buck000
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What: Situated close to NW Austin, FM 1431 is a great road to ride when you just wanna do a little roller-coaster fun, but don't want to spend hours riding to the SW hill country for the thrill. It was voted the #4 best road in the 2003 Ride Texas magazine's readers' poll, slipping only slightly to #5 in the 2005 survey.
(click pics for a larger version)
The road surface is wonderful, with only 2 cattle grates along the route (just west of Lago Vista), and a slightly bumpy bridge crossing immediately west of the intersection with Cow Creek Rd. There is usually some traffic on 1431, which can be frustrating if one's pace is, er, higher, but even at the speed limit, the road is a lot of fun. Just don't let the views over various crests cause you to lose focus!
FM 1431 is wonderful in its own right, but also serves to link riders to other neat stuff, like the fun little FM 1174 to Bertram, the nice and twisty (and only slighly rocky, as of April '05) Cow Creek Rd., or the popular, home-cookin' of the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls.
Where: FM 1431 is in essentially the NE edge of the Texas hill country, starting just east of I-35 north of Austin, and running NW along the Highland lakes up to Lake Buchanan. The videos, below, are of my favorite section (that I've ridden so far), between Cedar Park and Marble Falls.
Designation: Farm-to-Market (FM) 1431
Roll the vid, Bubba:
Windows Media Player 9 (software)
QuickTime 6.3 (QT software)
(click pics for a larger version)
The road surface is wonderful, with only 2 cattle grates along the route (just west of Lago Vista), and a slightly bumpy bridge crossing immediately west of the intersection with Cow Creek Rd. There is usually some traffic on 1431, which can be frustrating if one's pace is, er, higher, but even at the speed limit, the road is a lot of fun. Just don't let the views over various crests cause you to lose focus!
FM 1431 is wonderful in its own right, but also serves to link riders to other neat stuff, like the fun little FM 1174 to Bertram, the nice and twisty (and only slighly rocky, as of April '05) Cow Creek Rd., or the popular, home-cookin' of the Bluebonnet Cafe in Marble Falls.
Where: FM 1431 is in essentially the NE edge of the Texas hill country, starting just east of I-35 north of Austin, and running NW along the Highland lakes up to Lake Buchanan. The videos, below, are of my favorite section (that I've ridden so far), between Cedar Park and Marble Falls.
Designation: Farm-to-Market (FM) 1431
Roll the vid, Bubba:
Windows Media Player 9 (software)
QuickTime 6.3 (QT software)