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Formerly know as HABiT – (Hamilton Area Bicycle Tour)

Hamilton Hill-Aceous 100, Hamilton, TX

May 17, 2008

This ride, pronounced "Hill-a-shuss" is the best kept secret around. The ride is actually less hilly interms of grade and distance than either the Glen Rose or MIneral Wells rides. The start had you parking on one of the taxi strips of the local airport. With only 110 riders there was planty of room. I rode the 30 mile route again this year and they had us going the reverse of last year's route which was actually a better way to do it. There was some speedy traffic in the first 10 miles but otherwise the roads were pretty empty. Rest stops are well spaced and stocked and all volunteers friendly and helpful. The director visited briefly with riders afterwards to get their feedback. All-in-all this is one of the most scenic and pastoral rides around and I'm surprised its not better attended.

First time to do this ride and it shoots up the chart to number 1 – no kidding. Low traffic, all country roads even from the start, outstanding scenery, and no possible parking problem since it uses the airport taxi-way.

 

May 12, 2007

I went looking for a smaller bike ride event that provided low traffic roads and scenic country on a beautiful Saturday in May. I found one in the Hamilton Hill-aceous 100K ride. The 100K route was great. I think 10 cars passed me during the entire ride. The rest stops were bare bones- water, Gatorade and fruit, but really, what else do you need? A couple of “hydration” only stops were included along the way, which was a good idea.
This is the second year for the ride and there were probably 100 riders this year. It needs to increase by another 50 to 100 riders if, for nothing else, I felt lonely out there on the route sometimes!
According to my bike computer, the 100K route had about 2700 feet of climbing. There were quite a few long gradual ascents and some bigger 5-6% grade hills towards the end.
The route markers consisted of small arrows on the road, so you really had to be on the lookout for them. Volunteers were located at major turns to keep you on course and other cyclists were kind enough to point out other turns. Maybe a few more pronounced signs at various turns would be helpful. I don’t recall any big intersections that needed to be manned by patrolmen, either. The route maps which the volunteers gave us had the cell phone numbers of the various Sag wagons, so you could call them if you got in a bind. I thought that was a novel idea.
This ride is modeled on some of the other Central Texas rides such as the Melon Patch Tour, Fire Ant 100 and Comanche Cyclone.
If you can make the trek to Hamilton, you will enjoy a cool ride.

May 13, 2006

Hamilton put on the first annual HABiT – (Hamilton Area Bicycle Tour) so that people could “get in the HABiT” and support the hospital’s cardiac testing unit. This was our inaugural event and I know that we’re all anxious to evaluate our performance. I think the ride itself went pretty well although we’ve already identified some areas for improvements next year. I got several comments that our choice of distances was good (7, 20, 30, 46 and 60) and that the roads were in excellent shape and very scenic. We started at the airport outside of town so vehicular traffic was never a problem. Our signage definitely needs to be improved – the wind was a killer!
We’d like to express our thanks to the Bike Peddler in Brownwood which provided pre-ride bicycle repairs. We’d also like to thank the folks from the Comanche Cyclone and the Melon Patch Tour for both their physical assistance and moral support. There’s a lot of talk in Hamilton about how to make this a great annual event. We’d really appreciate any comments/suggestions/feedback from our inaugural riders.

The Hamilton Area Bike Tour's (HABiT) is a good warm-up for the summer, with rolling hills, good rest stops and virtually no traffic on rural roads. Highly recommended.