Peddling for a cure

After our "spelunking" yesterday we headed off into downtown Austin to wait for Emily's friend Sarah and her family for dinner. We were walking down the main street when suddenly the police cordoned off the side roads and a parade proceeded towards us. At first we thought they were celebrating Halloween, but once it got closer we realised it was for Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). It took over 20 minutes for the full parade to pass. A lot of effort had been put into the costumes and it was quite different from Halloween.

Another early start today at 5am to get to Dripping Springs to start the cycling event. The car park was pretty much full at 6am when we got there and we had to cycle along the highway in the dark, however the police had cordoned off a lane for us to get to the start line. We had a little while to wait before the start and saw this man harnessing his poodle to his chest to take it on the cycle ride. The dog looked quite happy and we did see him afterwards and again the dog looked quite happy.

At 8am the race was to start and all 4000 of us were in line to start. However because of the sheer number of riders it took half an hour before we were off. We did manage to catch up with Em's friends before the start line so all 6 of us managed to cycle off together. The countryside around Dripping Springs was quite hilly but it wasn't as steep as our Scottish hills.

At our 25 mile "power stops" Lance Armstrong and some others came flying past at about 40mph. They had done 70 miles in the time it had taken us to do 25 miles. Their police escort was struggling to keep up as the road was quite narrow and was filled with other cyclists. We finished within 4 hours and I'm proud off Em as this was her longest and fastest ride to date. Thank-you to everyone who has sponsored us this weekend. Your donations will go to help the fight against cancer.