Heat, Idiots and Nice People

Yesterday I took a comp day off. My dear boss had set me up last Friday to do a presentation for potential clients coupled with a site visit on Saturday. The net result was that I worked 14 hour days for a week to get the presentation together, gave up my off Friday for the presentation and lost Saturday to a bus ride with a bunch of Malays and Singaporeans. I still get paid for just 40 hours. So I took one comp day off. I love my job.


I went out for a long solo ride yesterday morning. Marni had a training session at the gym and with the heat as it was, I didn't want to wait until she came back at 11AM to take off. I decided to bike through George Bush / Terry Hershey Park since its a place with bike and pedestrian only trails and it being a working day, I didn't want to fight the traffic any more than I had to. There are posted signs that say that when bikes overtake or pass pedestrians they should slow to no more than 10 mph. With the number of idiots out there using the park, I obey that law for my safety if not theirs.


I didn't beat the heat. Its a 10 mile ride up there and it was already 90 plus by the time I got into the park. At least there was no wind and there are a fair amount of trees that shade the path. The park was full of cops in all their guises. I have no idea why. I saw three on foot patrol, two on motorcycles, one in a park golf cart and even two mounted on horses. I wish I had the nerve to photograph the two on the horses because they were bigger around than the horses they were riding. Those horses looked like they were sagging in the middle and there was no chance of breaking into a trot let alone a gallop. I swear that one of the horses rolled its eyes at me and sighed as I rode by.


Anyway I was coming off a bridge over a creek that had an immediate 90 degree right turn after it. The view right was blocked by bushes. There was a runner coming toward me who had just reached the apex of the turn. I slowed to the required 10 mph. At that instant a biker came out from behind the blocking bushes going at least 20 mph, headed right at me to pass the runner. I shouted "Look out Dammit" at him because he was looking at the runner instead of where he was going which was straight at me. I started bailing out to the right.


He jerked around to look at me and started bailing to his left which kept him coming straight at me. I bailed farther right headed for the bushes and he kept bailing left into my path. At this point I screamed "Oh SHIT" (I'm not great a dialog in emergency situations) and turned sharp left just behind the runner to end up in the grass. He ended up in the bushes. The runner kept going, never looked back, and disappeared over the bridge.


I was out of my cleats at that point and dragging my toes for stability on the rough grass. I caught a toe and now have a big pedal sized bruise and 4 long gouges on the back of my left calf. The other guy was wearing twigs and leaves for decoration. He came screaming out of the bushes and berated me for having screamed at him. I was in no condition and had no desire for confrontation so I spent about 5 minutes calming him, convincing him that I did not blame him for the accident and finally agreeing with him that it was all the runner's fault. He finally took off down the trail after the runner to give him a piece of his very small mind. I hope that he caught up with him at a point in the trail that had some of the cops around.


All of that sort of put me off the ride so I cut it shorter that I had planned and tooled on home. My short cut took me through an area I haven't ridden before. Houston has a large Asian population and they have congregated in a sort of "China town" on the West side. This is not to say that they are all Chinese. There are Vietnamese, Koreans, Cambodians, and many other nationalities. At least half the business signs are multi lingual (English and XXX) and some are entirely in foreign script. Even the street signs are multi lingual. See below. I wish I knew what language that is and what the non-English really says. Bellaire into Japanese or Chinese can't be a direct translation, can it?

I did have two consolations to make up for the idiot. First, I got a picture of a new wild flower for my collection. See below. It was growing in a lawn area in the park which had been recently mowed, right out in full sunlight. It is about the size of and looks like a crocus but this is the wrong season for crocus, they don't bloom in South Texas and its far too hot and dry for them to grow. Its not in any of my wild flower books. Anyone who can identify it will receive my enduring gratitude.








Second, I met a very nice person almost at the end of my ride. I had taken what I thought was a short cut and had gotten lost in the maze of one of Houston's ubiquitous housing developments. I stopped an ATT repairman and asked if he knew the way to an intersection that I knew was close but had no idea how to get to. He stopped, pulled out a GPS mapping device and proceeded to give me detailed directions on how to get there and from there the rest of the way home. He opened up the back of his truck and gave me a bottle of ice cold water from a cooler and chatted while I drank, then wished me well as I rode off. That quite took away the bad taste from the idiot in the park and put a nice feel to the end of the ride. I ended up with about 36 miles, having gone through 5 large bottles of water drunk and one poured over my head. All in all, not the worst of ways to spend a comp day.

Hot as an Iron and no shade

I got a new saddle for my bike this week. I've been having butt pain problems at about 40 miles no matter what I do and about decided that I needed to try a new seat to see if it would cure the problem. As I told the clerk at the bike shop, I've got 70 mile legs attached to a 40 mile butt. Of course the only way to test that this is the cure is to ride more than 40 miles with the new saddle.

Today was the first free day that I had to ride. It is also the 19th straight day in Houston with no rain, 90 degree plus temperatures and 80% humidity. On top of that, we had a 20 mph wind blowing out of the southeast. Not the best of days for a long ride.

But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do so I decided to get out early to beat the heat. Ha! I sweat through my jersey just pumping up my tires. I picked a route that had me going into the wind on the way out and with the wind on the way home. Of course, that usually fails because the wind changes just about the time you turn around, but the theory is good anyway.

Straight out flags mean 20 mph wind. Bed sheet tight flags = 35 mph wind. These aren't there.....yet.


I set out with my 24 and 35 ounce water bottles both full and enough cash to refill them at convenience stores with bottled water several times over the course of the ride. I needed all of that and more. I arrived home empty after filling both bottles twice. I was sweating it out faster than I could pour it in.

At about the turnaround point I was attacked by 4 dogs coming out of a fenced yard with the gate left open. There were two pit bulls, a black lab mix and a terrier something or other that looked like a fright wig on legs. The two pit bulls got on either side of my bike and lunged at my legs. I screamed at them, flailed at them and ultimately kicked one in the head rather hard. It didn't even slow him down. I finally had to out run them, getting away with nothing more than a good scare and a set of very tired legs. Forgive me if I don't have pictures of the event but I was a bit busy at the time.

There were some new wild flowers to take pictures of. These black eyed Susans are about the size of a dime. They were growing in perfusion along the ditch lines at the side of the road. All of the other wild flowers have browned out due to the prolonged heat, the ditch mowing that is still going on and the fact that we haven't had a decent rain in about a month.

Black Eyed Susans in the ditch. Note the dry cracking of the dirt behind them. Its dry and hot!

As I turned toward home, the wind died down somewhat but at least remained behind me. However the heat and the sweat were taking their toll and by the 30 mile mark I was starting to bonk. This is when your body says, "You ain't gonna do this to me no more!" I ended up doing the last 12 miles in 4 mile increments with a stop at the side of the road in the shade between spurts of effort.

At one of them, near an old Texas war of independence cemetery, I ended up sitting in a huge bunch of dragonflies. I wonder what you call them? A flight? A flair? I sort of like a dart of dragonflies myself because it is evocative of what they are doing. Anyway, these were all the same size, about 1 3/4" long, in different colors of blue, grey and green. They were very aggressive and territorial so I never got a chance to get a photo of more that one at a time. They even landed on my legs. I wonder if they liked the salt?


I finished up the ride really short of energy and with that "golden halo" effect around everything I looked at. I did 45 miles at 14 mph. Gave the bike a perfunctory check, wash down and lube and came in and took a nap. Now I need to get more fluids and some salt into me to stop my legs from cramping. And to top it off, all the stopping and starting didn't really give the new saddle a decent test so I'll have to do it again next weekend.

But a man's gotta do..............................

Long rambling ride to nowhere

I get every other Friday off and today when I woke up the weather was ideal for bike riding.

• It was cool for Houston; mid seventy's with mix of clouds and sun. This is important because we have had 2 weeks straight of 93 degree plus weather which sucks the energy out of your bones.


• There was little wind which is a huge factor in a pleasant ride here since any wind that is blowing is invariably in your face.


• And finally, it was the last day of school for millions of Texas rug rats so they would be penned up inside while I was outside doing my thing.

So with no plan and some concern about the weatherman adding to that run of high temp days I set out on a ride to see what I could see. The first half of the ride was on familiar routes up to George Bush park where the Bike is king and no cars are allowed. This would get me through the morning commute for those poor souls who had to work on such a nice day.

I stopped on a bridge over the Buffalo Bayou to talk with some other old farts who were also out riding. They bemoaned the fact that there were no rabbits out this morning. I had seen two along side the bike trail but they said that those weren't the right kind. They were looking for 20 something young ladies who looked good in bike shorts and jerseys and were riding in their general direction. I opined as how I at least wasn't greyhound enough to catch those and they agreed but said that it was the race that was important, not the outcome.

I stopped at several garage sales along the way. Why? I have no idea but I have a compulsion to look at other people's junk. This when I have a garage of my own full of perfectly good junk that I haven't yet gotten rid of. I blame it all on the Antiques Road Show on PBS. I'm looking for that Rembrandt or a Tiffany lamp for $5. And I'll find it someday too!

Since I was in the area, I decided to head up to the local bike shop and see what was on their sale rack. I always need new jerseys don't I? Ended up buying nothing but a tube of butt butter (non bikers will have to Google this product to understand how important it is to us long distance bikers). This is the point that I usually turn around and head home since it gives me a nice 35 mile ride and gets me home before noon.

Today I felt strong and there was nothing at home to drag me there, Marni being out on her own LD ride in Indiana by now I guess. So instead of turning right out of the parking lot, I turned left. Immediately across the main thoroughfare, I saw the following sign.


Now there's a nitch market that I would never have thought of. Not only can you wash your car and canine at the same time but you can do that at 3 AM. I guess I didn't know that there were that many insomniac dog owners with dirty cars in Southeast Texas. I would like to know how you get that soaking wet dog home in your newly cleaned car without making a mess of it.

I kept on riding through increasingly less familiar territory until I came to the end of the road.... literally. Cinco Ranch Boulevard is a main road that I have crossed many times at various points but never ridden from end to end. I thought that since it was so major an artery, it would connect to the main highway at some point so that I could get my bearings and plan my next move. Silly me. The road petered out in the middle of a cow pasture that is being turned into a gazillion new huge homes on postage stamp lots.

We're talking 4000 square foot houses on 8000 square foot lots. This is Texas, the biggest state in the Union. (I know about Alaska but Texans say it doesn't count because its got Canada between us and them so its really a foreign country.) Why do they build these huge houses on no land at all when they have so much land that no one is using for anything? Two answers; air conditioning and grass mowing. Until they can air condition the state, no one goes outside between March and October except for us biking nuts. And if the houses had any yard to speak of, you'd have to have it sodded and then have to cut that grass. Grass grows after each rain in Houston. It grows 4 inches after each rain. Over night. I know because it my job to mow it. Small yards are good. Yards paved in concrete are better.

Anyway, I back tracked out of the cow pasture /suburb and finally found my way to familiar roads. I had been looking for new wild flowers to photograph but found that the week after Memorial Day, every municipality in the county decided to mow every ditch and verge on every road. There was nothing but crew cut stubble that would stay that way until the first rain when it would turn into 4" grass and weeds. Not a wild flower to be seen until I found a thistle rose up against a fence post that protected it from the mowing madness. Here's my sole flower photo for the ride.

I took it easy going home since the temp had risen to 91 degrees and the wind was starting to blow, in my face naturally. My final stats for the ride were 51.2 miles at 13.1 mph and six bottles of water and Gatorade. My legs said I could do another 20 miles but the heat headache said time to quit. Sadie, our Corgi pooch got her salt fix by licking my legs when I got home.

Sunday Wandering bike ride

The summer weather is upon us and the bike riding is no longer easy. Today was 92 degrees, 80% humidity and 15 mph winds in my face a lot of the time. I am riding solo since Marni is off Woman's Touring so I was pretty much able to pick my own ride route as well as speed and stopping places. When I'm riding with her, it seems that we are always in training and I find it nice sometimes to just wander and explore with no speed or distance goals in mind.

Today there were a lot of new wild flowers in bloom that I had not seen before, this year at least. I am in the process of taking photos of all the wldflowers we see along the road and may put together a biker's guide to wildflowers in Southeast Texas. The idea is to make is small and light so a road biker could take it along as he / she rides. A selection of my photos for the day are shown below. I haven't determined their names yet but that comes later.

I stopped as usual at our favorite Sunday coffee shop, Fill Your Cup at rt 90A and Rt 356. They are very friendly and genuinely happy to see us. They have good coffee, smoothies and brown sugar scones so what more could a biker want. Here's a picture of the co owner and barrista with a typical big grin.

I purposely routed the end of my ride to go by the Cricket pitch. There are an amazing number of Indians, Pakistanis and a few Brits who play in an 18 team league here in Houston. They even compete with other leagues in Dallas and beyond. Its a bit surreal to see cricket being played in the middle of a cow pasture in cowboy land. See below.

In all I made over 39 miles, got a lot of good pictures, and most important, didn't let myself get overheated, dehydrated or otherwise bonked out. A good ride with lots to see and enough to stretch me out and put a good ache in the leg muscles.