aikigreg
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Last weekend I was in Austin tuning up for the Dillo ride this past Saturday, and met a BUNCH of ACC members. Rode with the president and treasurer, and a ride committee member. The latter, Ron Burzee, invited me to come and ride tandem with him - he has 5 different tandems one of which is a rans screamer he loves to ride but no one offers to pilot it for him very much. Ron is blind, so he depends on a tandem for every ride he does. Don't feel to sorry for him though - he's a MACHINE. He went to the world championships in paralympic racing, and I think he won the tandem division time trials before. So yesterday I volunteered to ride 20 miles with him to try out the tandem, in spite of having exhausted myself the day before on the 105 mile dillo ride. We ended up doing 40 effortless miles. We met the Austin Cycling Club for their Sunday ride and took off. Took a while for me to get used to the screamer and to act as pilot, but once we were in sync it was a strange feeling. It was like riding a v-rex with a heavy back wheel. HEAVY. Once we got going though we kept a great clip and always kept having to reign ourselves in so that we wouldn't outpace the others - since we didn't know the route. We attacked up all hills and were always the first to crest. The screamer is a GREAT bike. Heavy at around 55-60 pounds, but we were easily able to keep up and then some. Also has a suspension front fork which made railroad tracks seem like nothing. And Ron is a beast. It's like strapping a v-6 to the back of your bent. We had nothing but steep ups and downs the last 10 miles, and we never had to drop out of the middle ring. I woulda been sweating a couple of them on the P-38! One of the most unique rides of my bent career so far, and one of the most pleasurable. Thank god I don't have the room, or I'd be looking to pick up a screamer!
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