Category Archives: Biking

A bike ride

This is my first attempt at creating a video of my bike ride. The video is created from a series of 257 pictures taken with a Canon G10 at 30 second intervals and was attached to my handlebars.

The first problem with this video is the blurriness of some of the photos. There were a couple of reasons why. It was overcast so the shutter speed was not enough to compensate for the occasional bump. And my road bike has no shocks.

The second problem was that the camera mount was attached via velcro straps. These straps did not handle bumps too well. The camera would get jarred out of position. And a couple of times it spun completely around. Sigh.

It was also annoying that the camera took up my usual resting spot for my left hand. This made for an uncomfortable 29.48km trip.

Scrapped knee

Scrapped knee

Ugh. I worried something like would happen. And it finally did. When I came up to a traffic light, I unhooked my left foot from the pedal. But I left the shoe resting on top of the pedal. When I came to a stop, I went to place my foot down. It was a surprise when I realized that my foot had reattached and was locked down. Of course my first impulse, when I started to fall, was to stick out my knee. Which is a pretty stupid reflex. Since my knee is not built to function like a kickstand. And I embarrassed myself in front of the other drivers at the light.

Gah! So, now I have to ride thirty miles with a sore knee that is covered in black road gunk…

Memorial day biking

biking on Memorial day

With this stormy weather over the Memorial day weekend, I was worried that I was not going to be able to ride my bike (at least comfortably). But the rain showers were off and on. And I was able to time the rides where I missed the showers.

Unfortunately, my new route now takes me past a problem house. As I bike by, an aggressive dog there will break out of the fence and chase me down the road. It gets quite close to my bike and growls and barks at me. Fortunately it gives up after a while and never gets close enough to bite me (although I don’t doubt that it would bite me if it was able to).

So I was surprised when I biked past it again today. The same sequence happened. But the truck, which had just pulled out in front of me and picked up its mail, pulled over and shouted at the dog. Calling her Roxanne. I asked if that was her dog as I biked by. But I wasn’t about to stop and have a talk with the supposed owner. Not with the dog six inches away from me.

Wow, Roxanne, what an aggressive bitch you are!

I am going to have to buy some pepper spray and douse the dog the next time it happens. Which I am sure that it will. Since the owners are not likely to fix the fence.

Bike Crash!

Bike Crash

I tried to go biking today. But it was interrupted when my rear tire blew. Unfortunately, I was heading downhill and picking up speed. I felt the bike twist out from under me. And I knew I was going down. As part of a bad reflex, I stuck my hand out to break my fall. Fortunately, I took most of the fall on my shoulder. I guess I hit my head hard enough to crack the helmet. But I don’t mind that so much. It did it’s job well enough. I will have to buy another one though. Its a shame that the helmet only lasted one ride.

Fortunately, there were no cars near me at the time. And I was able to fall in the ditch instead of on the road. Sadly, the rear wheel is broken and will have to be replaced.

28 mile cycling

plane in garage

I decided to try out a longer circuit and follow the 25 mile route on this map. I was surprised just how many houses were out in the country. I wonder where all these people work? Their commute times must be long.

I had one equipment failure when my chain popped off. It was easy to put on. But the repair made obvious that I needed some hand wipes. Grass just doesn’t cut it. So, I rode the rest of the way with greasy fingers. Next time, I will pack some wet wipes!

One of the houses looked interesting from a distance. It had a huge garage with one side open (the side facing me). And in that garage was a plane! When I looked at the name of the street leading to the house, it all made sense. The name was Wilbur Wright Drive. And I was riding along County Road 130 at the time. You can tell from Google Maps that there is an airfield out back.

Two for biking

Adolf's party

I wonder how popular the first name of Adolf is. Shouldn’t that name be banned?

I got my bike back from Buck’s Bikes. They replaced both tires (not easily removable) and fixed the gearing. So I took it out this morning. And today’s ride seemed to involve a lot of twos…

Riding up 1460 at 7:30, I came across two men walking southward. However, they were in the middle of the road! One of them was even walking on the yellow dividing line. And with the rising sun, I am sure that it would give drivers less notice when they came across them. There are no houses out here and I didn’t see any disabled vehicles. So I wonder what they were doing…

Next, I saw two birds flying. One was a large preditor like a hawk or a falcon. And the other was a much tinnier bird that was dive bombing the hawk. When the hawk stopped on a power pole, the little bird would keep it up. The hawk would move off and try again. I was wondering why the hawk didn’t just get pissed off and just attack back and kill that bird.

Back on 1460, there was a house that I wanted to take a picture of. It was an old farmhouse. What was interesting about it were the two trees that the house was squeezed between. The one on the right was almost touching the side of the house. And on the left, a bit of the roof was actually cut out for the tree. Talk about poor planning. Sadly, the house was recently demolished for what looks like a new road.

Turning on Chandler, there were two large turtles in the middle of the road. I doubt that the turtles knew that they were in danger of getting run over by the speeding traffic on this windy (curvy) hill. So I stopped and picked them up and moved them off the road (I didn’t think that they could get up over the curb themselves). They hissed at me to thank me.

The bike feels faster for me. Instead of taking one hour and thirty five minutes to bike 25 kilometers, it took me an hour and seventeen minutes. I’m racing now…

Good Samaritan

I was out for my usual Sunday bike ride when I ran into problems. My rear tire started feeling “squirley”. However, I ignored the warning signs and truged on. And then I started to feel the bumps from the road and I knew it was loosing air pressure. Since I was at the halfway point, I had no choice now but to try and make it home. Unfortuantely, it went flat soon after that. And I started walking home. I made it to 1460 and Westinghouse and headed South.

Thankfully, someone stopped and offered me a ride! It was a couple who saw me while driving north and turned around to stop. And they could not be more inconvenienced. They were on their way to Church, they had groceries in the back of the Surburban, and they had a sleeping child in the car. But they stopped to help me. And I really appreciated it. We had to struggle to fit the bike in the back but we finally made it.

While we drove to my home, we talked. And I learned that the husband was a biker and had an experience where there was a crash of many bikers (one with a broken jaw) and noone stopped to help. I also learned that they lived south-east of Hutto but went to church in Georgetown (quite the commute).

It was a little depressing when I was walking down the road and a pickup truck beeped at me as it passed. I was as far as possible against the edge of the road (when I would be a little further out when biking). So I didn’t think that was the problem. I wonder why they did it… My guess is that its that car equivalent of the Simpson’s bully “ha ha” laugh.

Its been a while…

country

Its been a while since I last went out on my bike. So I passed on the opportunity of playing disc golf. The weather wasn’t great. The temperature was 82 degrees, 76% humidity, raining slightly with an overcast sky. But it felt cool out. I think the evaporation from the rain cooled the air.

I was reminded again just how much country and pasture there is around here. Just a couple of miles away from my house, civilization seems to dissapear. While they are not entirely gone, it is enough to relax me.