Some of my favorite rides

Shameless bike and injury selfies

I wanna name her Aurora because she looks like a princess

She is so beautiful

Craigslist- $60 , however, it's kinda heavy. Got a blow out on this thing the first time I used it, because I pumped the air pressure too high. I thought I had been shot. It was a  LOUD blowout. I got hurt from the fall, but didn't take pictures of the injuries. I learned a lesson about riding "new to me " bikes. Each road bike has different tire pressure and maybe not test ride them down the steep neighborhood hills where you have to brake really really hard at stop signs.

I fell at a gas station on my bike in the rain because there were wet oil spots. It hurt like hell, but I took it well.

This shouldn't have happened. I wasn't even going fast, I was turning down a dirt path hill. I just got done with the Eeyore's Birthday bike ride back in April, I had been out in the sun all day, wasn't drinking enough water but drank beer instead, and just kinda fell on my whatever it's called. I think it's called a chain drive. But...it looks like a chicken leg on a BBQ grill per my dad, and other people call it tiger claws, etc. It's still on my leg, and I don't feel like making it disappear with Vitamin E. I kinda like it...

Thursday Night Social Ride

my bike lean

 Last night was a pretty cool night- weather and figuratively speaking. My hair wasn't soaking wet from sweat from the ride- didn't use a helmet. 

I biked from my apt to downtown to Fiesta Beach then to a social ride. After the park stop, biked back home. It was a good night. I hadn't been on this ride in awhile, because I think I have been in my head lately and not in my bike-head. 

I need to remember that when I am dealing with stress, the BEST thing to do is get on my bike, not avoid it. It's easier to stay home and veg, but I always feel 100X better after a good ole 20 mile or so bike ride. 

It was cool to see all the building lights downtown and smell all the foods that I couldn't afford at the moment. Man, I don't know WHAT this restaurant was, but it was downtown somewhere around something, can't remember at the moment, but it smelled like the best spaghetti/lasagna sauce imaginable (and I don't even really go for that stuff these days). I need to ride around and find that smell again. It will be mine...oh yes. It will be mine... 

Jack's bike light- alerts cars that a bike is nearby

I always say the same thing about biking down Guadalupe with the curry. That is my new idea! Bike around town until you smell something delicious, THEN stop to eat. Don't decide where to go to eat BEFORE leaving the house!

There were a lot of people on the on this social ride. Seems like there were a few pockets of UT students doing the ride for the first time, and now I am starting to recognize the same people every week. Sometimes this ride has up to 400 , sometimes 100. There were some people from the Northside rides that I used to partake in. 

John's bike

A family of deer were sitting in the grass at the volleyball courts before I got to my apt. They were so sweet and I couldn't get a picture, because it was so dark, but I did get a picture of random stuff. I could have walked up to them, but one of the little guys had antlers and I don't wanna be on youtube getting my ass kicked by a baby buck.

Biking home alone from downtown around 11pm or midnight could be either really boring or a bit dangerous. *Safety in numbers* glad I know a few peeps.


Hi, Laura #1! Thanks for reading!! Hope you're having a lovely day in Kansas!!! Miss you :-)
Hey Dad- Hope to see you soon! Love you!

Monday Bike Ride 9/22/14

Yesterday, I finally got a chance to experience the Lend Your Legs ride that Social Cycling does for Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI). I have heard about this ride and it gave me the warm and fuzzies just imagining everybody being so selfless and helpful and warm hearted. They had tandem bikes and each rider on the tandem, gets to tandem with a student who is blind or visually impaired. It was so neat to hear the kids laugh with joy and give it their ALL pedaling. They truly enjoyed themselves on those bicycles, and it made me remember how exciting it was to ride a bike for the first few times. We rode through neighborhoods and stopped at a park for some water, took a group picture, then rode back to the school. I think the ride was about 10 miles. I didn't ride the tandem bikes, because I didn't do the paperwork, but I will definitely do so for next time!!!!  

Here are some people from the bike ride at a stop light. When the tandem bikes stop, they usually count down 3, 2, 1. And when they get ready to pedal again- 3, 2,1. I guess it's to make sure they are pedaling at the same time since it's a 2 person bike. I can't wait to ride one, they look like a blast. 

This is what my bike looks like from where I'm sitting. It's got a bell, a rechargable light and a computer that tells me how fast I'm going and how far I've gone, the time, etc.

 This is one of the tandem bikes, looks so pretty leaned up against that tree! There were several bikes, all kept in a garage type place in the school. All different colors and different styles. Very cool!

Saturday Bike Ride 9/20/14

      Saturday was the first time I had gotten on my bike since the *RAINPACALYPSE SEPT 2014*. It felt SO good to finally pedal again. As an experiment, I pedaled as if it was a single speed bike, which meant I kept it in medium on the big gear and small gear and went up and down all the hills that way. It wore me out. I was exhausted by the end of the 31 mile , 8 hour day .

     The bike ride started out at my apartment, then to downtown, and through the neighborhoods, then to eat some good chicken at Lucy’s Chicken, then back to the bike shop, and to the train home. When I got back to my apartment, I laid in the fetal position on my papasan chair, drank lots of water and eventually fell asleep.

     Thirty-one miles not changing gears is hard to do and I have much more respect for all the cyclists who do this daily.  Fixed gears and single speeds are everywhere around here. These hills are nuts, and instead of changing gears, they work the rolling hills to their advantage.  I am going to try to use a single speed built bike tonight, I am quite intimidated, but extremely excited at the same time!

SATURDAY

This is a shot of the street I pedal through. The long stretch of bike lanes is about 4 or 5 miles, until you turn onto "the number streets" to Guadalupe, which takes me to downtown, etc to the single digit number streets.
      

neighborhood conveyor belt

Shameless bike selfie

My bike chillin while my friend is fixing his flat. Luckily, the Saturday morning social cycling group was passing by to help out with a C02 cartridge since we didn't have a pump. 

   The bike lane gets dark green around these parts, close to the University. But that doesn't mean that people stay our of your way anymore or less. Cars , Trucks, people, everybody gets in the bike lane when they aren't supposed to.This is kind of a lost cause to try to get people to get out of your way, because, most people don't care about bicycle lanes unless they are on a bicycle using the bicycle lane.    

                                   When people hear my friend Jack's horn, they do move. And cars hear it too. It's awesome, and I might get one myself just because. Some people don't know what to do when they hear my bike bell, and students love to stand in the bike lane when waiting to cross the street.                                         

The Boardwalk

This is the boardwalk. It's a sidewalk/bikelane, that is built in the lake so you can ride your bike around the lake. The worst, and I mean WORST part about this, is that there are little kids all over the place. This makes this experience pretty unique, because there aren't toddlers wandering around on bicycle lanes, or on the trails. I think the scariest experience was ringing my bell and a kid would not move. He was about 4 or 5, he was deaf and couldn't hear the bell or my voice. 

The Boardwalk

The AWESOME parts about the boardwalk, is that you can watch the bats fly from the bridge, you can take this as a shortcut to get places, you can go here late at night and it's lit up and you can go really fast! You get to see all the kayakers, and when it storms the pop-corn lightening is a religious experience.

Kayaks by the boardwalk

 I like the boat tours that come around blaring their music, and how easy it is to see the city buildings across the lake. The boardwalk meets up with the dirt trails, so that can be slippery at times. 

This is the view that I see from Congress when going down it. The climb up was pretty harsh. There are of course, lots of people and cars and what not. I like the way Congress is now, present day. I remember a time when Congress had street corner workers. And I'm not referring to construction workers.

downhill view of  Congress- capitol at the end

Sometimes, it's hard to lock up at the bike racks. I don't think people who make bike racks use bikes. If it was up to me, there would be poles everywhere or like huge metal crystal lattices. I dunno, something other than this. It's the type of bike rack that they had when I went to elementary school. I guess it's the generic bike rack that the cities issue?

bikes at Lucy's

 

It's raining outside and it has been for several days. I rode my bike on Wednesday to karaoke by myself. It was a 4 mile ride. Before that I haven't ridden my bicycle in a week. Sometimes, there are weeks like this where I can't find the motivation to get out and do something.

I know this has every thing to do with the weather and it's been my adult life long goal to change that.

Maybe I'll go swimming tonight to get the blood flowing again.

 I always ask myself if I am learning disabled (I know I'm not, but there's gotta be a word for this type of disability that I'm about to describe about trying out "new to me" city transportation). For example, we have a metro rail. Current day, I know how to get on the rail, how to take it downtown and whatever, but when I first started taking the rail, I had NO idea what to do and couldn't wrap my head around it.

During the day before I actually got the courage to take the rail, I would imagine walking up to the door and had a million questions in my head, such as , where is the conductor? Is everybody going to stare at me because I have a bike? What if I am so sweaty that the seat gets wet and everybody laughs at me, and how do I pay for my ticket, and what if I can’t find the machine, what if I’m late, what if it goes south instead of north, and does it stop where I need it to stop, what if it just keeps going because on this day it just keeps going?!?!

I know which immediate family member I get this from, and we both are the type of people who have to know everything is going to be OK before we get involved in something. 

I decided to commute to work via bicycle + metro rail. I practiced on the weekends taking the rail, and got it down pretty good. The day of the big commute, I missed the rail and had to bike all 14 miles there. I don’t remember how I got back home after work, my friend probably picked me up...one day my friends met me at my job with their bicycles and it was probably the sweetest thing ever to me. Like, really cool because I work kinda far away from "it all".

All my worries were STUPID. The conductor doesn't even look at you when you get on, and nobody really cares if you have a bike because EVERYBODY HAS A BIKE. I did get my bike stuck on the rack, and missed my stop once, but that was during a practice run, so I wasn't late to work or anything. The machine didn't take cash (even though it said it would...liar), but I had a card, and got the ticket and all was fine. Yes, I was sweaty, but the seat wasn't made of silk or anything, so it was all good. The train stopped at each stop, no big deal. 

There WAS a day where it didn't go to my stop for work, but that’s because I didn't check the schedule and thought I could be all sly and sleep in and take the next train... If I DID check the schedule, then I would know that they don’t go past a certain spot during the weekdays from 9-11am, therefore, ruining my plans of being a slacker.

METRO RAILLLLL

I think it’s funny that I need to practice things like biking to the train for work, etc. I know there are people who decide to commute and just get out of bed one day and do it, without torturing themselves with all those questions. Yes, anxiety is a problem for me, but riding my bike has actually helped with that( and I am not one to do the pill stuff). 

I am less afraid of driving in this city, since I've seen most streets on my 'cycle so I know where the potholes are and where the hills are, etc (and there are a LOT of hills). I haven’t commuted in a long time, mainly because I kept missing the train and was late to work. Unfortunately, I don’t have any more PTO, so mistakes like that cannot be made. Next week I'll commute to work and squash all these anxious thoughts.

Here’s a pic of my bike on the rack right before the wheel got stuck in the hook. Here is also the metro rail station at night, (during one of my practice runs). We don’t have train stations like this for civilian-commuting-use where I grew up, so, it’s one of those exciting things for me that gradually wore off into an everyday thing. 

Sometimes outside of the organized social rides, we come up with our own fun stuff to do. One of the rides, my friends and I dressed up as Peter Pan characters for our friend’s birthday. The birthday guy was Peter Pan, I was Tiger Lily, and there was a Tinker Bell, couple of Lost Boys, a Captain Hook and Shmee . We rode our bikes to a trail, and through downtown, all the way to Peter Pan golf. The weather wasn’t that bad, and people on the street were saying “look! It’s Peter Pan! Hi Peter!!!”. His costume was pretty spot on, and he looked great. We all looked great. It was lots of fun.

Peter Pan golf is a BYOB kind of putt-putt place . We had a pretty good sized group there, and the one memory that keeps recurring in my mind is when we were going down the busiest street, I was wondering if the cars could see our lights when my friend mentioned , “It doesn’t matter how many lights we have on our bikes if the drivers are texting”. That rings in my head quite often…

We ate Mexican food afterwards and pedaled home. It was quite a day, and I still have that Tiger Lily costume. That was the first time that I have worn anything that short in years. I had always been self-conscious about my legs, but with cycling, even though I wasn’t where I wanted to be with my weight, my legs looked the best they have in a long time. Baby steps. It feels good to have that freedom where you can wear cool stuff again. That’s another reason why I keep cycling, because I know if I just keep pedaling, I can have that freedom one day (well, mostly).

Pictured is my helmet that my dad got me for my birthday. I put my Tiger Lily feather on it. I love the helmet, because my dad got it for me, but I think I am ready for an upgrade. It takes me a long time to decide to invest in something related to cycling, because I always fear that I might invest too much money and then it will all be a waste if I stop one day. The good thing is, is it’s already been more than a year, so upgrades to my attire will be sure to follow!

Remember what it’s like to visit downtown for the first time and feeling like it’s just too cool, too exciting and too busy to ever enjoy and appreciate it for all it is? There just isn’t enough time to do it all! Like, this is movie star stuff? Well, if you haven’t felt that way, that’s cool. You’re probably not amused easily or just too cool for school.

 I’ll admit it though… downtown made me feel excited and I geeked out over stuff like double decker buses (hee hee I said double decker), and taxis, and big buildings, street food, festivals, all that cool stuff! I liked going to the big festivals, but felt anxious about parking and having cash (why is it such an anxious feeling to get cash? I mean, all I have to do is go to an ATM. So what if the fee is a couple of bucks? I pay that much for Hubba Bubba all the time…)

Well anyways, I am getting to a point here. The point is, this very bridge that I took a picture at used to give me the butterflies and the chills and the big city feeling like I am actually doing something cool and exciting. The day of this picture, I was elated about my day. Now, I ride my bicycle across this bridge over and over and over again, and sometimes I don’t even stop to look at the kayakers. I don’t see what new graffiti is on the rusty old bridge. I don’t stop to take pictures, and I don’t get the feeling like I am doing something new and exciting. The reason why this picture means so much to me is because I remember hearing the train going across the tracks and I thought it was so awesome to watch the train and how it felt to be downtown. I was so grateful that I was in this city finally and for good. I guess I cycled the butterflies out of my system. 

This graffiti wall faces the restaurant that one of the bicycle social groups meets at on Saturday. Now, the wall is torn down and just a pile of rocks and debris. My city likes to do that. They like to tear things down and build condos over it. That is why my friend jokes that the city bird is the crane.

About the social bicycling group for Saturdays-  (for whoever likes to know all the details (family mostly)):::
A group of people, none that I am too familiar with, meet each Saturday at a restaurant of their choice for breakfast, drink mimosas, and then go on a 10-20 mile bike ride while hyped up on caffeine (optional). This ride is always posted on Facebook, (which is one reason why I can’t seem to get rid of my Facebook account, all the rides are organized there with invites, etc)

Secret Beach break

The Saturday ride is probably my favorite ride, because I get to spend my entire morning and afternoon cycling. I ride from my apartment to the starting point, which adds about 20 miles total to the ride after it is all said and done. 

swimming hole break

It always ends up being such a good day, because it includes swimming and exploring, and not having to be anywhere at a certain time.  

There are struggles, which include trying to drink a bottle of water every hour, reapplying sunscreen as often as possible (sounds easy but it's not and if you screw up you can be a zombie and/or extremely dehydrated and grumpy). Chugging Redbull is a certainty.

 At the end of the day I am usually pretty tired and/or tipsy (I like grabbing beers on the way here and there) and ready to jump in my pool at home.

 A couple of times, I have been exhausted until the following Wednesday. Now that fall is starting,  I am just now to the point where my Saturday all-day rides do not take the life out of me (riding at night time after work Mon-Fri is nothing like riding during the daytime, especially in 100+ degree weather!!). Next summer I'll be prepared. And smarter, etc. This is my first year of doing stuff like this...learning curve.

Totally worth it!!!