ago, probably that had an official name and we'd been doing it for a while before that. And the reason we, the, the reason behind crank it. Oh, again, the reason that I promoted it for so heavily for a while was to educate people to the satin and we'd have people show up and go, God, I live next to Dick Nichols. I mean, literally I live, not me, but someone would say, I live next to Dick Nichols. And I never knew this stuff was back here. Like you going underneath Mopac, you know, that, that aha moment, you know, they, They, and people just don't know. And it's right there. And it's, it's a unique, um, system, I think, you know, I mean, where else is there 140 miles of urban trail that really, when you're on it, you think you're in a state park or you driven 50 miles to pay $10 to get in, to ride these, this kind of trail. I don't know.

Greg So how did it work back in the day? I mean, I'm relatively new to the, the, the crank and train. I started probably 2021, I think, right when kind of the lockdown restrictions started to lift back up. But, I mean, did you all even have a ride plan? Did you just show up and say, let's head east or head south?

Carl We had a ride plan. Yeah, we'd have a ride.

Dale Again, fuzzy history. I can fill in my first crank and drink experience for you.

Carl All right.

Dale There was no ride plan. Well, maybe there was, but it existed in Carl's head and there was a vinyl banner that was about like, what, four or five feet long that you had the map of satin and, and Carl would stand there with his pointer and he would point on the map where we were going to be going.

Carl That was from a satin social. That map was made for a satin social. Yeah. So that was good. Yeah. So, yeah. And then it got bigger and then we would maybe have some trail conflict and maybe then it got more organized, you know? Maybe more organized and and when did how did you how did i convince you to start doing it and you do you do that's a better job than a better job than i do and it's so much fun to read your uh.

Greg I i i think what i just started i started you know emailing you and uh i start this.

Carl Is wrong carl.

Greg Oh no i you know i said you know carl i got some you know great ideas for you know a route for next week if you don't have anything you know set up and i used to you know put them put them together on strava and i'd send you the link on strava and you're like oh this looks really good you know and after a few of those i think you said like you know just go ahead and post it you know post it send it out and i started sending it out and you know the the biggest issue i had at that point and you probably had it when you're doing the original you know pre-ride discussions for crank and drink was you know you get up there and you start rattling off every single segment name that we were going to go through um and i used to do this off the top of my head just you know what what that route would look like and after 10 minutes of just talking i'd be like all right we're ready to ride and just i'm looking out over a sea of 30 blank faces like what what the what the heck did he just talk about um and then you know it was always challenging for me to give that talk and after realizing you know no one learned anything from it, other than me flexing my knowledge of the trail names, I think it became what it is today, where we post a ride summary. The ride leaders that have volunteered use that summary as kind of a guide while they're looking at the map. But there's no pre-ride discussion of what we're doing. It's just saying, hey, these are the groups. Get behind your ride leader. The ride leader knows what we're doing, and we're going out there. And I think that's a, it's an easier way of, of definitely.

Dale And P.S. It's a drop ride. Good luck.

Carl Yeah. Yeah. It's a no drop ride. If you can keep up, that's, that's our job. Uh, and it's great to get it out, like on Thursday that you've, you started, that was a good thing so that everyone can pre-ride it, or at least the ride leaders and everything. It's interesting too, that, that, uh, I appreciated Greg because there's only so many people and Kat is the same way. She, she thinks trails and she, some people can say, okay, when we're saying those 15 trails in a row they're mentally going okay yeah you turn at the tree you know and you go under the bridge and as you're following along not everybody does that and some people say i don't even know the trails now and they've been you know i could name some names but i'm not going to but.

Brooks No there's definitely i mean there's so many trails back there and yeah i lead rides at walnut and that took me like 150 rides probably till i could actually know all the trail i still don't know all the names but i know where they are and where to go um and satin has just like 10 times more trails so yeah i'm just i don't have that i'm not like i don't have the map in my head like some people do yeah.

Greg A lot of people ask because i don't use navigation and i mean either i just know how do you remember that like you were talking about where if you're just going through the names you're kind of visualizing the the whole route and i know downhill riders that's how they They visualize their downhill course. They're basically, you know, at the top of the slope and they're visualizing every turn throughout the entire course. And that's the same approach I take to the crank and drake group rides is I visualize the map that was prepared and kind of, you know, walk myself through it. And, you know, while I'm leading a group, I'm still thinking about it. I'm like, all right, I'm on this segment. What's the next turn? What's the next turn? And, you know, I'm not daydreaming. And I'm constantly thinking about what's the, what's, what's the next feature that's coming up, what's the next turn and keep everything together.

Carl And so, Brooke, when you, when you go home, I tell people to learn these trails, you know, just do the crank and drank. And then when you go home. Look at your Strava route and kind of follow along and go, Oh, that's a disco disco. Oh yeah. I remember that tree that we turned on to, you know, uh, turned around onto forbidden fence line or whatever, you know, and just kind of that's, I encourage people to, that's how you learn the thing is that you go home and you just kind of re play it and say, Oh yeah. Okay. That's what we were on.

Dale Oh, so that, and allowing yourself time to get lost to like, I'm a, I'm a big advocate for trail signage. You've, you've helped to put signs up. I put signs up. You've both put signs up. Like, I think, I think, um, we need a lot more signage. There's a lot of people who are against that. Um, and they're like, Oh, I'll need a sign to know where I'm going. And, um, you know, appreciate the beauty of getting lost and everything. And, um, you know, I'm of the mentality that the signs don't prevent you that like, um, if there are signs there, that doesn't stop you from, you can ignore them basically, but, but people need them. But regardless, regardless, let me get off of signs here. The point is just, I think the way I learned satin was by just letting myself get lost essentially. And just giving myself the time to say, I don't know where the ride's going to go. I'm going to give myself like three hours and enough water here. I'm just going to start writing. And once I don't know where I am, I'll, I'll look at the map then, you know, if I am like, now I need to go home. Where am I, you know, find your way back and then try to find my way back. And I think, yeah, I think if you just, I think if you just just kind of not focus on navigation and just go out there and explore it, you're a lot more likely to learn the network because you're going to be relying on context clues and you're going to be looking at more things. Um, and so I think that's a good way to, um, get used to satin and also just, uh, remembering that like slaughter Creek kind of cuts through like most of it and using the Creek is like a natural guide, you know, I'm which side of the Creek am I on? Have I crossed it or have I not crossed it? And, um, and how far am I in like relation to Mopac or something like that?

Brooks Well, same thing with like driving navigation. If you put on GPS to get where you're going and you get there, you have no idea where you are.

Dale Right, right. Yep.

Carl That's excellent.

Brooks Um, so I guess I want to talk about ride etiquette and social etiquette regarding, uh, riders, hikers, dogs, et cetera.

Greg That's a touchy subject.

Dale Oh yeah.

Carl Well, let's talk about etiquette, uh, group ride etiquette first, since we're talking about satin and crank and drink. And I have a list that I used to put up about stuff. And some of the important things are, well, I'll say one being the last group having and I'm trying to remind you all to tell me to tell the group this, that the sweep of each group needs to tell people that are coming opposite us. Us, there's more coming, you know, there's more coming because I can't tell you how many times, uh, I've encountered almost, you know, a guy and did they tell you that I was back here, you know, that we were still coming and they go, no. And, and, and one time, of course the guy was lying, you know, cause the sweep right in front of me said, I told him, you know, and so can't always trust what the guys, but, but that's a real easy thing to say is more coming, you know, more coming don't you know keep your head up because they're coming so that's that's an important one and if you drop off a ride tell them tell the your group that you're dropping so we don't wait for you at the next uh thing now some of those groups don't wait for anybody anyway you know i do know i know but uh yeah so uh yeah that and then the marco polo marco polo, It's interesting.

Greg There's the dynamics within the group itself. There's the group-by-group dynamics and how those groups interact with each other. And then how the overall ride interacts with other trail users. And I think there's three layers that a lot of people don't realize. Everyone's trying to balance and harmonize.

Carl How much do the ride leaders get paid?

Greg Nothing.

Carl Oh, really? Really? No. Okay. Are they just out there to have fun too?

Greg Every once in a while, I get a thank you.

Carl Oh, every now and then.

Dale So they shouldn't, they say you wouldn't be too concerned with unsolicited feedback then.

Carl Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Greg But, you know, leading a group, you know, I try to set a pace. I'm not trying to go out there and do PRs. And some people, you know, they want to push it on a certain segment and they'll ride up, you know, right on me. And I mean, that's fine. If you want to ride up on me and pass me, just to say, you know, I want to hit this segment, you know, go ahead, pass. But, you know, my job is to, you know, as I see it, is to maintain a solid pace for the duration of the entire route as opposed to, you know, one particular segment. So if some people want to get after it, like, you know, one of my pet peeves is when someone's right on my heels and it just... It concerns me because I know if I, if I, well, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, you know, it puts a lot of pressure on me to make sure every line choice I, I, I make is clean because if I don't have a clean line choice, I'm going to have someone who's going to crash into me and it stresses me out. Uh, I mean, it, it causes me to, you know, to ride really fast, but I, you know, I don't want to get done with 18 miles and, and collapse. And, you know, I feel like there's a dynamic where riders got to realize that there's a spacing, you know, concern that they need to address while in a group ride. Well, you know, don't fall too far back, but, you know, also don't ride on the tire of the person in front of you. And if you start losing the group, you know, don't be competitive. Allow the people from behind you to pass you to keep that group together. And ultimately, if you start slipping down the group, that's what the sweep is for. And the sweep will either help you get back with the group or advise you that, you know, hey, just drop off and get picked up by the next group. But, you know, a lot of these people, it's either that they don't think about it or being very competitive. And it's almost an attack on them if they allow someone to pass them.

Carl You mean on their ego?

Greg Yeah, I don't know. I think it makes for a better ride experience if everyone leaves their egos behind and just realizes there's a group dynamic we're trying to maintain. And if people appreciate that, it makes it for the overall ride experience is much better for the entire group. And if one group is doing well, it kind of trickles down to other groups, I think. Um you know unfortunately carl i think you you're in social group you're you're left picking up some of the fragments of you know people that trickle out of group one two and three and you know you're picking them up and i'm kind of curious you know this is a drop ride um you know so the the ride leaders have an obligation to to kind of you know maintain the group but it's not their job or it's not that you know the idea of the right to keep everyone together um do you feel pressure when when you're riding social to not allow anyone to drop out of that because there's no group behind you?

Carl No, because that's another huge benefit to the satin. You feel like you're out in the wilderness, but you're 300 feet from the 7-Eleven. You can always find a street and say, oh, this is where I am, and find your way home. So that's not a – I just – for the social, I want those because they're usually new people and I want them to have a good experience, you know, and not everyone does that comes out because... They've, uh, we've had the complaint before. I thought this was the slow group and I go, well, it's the slowest group, but it's not necessarily the slow group. And so people, you know, it's not for beginners. It's, it's definitely not for beginners because.

Dale I don't think any group ride really, unless it says like specifically, this is a training ride or something like that. I don't think anybody should think that a group ride is for beginners. Yeah. I think you should have like some minimal competency before you go and ride with other people.

Carl That's what I said. I encourage people to download Strava so that they can say if you can maintain eight miles per hour on a 10 mile ride out here on these trails, you know, on the trails, then you can you can hang with the last group.

Greg Well, that would just get you to hang, though.

Carl Well, sometimes. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's true.

Greg I think overall speed of all the groups is just over the past year and a half has just increased. You can look at Strava and just see that that increase.

Carl It's just fun watching the progress.

Greg Yeah, I think it's everyone's becoming a better rider. I've seen it. Dale, I'm curious. You used to help out with some of the group leads, two and three. And I know that wasn't your cup of tea. Was it just you just didn't want to lead or was there something about the group dynamic that was irking you?

Dale It's hard. It's work. Yeah, it's not really my cup of tea. I mean, sometimes I can get into that leadership mode. And I did do like in high school, I did ROTC and like this leadership camp and all that sort of thing. So I do kind of consider myself a leader in some sense, but I don't want to volunteer my time and then hear a bunch of flack from people about the pace, this, that, and the other. And I empathize with what you were talking about. When someone's right on your tail, you feel like you need to ride perfect or you're going to, you know, screw the person up behind you. And when you're leading a ride, it's not just the person behind you. It's like the entire group behind you. And so um i don't know i kind of got into this spot where i felt like i could never do anything right and there was this one ride in particular where i was both at the same time too fast and too slow and i was like wow freaking freaking quantum ride leading pace right and so take your pick and uh and i just kind of moved on from it um but i mean that's no offense to anybody like that we ride with i love everybody there but i think when you're in that that mentality and you're giving it and you're just physically exerting, sometimes you don't think about the comments that you make and the way they'll be interpreted by others. And sometimes when you're giving it, you don't interpret comments that people make in like the best way you could, you know, like that's obviously offensive to me right now while I'm giving it. But later on, you tell me that and I might not even care. And so, yeah, there's just, I think ride leaders need some respect. And so that's always something worth keeping in mind. um but i also just kind of enjoy um writing behind greg stevens sometimes you know just being just being able to zone out and keep a pace and well try to keep the pace at least yeah.

Carl Following is fun. It's it.

Greg I, I, I think group three or, you know, for, for anyone that hasn't done the, the, the crank and drink, there's, you know, a race pace group with, you know, it's just, just blistering fast. And then, and then group one, two athletes.

Carl Yeah.

Greg Group one, two, you know, three and then in social and, and, and group three in particular, because it was, you know, kind of in the middle of the pack, I think is a very, it's, it's an interesting group because you got a lot of people that would be that should be riding social but aren't because they're they're trying to push themselves um and then you get a lot of people that should probably be in in group two and and aren't because they they they want to go for a more relaxed ride but you know for me in particular if if i'm out riding and i'm i and i'm relaxed i actually end up riding faster because i'm not i'm not thinking about the the ride itself i'm just enjoying what I'm doing. So you get this weird, you know, tug of war in group three, where there's a lot of people that should be riding in a faster group. And there's some people that should be riding a slower group. And, and, and, and Dale, you've, you've experienced it. And I think other people that have volunteered to lead, you know, group three for crank and drink are experiencing it as well. And, you know, tomorrow we've, we've got a, we've actually split group three and it's going to be, you know, group three and group four. And I'm going to try to emphasize that, that, you know, people in group three, this is going to be like a group two pace with, you know, a few breaks. And then, you know, group four is going to be more towards social and see if we can break that up and kind of eliminate some of that conflict and make it an overall better ride experience for everyone that's in those groups.

Dale Can I give a shout out real quick? So to your point, I had never actually thought about that, that it does kind of become a catch-all group. And so that's probably where some of the difficulty comes to. So shout out to Tate and Ryan for being the two group three ride leaders consistently. They do a great job. Yeah. And those are the biggest groups too, I think.

Carl Yeah. A lot of times.

Greg Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Carl Or a lot of times, one, I go, is there going to be anybody left? And I see one drive off. There's a whole bunch that try that. But the beauty of crank and drank is the way it's designed that you can try and push yourself. But again, that goes to ride etiquette. But if you say, I'm losing the guy in front of me, that's wrong. You know, if you can't see the guy in front of you, you need to let this guy go by and then the next guy go by. And then if you end up in the next group behind you, that's okay because here they come, you know, and we're all going to do the same thing. We're all going to get back to be drinking beer behind the shop, you know. So the way it's designed, there shouldn't be pressure on really anybody, you know, except, group one ride leader well.

Greg I think so you know group one in in particular is anyone who goes off with the race pace knows what they're.

Carl Getting yeah exactly.

Greg So that's just that's just a free for all i don't have to worry about that but with group one you know last week you know we rolled out and you know my my sweet spot for a group is you know about eight to ten riders.

Carl That's the best for.

Greg Preferably what we try and do preferably about eight um because if you get more than that you get get these weird, you know, slinky effects while you're going through features and people don't properly space, people are going to have to stop and it throws the rhythm off. But we rolled out of the park on it. It looked like there was 20 people in group one. And, you know, when I, when I noticed that I will purposely not stop and just push it for the first quarter of the ride. Cause I, I know that part, some of those people in that, in that group shouldn't be in group one, but they're trying to push themselves and i i i'm trying to get them to drop and i don't say that in a mean way i i i know for them to enjoy their ride they'd be better off with group two so i push really hard in the beginning try to fret i like that.

Carl That's a good.

Greg Because because i know if they if i'm pushing and they can't hold they'll drop in the you know the group behind us and that's what the beauty of this ride is you'll get picked up by the other groups yeah.

Dale Greg does the the same thing in like the first 10 minutes of.

Greg The ride.

Dale I'm like oh please dear god just let me hang on for just 10 minutes you know because i know he'll like calm down after a while yeah that first that first few miles it's just like oh god i like i now i know why some of y'all do like the warm-up ride before the ride because just starting off oh yeah.

Greg The whole throttle.

Carl Is hard warm-up ride yeah who does that is that is that on there no this is what causes his uh trauma.

Brooks Uh, who's in charge of the big ass ride?

Carl Uh, Zach Sisson, um, who did a whole lot of finding of trail out on East. It was his vision, the Boggy down and Boggy Diddy. That was his vision. And, um, and, and I think that trail builders, once they finish a trail, they are are proud of it and they want to educate to the public for two reasons because they're proud of it but also to get enough wheels on it to keep it beat in you know and so this is an educational thing and just a community building thing like we do a whole bunch on the satin community you know we uh, do the.

Dale Satin social too.

Carl Satin social yeah that sort of thing and so yeah so he's uh and he had talked to the fast friends people the brewery there so um yeah i rode that today it's it's in pretty good shape it's uh that's gonna be uh 4 20. Yeah uh april 20th um at fast friends at at eight o'clock uh and we're gonna do uh the big east loop is what we call it's about a 26 seven what did you it's on your thing oh.

Dale No i think uh yeah definitely um i think it was about 25 miles.

Carl Yeah a little bit more but uh yeah so it's gonna be fun yeah it's.

Brooks Pretty long ride.

Carl Yeah big ass ride i.

Greg Think it's a unique you know you know especially for me i i i'm not really familiar with those east trails out by 35.

Carl Oh well then see that's the purpose of this.

Greg You know i i I live in Southwest Austin, so, you know, the trails I know are the ones I can get out and explore easily. But, you know, to get out to 35, because I prefer not to drive, you know, if I can ride there, I'll ride there.

Carl You can ride there.

Greg I mean, I'm already, you know, 12, 13 miles deep if I ride out east. And, you know, there's not much room for exploring once I do that, because I know I've got another, you know, 12, 13 miles to get back to the house. So, you know, the Big Ass Ride just, you know, for me, it's an opportunity to just follow people. Commit to it, too. And learn those trails and see those trails. Because every time I go out there, I love them. I think they're challenging. They're unique environments. The east side is nothing like the west side. But, you know, I don't know those routes. And, you know, just to get out there and have someone that, you know, show me those trails and give me the opportunity to experience. I think it's a unique experience. Uh event and hopefully a lot of people come out.

Carl For it i think it'll be fun that when i do that big east loop it's i feel like not that it takes a long time but i i feel like i've been gone like two days or i've gone to a different country or something it's just somehow it's a different environment and it's just and you go through a whole bunch of different ecosystems or some i don't know why it is but it's it's challenging but it's not challenging like rocky and features and and that kind of stuff. It's just very unique. And so it's an opportunity to come out. And I think Fast Friends is doing something. Maybe. I'm not sure.

Dale I don't know. Zach said it's sponsored by Fast Friends. I don't know if they're doing anything.

Brooks That's the brewery?

Carl Yeah. Brand new brewery there on the side of I-35, just south of William Cannon.

Greg I think a shout out to them. But also, I would like to see some of the businesses in the Satin area take advantage of the, the, the proximity they have to the trail network and, and, um, open their doors to make it more inviting for, for bikers. Uh, I know Nomadic Outpost up there off of, uh, uh, Brody. Uh, I would love to see some, uh, um, some bike racks that can accommodate, uh, mountain bike tires. You know, I love Nomadic. It's great spots, uh, great, you know, proximity. And they, they added some bike racks and Carl, I think you talked to them.

Carl I did.

Greg But, uh, you know, the funny thing is they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're not wide enough for a mountain bike tear.

Carl Oh, really? Well, my bike's leaning against the picnic table. I'm not letting them, I'm not putting it away over there. Yeah, I know.

Brooks I was going to say the same thing. Like my bike, if it's not at home in my house, it never leaves my sight.

Carl Your grasp.

Brooks It's an unfortunate, unfortunate side effect of living in the city. Any city really. Yeah.

Dale Greg, you brought up an interesting point. Brooks, do we have some time?

Brooks Yeah, go for it.

Dale Violet Crown Trail. So I was just thinking about this the other day when I was riding out there and exploring it. So the Violet Crown Trail currently ends where Walgreens is there at Slaughter, and it's planned to go all the way out to Buda. And so they took our, what I named was my favorite trail, which was Chip Chop. They took our Chip Chop away to build the VCT. And initially, I think a lot of us were disappointed about that. We're losing single track to 12.

Carl Don't you admit that you've ridden it already.

Dale 12 foot. You never. No, no, no, no. I just kind of looked at it from a God's eye view upon my bicycle. But yeah, so I don't know how I got onto it. It must not have been clearly marked or something. But yeah, I took a turn and here I am on this 12 foot wide gravel trail. But we originally lamented that. But I was out there the other day and I was, you know, trying to exert myself a bit on Genesis and a couple of the other Rocky trails. And I realized I still had to ride home. And then I realized that the Violet Crown trail will be there. And, and, and that's going to be something that cuts through like the majority of Satin. And it's going to give us an opportunity to completely change the way we approach Satin and our routing and, and riding in that we can like, we can give it far away from home and try to improve, get our PR on a difficult segment. And then just ride some basic, easy trail back to ATX bikes.

Carl I've done a lot of PR. I'm on the Violet Crown Trail Advisory Board, and I've done a lot of PR in our community to say don't, give them a hard time. This is going to be a good thing for us because, and you didn't mention that you can ride it when it's wet. So when it's rain, you will be able to gravel bike all over all the Violet Crown Trail and stuff. And it's going to open up so much when we get through to Buda, you know, when it, uh, there's on the 45, um, the new 45 that has the nice, uh, paved, uh, hike and bike trail along it. There's two cutouts. One of them's an educational one, But the other one is the actual trailhead to the Violet Crown Trail when it goes south to Buda. So when you do those two little things off of the trail, one of those is going to be the Violet Crown Trail. And when that opens, when that fence gets cut, booyah!

Dale You know, you mentioned wet weather. And so, you know, trails when they're wet and everything. And that will allow us probably to do a crank and drink after a rain in some situations where it can be trail. Because sometimes, you know, 80% of our route is good to go and basically what we would call hero dirt and then 20% of it is garbage and we can't ride it. And so if the VCT allows us to bypass that 20% and link up the 80, then we have 100% trail route.

Carl It'll be an out and back, you know, but still it'll be as much as we want to. That's a huge, that's a great point.

Brooks Yeah, and then it goes back to what you said in the very beginning, Carl, about, you know, wanting to ride on the road more. And I think it's okay to give away sections. Personally, I'm okay with giving away sections of the mountain bike trails to improve actual urban transit where people can actually go places and accomplish things and not just recreation. I'm totally on board with that personally.

Carl I've ridden the new Violet Crown Trail to Home Depot to buy a screw just because, well, hey, I can ride there faster than I can get in my car.

Greg Well, it's safety corridors too. I mean, trying to connect to the Greenbelt from the South Austin Trail Network, you know, if you want to go do a Greenbelt ride, I mean, it's a heck of an effort just to do that ride, let alone have to take, you know, trails all the way up there. And now, like, to what, you know, Dale's point, you know, you can just hop on the Vial of Crown, have a nice, easy, you know, to and from the Greenbelt and have better access to those mountain bike trails. But from a safety standpoint, just not having to ride Brody there.

Dale So crank and drink Barton Creek Greenbelt win. Just kidding. Please don't.

Greg I've got to rest. Please don't. well you know that you know to that point you know with the it's it's it's difficult for some of the the the riders who want to get out there and just do 15 miles because you're you're already what's that from from atx it's already six or seven yeah they get up there and.

Carl That's like mary moore same idea it's seven miles from the parking lot to get to mary moore parking lot and so mary moore doesn't work for crank and drinks unfortunately because that's a, underutilized area for sure there well.

Greg I think that's what's cool about you know satin though is if you wanted to you can make it a day oh you know plan ahead have you know backpacks i've seen some guys they they got a drop food ahead at certain waypoints well.

Dale What did zach do recently in austin too they had over 100 mile rides like 114 in one day i think.

Carl Yeah yeah well and and steven's gonna do his uh perimeter thing that's a 50 mile of the satin perimeter is 50 miles or so.

Greg That's that's that's wild it's literally just the perimeter i mean it doesn't even get into the meat upset and there's.

Carl A lot inside yeah.

Greg And i i didn't i think he it's not even taking advantage of all the perimeter i think there's more to it so it's kind of exciting to see how that's going to evolve you know i i think right now the the pushes that those east side trails i think that's where the the new uh you know the new ground you know for for satin where this out there, I think it's going to open more opportunity. But, you know, I joke with, not even joke, but I talk with my road bike buddies. I'm like, y'all got to be on a mountain bike. I mean, road biking is too dangerous. And I joke about it with my wife. And it's just, you know, if you're road biking, your chance of death is much higher. Yeah. I mean, because if all you need is one.

Carl You might break a collarbone mountain biking, but you're not going to die.

Greg Yeah, sure. Your chances of crashing mountain biking are much higher. But the chance of catastrophic injury, I think, is much lower. And it makes it, I think people need to realize that, especially in this day of age with so many distracted drivers out there and cars being bigger and being faster. It's just, it's dangerous.

Carl People are being dumber.

Dale I'd drive to Crank and Drink, even though I live less than a mile away, because I was hitting on my way home and coming out, like the dude coming out of the HEB parking lot, you know, wasn't even paying attention, ran right into me, you know.

Greg Was that after mountain biking?

Dale Yeah, that was after a Crank and Drink ride. So I was coming home from Crank and Drink and I was just passing the HEB parking lot and he just.

Carl It was 1.30 in the morning.

Dale No, it wasn't. I mean, and it was just kind of wild because it wasn't that late, but it wasn't very busy. I had my lights on, everything, two lights on. I had my helmet light, and the dude still managed to run into me. And luckily, he stopped. He was very apologetic, and he paid for a new front wheel because he bent my front wheel and everything.

Greg I was about to ask, how was the bike?

Dale Yeah, yeah, right, right, yeah. How was the bike? I was fine, but I definitely gave him what for in the beginning Cause I was like, dude, you screw up my bike and all that. And, uh, he was like, I'm so sorry, but that's the reason why I drive to crank and drink, even though it's way more convenient for me to just ride my bike. It's because I could get killed in the less than mile ride to crank and drink.

Carl I, you know, I drive so I can bring my ice chest.

Dale Well, that's a good point too. Yes. Okay. We need Greg's backpack ice chest.

Carl Yeah, that's pretty good.

Greg Yeah, I'm thinking about bringing it tomorrow.

Brooks There was a guy who tragically passed away at Brushy Creek recently, but that's the only death I've ever heard of when mountain biking, as opposed to road bikes where it's unfortunately a very common thing that happens on a regular basis.

Dale I can't tell you how many times I've crashed, had gnarly just OTBs flying straight into, I've had concussions, but I'm still here, I'm still riding.

Brooks Right. Right.

Dale You know, so.

Brooks I broke a collarbone too. Yeah. And got stitches in my hand.

Dale Yeah.

Carl I always laugh when mountain bikers start to talk. It's like the boat scene in Jaws where they go, oh, that's nothing. I have the, you know.

Brooks Everybody starts showing their scars.

Dale Or, or non-flashbacks. That's roadies. For roadies, it's non-flashbacks. For us, it's the showing the scars.

Brooks You gotta, you gotta have good health insurance for sure.

Carl Yeah.

Greg Well, that's part of the fun with the social after, you know, after we do those group rides is everyone's, you know, it's an opportunity for people who have something in common to discuss that and their war stories from that ride and what they've done before. And, you know, everyone's got their jobs. I mean, there's so many riders that I know in Crank and Drink that I don't know what they do for a living because we don't talk about work. We don't talk about the stuff that's, you know, that's the grind day to day.

Carl We talk about the important stuff.

Greg Yeah, mountain biking. And, you know, how are you doing? How was that ride? What are your plans this weekend to go, you know, ride some more and where you've ridden.

Dale Where you've been, your recent trails. Yeah.

Greg And, you know, my wife, you know, are they, are they married? I'm like, well, I don't know. I never asked. Do they have kids? That's, I don't know. It's a good question. I, I never asked. And then there's, there's a people that I've, I've, I've met and talked to for years at Craig and Drink and it's.

Carl It's so, but my wife can't, she can't understand it at all that, you know, because when they talk, they, they know by the end of the day that the The new person they just met, they know where they were married, how many kids they have, and all that kind of stuff. And we don't care.

Greg And it's weird to occasionally bump into those people outside the ride setting and see them in civilian clothes, you know, so to speak. And have that weird look like, I think you look familiar. But, you know, when people are not in their bike helmet and their jerseys and stuff. And, you know, there's so many people that I identify based on their bike. And I see the bike, I'm like, oh, that's who that is. And then, you know, I'll be at Torchy's and there'll be, you know, Vincent, you know, when I first met Vincent, you know, he was there with his kids at Torchy's and I'd never seen him outside of the MomBank setting. And him and I on the opposite side of the patio and we keep kind of, you know, exchanging these looks like, I think I know you. And then the next Tuesday he was there and he, you know, were you at Torchy's the other day?

Brooks I was like I was was.

Greg That you I was like oh it's like you know I I didn't recognize you without the bike helmet.

Dale Yeah you can recognize them from like half a mile away when you're on the bike so seeing like across the soccer field like yeah yeah.

Brooks No no totally and I think it's one of the things that's fairly unique about crank and drank because most of the social rides that I've been on social I put in quotes uh and you know it gets the end of the Ryan is like okay that was fun thanks see you later yeah I'm like okay bye I.

Carl I went to walnut that you're exactly right I went to walnut for the AR just cuz to say well what's this all about and that what what what where'd everybody go.

Brooks We have.

Dale A race to see who will be in the final four every night it's a race of attrition and if you lose you win so.

Greg Now that's, that's, that's fun though. The amount of people that stick around for that. And I think it's, you know, it's, it's been growing and the, the, the fight for the final four is, is, is, you know, like Dale said, is, is a badge of honor. And, you know, I, I expect that to be a harder fight once the weather gets warmer and, you know, you're not, you're not freezing.

Carl And, uh, I laugh because sometimes the ride to my house, Strava rides, and they start at 1 a.m. And I go, wait a minute, Crankin' Drinks on Tuesday, not on Wednesday morning. I've seen that two or three or four times. Tuesdays.

Greg Yeah, I'd get words covered at the door if it was 1 a.m., yeah.

Brooks Well, I got one thing left on my little list here of topics. And that's Greg's incident. Do you want to talk about that, Greg? I've heard secondhand accounts, but one of the things I like to do on this podcast is to get firsthand accounts of everything. Do you want to talk about that?

Greg Yeah, I'll talk about it. I'm happy to do so. And it goes to Carl's point earlier about, is it worth it to pre-ride before the group rides?

Carl That's what I was alluding to. Who pre-rides? Who would do that?

Greg And for anyone that doesn't know, No, it was the December 5th incident where, you know, the, the, the gentleman went on a shooting spree through, through, through Austin. Uh, unfortunately, you know, a large number of lives were lost. Um, and I had.

Brooks You went all the way from Round Rock to San Antonio, right?

Greg Starting San Antonio all the way up to Round Rock. Um, you know, I've kind of disassociated myself with the, the, the facts of it just from a trauma standpoint. I've already, you know, dealt with enough. Um, you know, there's a lot of people that have suffered as a result of this. Um i don't want to diminish their pain and you know i i'm hoping for swift justice in this particular matter but you know from from a from a ride standpoint in the topic that we were talking about uh it was it was one of the the very first times that i i'd gotten the crank and drink early um because i brought the grill and it was a brand new grill um so i didn't ride my bike i drove the the car. And because I drove the car, I was off on my ETA of how much time I needed to get there before the ride. And I was like, well, you know, I got 15 minutes. I can do a quick loop through South Bank. And I just went out by myself within, you know, the first quarter mile. You know, as I entered the trail, you know, as a warm-up, I was pushing myself. And it. What happened first was I thought someone threw a firecracker in front of me. I just, I had visual memories of seeing sparks coming up in front of my bike. I'm not sure what it was, but I think he shot, he was lying ambush style in the woods off to the side of the trail. And I don't know why he targeted me. I think maybe he just wanted the bike for mobility reasons. I have no idea. you. Um, but the first shot missed. And as I'm going by the trail, I'm ever seen out of the corner of my eyes, someone rise up from the ground. Um, and they started chasing after me with a weapon. Um, and you know, I'm not a gun guy. I don't really don't know much about them. I just, I, I, and it was dusk, so I really didn't get too good of a look, but I just remember seeing a weapon in the air. And, uh, the first thing that popped into my head, um, and everyone, it blows everyone's mind when I talk about this is, is, is an alligator. Um, cause the, the trail that I was on, it's, it's about a hundred miles of just wide open, straight single track. And, you know, even though this all happened within a matter of seconds, I, I processed what felt like an entire book of thoughts in my head. And the first thing I thought was if I ride this this trail straight, he's going to shoot me. And. I thought of an alligator and I don't know if this is true or not, but they always say if an alligator is going to chase you, you run in a zigzag because an alligator can't turn. It rides and it runs in a straight line. And that's what I started doing. I started riding as erratically as I could on the trail and off to the right, off to the left, off to the right, off to the left. And I was just, you know, riding back and forth as I just remember hearing gunshots going off. And I didn't even process it. Um, I, I thought it, like I said, I thought it was a, you know, maybe a flare or firework. Um, and it just, I just remember just a, a, a, a flight instinct and just having to get away as quickly as possible. And, and I got hit once in the, in the left elbow. Um, and it, it, it felt like everyone's like, you know, what would it feel like? And it just felt like I hit my elbow really hard on a table.

Carl Like, you know, he felt like he got hit with a rubber bullet. Cause you said somebody was shooting rubber bullets at me when you came back. And I know you don't remember everything that happened when you came back, which is somebody shooting rubber bullets at me. And, uh, and we look at you and we go, Greg, you got shot. You got a hole in your elbow. And, and you, and I.

Greg I didn't even know that. And I think it was Robert, I think who, who first pointed it out and he took some, you know, some photos of it and, and it hadn't processed me to me that someone, you know, know, I, I, I trail network that I was so familiar with that, like felt so comfortable on even at night. And it just, you know, there wasn't a safety issue. So, you know, the first thing that popped in my head was, it can't be someone that was trying to kill me. I thought of maybe it was a, it was a, uh, you know, homeless, you know, individual, maybe trying to defend their territory or something like that. So that's why I thought of like a rubber bolt.

Carl Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Greg I was like, he couldn't possibly have been trying to kill me.

Carl Right. Right.

Greg Yeah, then, you know, I rode all the way back to the shop with a, you know, a bullet hole in my elbow and, you know, called 911 and, you know, someone was, you know, firing rubber bullets at me. And then, you know, you all said like, you know, you've been shot. And that's when I looked down and saw the bullet hole and I just... In shock i.

Carl Ran into the store to get a uh bandage for you if you recall that i was the one that put the bandage on i i did.

Greg Well i i remember you you you took it personally like someone was threatening the trail yeah i know you grabbed the machete and you were about to you're about to run into that trail and oh my god i wasn't thinking about you carl i'm sorry you know i i should probably have held you back hopefully someone else held you back i did uh but yeah it was just a and there's probably what 60 people there you write for a group ride and they they all witnessed it uh you know me coming back and you know it's it was kind of an attack on you know like i said you know something i found safe and and and welcoming and someone had tried to violate that and it was personal at that point it made me incredibly angry that someone would not only attack me but But for everyone else that rides those trails to now have them think about that and like, am I safe out on these trails?

Dale That was the first thing that went through my head.

Greg Yeah. And that's what made me angry. It was just, no, these trails are safe. And I tell everyone the trails are as safe as they've always been. This was a random incident, had nothing to do with the people that are on the trails. They didn't know you, that's for sure.

Carl It wasn't personal for him.

Greg Yeah. Um, and, and, and what was, what was not only my own recovery and processing mentally, what, what, what had happened, but it was important that I get back out there as quickly as possible. And that's why the next Tuesday at crank and drink, I, I, I didn't ride. Um, but I wanted to be there. So, well, yeah, cause I, you know, a bolt hole in my arm. Uh, but I wanted to be there for the, the, the social activities afterwards, because I want everyone to see me and see that I was still enthusiastic about the group, the writing, that I was fine, that I didn't feel unsafe. And I wanted them to see that. So they felt the same thing.

Carl That was huge. It was a healing. It was a healing thing because everybody was traumatized. You know, there's so many what ifs that were I mean, I still get creeps, right? I mean, it's just it's just creepy. I just feel unease talking about it. But that was so heroic, you know, to come and— It could happen anywhere. Yeah, it could happen anywhere.

Greg I just—it was important that people saw me, that I felt seen, and that, you know, I got back out there as quickly as I could.

Dale Are you comfortable with kind of like rehashing what you told me about—well, you were talking to somebody about this, and they said that as mountain bikers, we process things differently. And I don't know if you remember that.

Greg Yeah, so I ended up seeing a trauma counselor.

Brooks That's good.

Greg I... I felt good, but I wanted to talk to someone about it and have them let me know that how I was processing it was appropriate and I was doing it in a healthy way. And my wife was having a really hard time with it. And I don't blame her. She still does every once in a while. But for me, I just breezed past it. It was a traumatic incident, and I immediately put it behind me and tried to focus on just moving forward. And I remember the counselor had told me that, and I don't have any studies personally about this, but he said that people that are active in outdoor activities. Extreme sports, action sports.

Brooks Yeah.

Greg Action sports have this, this, this, your, your, your body is used to processing the now and being focused in the present and what you are doing and not thinking about what could happen or what will happen.

Dale Or what has happened.

Greg Exactly. But it's just what you're doing there in that moment. And that's where your mind is. And if you're on a mountain bike and you have a crash, you know, I'm not thinking about that crash for the rest of the ride. You know, you got to push that behind you because it's going to make the rest of your ride unsafe if you're constantly second guessing yourself. And, you know, extreme athletes, they don't second guess themselves. They, they, they, they, if there's a crash, they just put it behind them, they process it and they move on to the, whatever they're doing now. And you see those, you know, one of the documentaries I love was it a free solo. Is that it?

Dale Oh yeah, with Alex Honnold?

Greg Yeah. Where they're, they're, they're climbing, you know.

Dale Need a bag of chalk just to watch that film. Yeah.

Greg I mean, but their heart rate in that moment is as if they're sitting at a desk. They're not focused on their route up to that point or where they're going to go. They're focused in the now on what they're doing, that next handhold, and that's it. And they're perfectly calm in that moment. And, you know, the counselor said, you know, he thinks that I was processing it very well because I just I I spend so much time doing these social rides out on the satin trail and and being, you know, focused in that activity and in my body. At least I like to think it just has a way of just processing that trauma and putting it behind you and moving on.

Carl Yeah, that was, that was interesting to me. I've told that story more than once about that, that the, that the counselor came up with that, you know, that was cool.

Greg I just.

Carl Made us feel badass.

Greg You know. Yeah. Everyone who rides on these, these group rides or the sand and all you guys, you know, I consider you're all a bunch of badasses and, you know, it's, it's, and that's part of the love that I have for them. And, you know, it's unfortunate that it's unfortunate that that incident had to occur and people had to experience it. But, you know, everyone I've talked to is, is, is, has processed it and moved on, I think. And, you know, you sure you think about every once in a while. And, you know, if I'm coming on, uh, on South or Dixie, that is, if I'm doing Dixie at night by myself.

Carl It's like, oh man.

Greg There better not be anyone else on this trail. Uh, but you know, you just, I just pushed through it and it just, as time goes by, I just feel better and better about it. And, you know, one of the things for my wife to help her heal with it was to take her out there and have her do the exact path. Path she goes i she goes i want you to walk me through the exact path you took from leaving the bike shop to going back to the bike shop she goes you know because you keep talking about it and you keep explaining where you were in the straightaway this hundred yards that you had to get through, and and and part of her healing was just to to visualize that and see that where i was where he was where i had to go and how i got back and um it still blows my mind every time i ride through that i'm like i can't believe i did that.

Carl I can understand that because when i crash somewhere every time i go past the crash thing where i hurt my elbow on disco disco for instance i go that's where i hurt my you.

Greg Know and.

Carl I can only imagine i go well.

Greg If you go there today there's there's there's there's police tape still up in the trees and don't.

Carl Have your trophy.

Greg The the the the set and bullet dodger runner-up trip, shout out to jeff for that i think he was the one who came he.

Carl Did he did uh.

Greg But no the the the tapes up there in place and i still think about every time i i go through there and you know and the group rides you know people that know what happened they always ask for me to point it out and you know what direction were you going you know how you do it but you know what's still the only The only thing that I still can't process was the amount of thought that I processed within that millisecond. I mean, time literally slowed down and I, It was probably one or two seconds.

Carl You know, felt like you had the wherewithal to start.

Greg Yeah. That was the first thing that popped. It was just alligator.

Carl It just, just, you know.

Greg Anyways, it's, it's, it's part of the lore of the, the satin trail network now.

Carl It just grows. The legend grows.

Brooks The legend of Greg clip.

Greg Yeah. Yeah.

Carl So when you walked around, when you walked with her, with your wife back to the shop and it was like you know 200 yards to and did she say and this is where 50 guys were just sitting drinking beer while this guy was still out there with the gun did anybody put that together.

Greg No yeah i still like to hear the the stories and gosh i think it was i think it was andrew andrew looked at you and goes so so we still riding, and i think that goes to the devotion of these riders it's like okay well that happened are are we still gonna ride and you know i i and i don't and i actually love it that that some of the guys went out and and they did a north loop they just went in the direction away from where all the yeah where everything was going on and you know i think it's a testament to the the riders and And the love of the trails down there that, you know, people are like, well, I still want to get out and ride it. He's down there. He's not going to bother me. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Carl It shook me up. I just want to drink beer and... And the other testament to the group was that nobody that night said, and how's the bike? Nobody asked.

Greg So, Brooks, you got another minute?

Brooks Yeah, go on.

Greg So that was the one thing that I thought of. It was the next morning. I was like, oh, man, I didn't check the bike.

Carl I was, you know.

Greg I'll call it 911.

Dale Your bike's in the garage like, I'm okay, it's okay.

Carl No bullet holes.

Greg And they're loading me in the ambulance. I remember, you know, as they're loading me in the ambulance, uh, someone passed it off to Frank over at ATX bikes and he took the bike in, but you know, that whole night I was thinking, I was like, I never checked the bike. Did the, did the bike get hit? Like, I sure hope the bike is okay. And that was the, so the next morning I went to ATX bikes. The first thing, like, you know, out of the hospital, I was at ATX when they opened up and I saw Frank, he was there and it was before the news crews had gotten there and stuff. Off and i asked him i was like you know did you check the bike and and and that was the first thing he said he goes as soon as i took possession of your bike yes i did a full evaluation of the bike as soon as i brought inside the shop because i checked i checked the wheel i checked the frame.

Dale Frank didn't want to be responsible for accusations of shooting your bike.

Carl Hey this didn't have a bull whole.

Dale Lot brought it in.

Greg No mike the the bike was was not hit um But yeah, that was the first thing I was thinking about the next week.

Carl Oh man, what a...

Brooks All right guys, well that's all the topics that I have. Is there anything that you guys want to add? Append?

Greg Yes, if we got another minute real quick, we talked about the group dynamics. And we never talked about other trail users. And you know, I find it important to be as friendly and polite as possible to other users of the trail and to not just say that these are mountain bike trails, you shouldn't be hiking on it and stuff like that. And I think it's an asset for the community to use these trails, but for non-riders to also... I want those people to appreciate... The main use of the trail and that to, to, to, to not destroy it or interfere it, you know, to the extent that you're taking it away from those riders. And, you know, I, I, I'm as polite as possible to the, the, the, the hikers. I stop, I let them pass. But, you know, there's, there's, there's a, and Dale, you can chime in if you want, but, you know, there's the electronic motorcycles that are out there and people.

Brooks Don't get him started.

Dale We'll save that for when I'm on here with you, Brooks. But no, to your point, Greg, I think other trail users are assets to our community as well. Trail runners and hikers. I think a lot of people need to understand that hikers don't like by default hate riders at all. Um, I've actually been pleasantly surprised, uh, building jumps and stuff, um, over by East bank. I'll have people walk by and, or hike by, and they'll be like, thanks for the trail work. And I'm clearly building dirt jumps and they're like, oh, it's so great. Thank you for all the work you're doing. I'm like, okay, thanks. Bye. And, uh, but, but then like, we'll be trimming and they'll say the same thing. And so, you know, hikers appreciate what we do. And there's a lot, there's some that are like jerks, but most of them appreciate it. And trail runners especially. And those are our assets. So, you know, if we ever need to like lobby for the city to sanction sat or give us the autonomy to be able to take care of the network, we might need more trail users than just riders on our side. You know, and so it's important to be friendly with hikers and not just blow past them. And remember that we do yield to them, you know, give them the opportunity to go by. but nine out of 10 times, I find that hikers will yield to you, you know, but at least make it clear that you're trying to yield to them to begin with. But.

Carl Yeah, it always gives me great joy to see people using the trail, you know, doesn't matter. And when you say that when we have to lobby the city for something, I always say that trail hiker can carry a sign that says save our trails at the back of the city council meeting just as well as a mountain biker, you know. So, yeah, the more that are advocates for the trails, the better. So that's always good.

Greg Be nice out there.

Carl Yeah, be nice.

Dale Be excellent to each other, as Abraham Lincoln once said.

Greg That's right.

Brooks All right. Anybody want to give their content information, you know, Instagram or Strava or whatever, and then, Carl, you want to talk about muchachos? Is that something you want to open publicly?

Carl Well, yeah. Yeah, we have a email list that we send out the things that Greg comes up with. And people will say, put me on the list or I get requests to put on the list. And if the best way to do that is to come to some crank and drains because we want to say real people out there.

Dale Yeah, it's a fan club. You have to come and actually be there.

Carl Yeah, exactly. It's not just so I'm on the list. Be out there. And I've seen you a couple of times. Oh, great. Well, come on. What's your email? Send me it right now and say, put me on the damn list.

Brooks Show up to Cranky Dragon, ask Carl to put you on the email list.

Carl That's the technique. That's how it works.

Greg Well, yeah, and do a ride before you ask to be put on the list.

Carl Well, yeah, yeah, don't just show up in your tuxedo and say, put me on the list.

Greg Yeah, yeah, do a ride, make sure you like it, and then, you know, join the list, and then, you know, it's... Contribute to the discussion i guess so to speak but you know i know it's kind of just a one-way conversation on muchachos but you know berkshire again at the uh you know how can people get a hold of us i think the easiest way to get a hold of us is six o'clock behind atx bikes off.

Brooks A slaughter ring beer.

Greg As long as it's not actively raining we'll be there uh at least someone will be there um but i'm not on social media strava is my only social media outlet so you know i and.

Dale Email there There is a crank and drink Instagram handle that James, James is working on now, you know, so if you, if you do follow crank and drink on Instagram, uh, that's a good way to get the information. Um, I also have the MTB ATX website that I maintain. Um, I try to upload the route and Greg's route notes to that, both in Strava and Trailforks, uh, format, uh, typically. And then, uh, James will share that on Tuesdays as well. So you can kind of preview the route and, uh, get all the details if it's your first time coming out where to park uh what to bring how it kind of works you name it mtb atx i'm can't brag enough about that that's also where um the big ass ride uh so zach reached out and asked to put the route information everything on there as well so if you need information on the big ass route uh ride it is there as well and that's where we'll put probably the satin social info yeah.

Carl Or any information about anything mountain bike related in austin that's a wealth of information on your, website.

Greg Carl, I'm curious, do we have any idea for Satin Social this year? I know the Big S Ride is the focus right now on April 20th.

Carl Yeah, there's a date. October 24th or something like that is the tentative date, if that's a Saturday.

Brooks Before Halloween.

Carl Yeah, a week before Halloween. Yeah, exactly. Saturday before, yeah, I think it's a 24th.

Greg I think it was as important it's before the time change too.

Carl Yeah yeah oh what.

Dale Is the satin social.

Carl Uh satin social yeah it's a fun thing it's a fun thing it's another it's another community involvement deal just to show off the um the whole network and it's a fun social deal after it there's four 17 mile routes and you chew off you bite off how much you think you can chew and we have had four or five or six people now i guess through the different iterations uh be able to do all of it so it turns into a 67 mile ride which is less than half of what the satin is now but still and and i i still okay with not changing the routes just so there's a legacy of uh doing the west and the north and And I mean, yes, the trail system has changed since the Satin Social has started, but still, I kind of lean that way. What do you think?

Dale We're going to add 17 laps. We're going to add a route that's 17 laps of tunnel vision this year.

Greg The cool down. A testament to Carl's routing of Satin Social, it's 67 miles with no overlap whatsoever. So ever so each each of those 17 miles is a distinct unique route uh that has no conflict with the other three out there so i think that's a it's an impressive testament to the number of trails out there and carl's ability to to design them in such a way that you can do such a long ride and and every minute of that ride is new yeah.

Brooks Well i think we could sit here and talk talking about bikes and events and trails all night. Yes, let's do. Thank you, Dale, Carl, and Greg for being here with me. This has been the Austin Mountain Biking Podcast. I'm your host, Brooks Lawson, aka The Mountain Biking Realtor, and you can find all things Brooks at brookslawson.com. Thank you. Have a good night.

Greg Thanks, Brooks.

Dale Thank you. Thank you.