Monday - Friday Night Fat Chick Rides

Here it is, already Friday night! Funny how time flies when you are gainfully employed, eh? The past several days has provided me with three night rides.

Monday Night

I went back out to the park on Monday, and was bent on riding the rest of the new trails over in the Oak Point section. I was pretty sure I had covered most of them, but was curious how much I missed.

Monday was a very nice night - I left the house about 8ish. I had hoped to leave earlier, but we had a missing ferret, and I didn't feel right leaving until we had located him. (The bugger got out the night before and was hiding in one of the bedrooms.)

There were a lot of people out Monday night. The weather was beautiful - I don't remember how hot it was, but do remember it wasn't too bad, and I don't remember it being particularly humid at all. I rode the usual route to the Bob Woodruff Park, and then rode back under the bridge to the park's south pavilion. This is just a short ride, maybe 1.25 miles there and back to the lake at the most.

(I passed the and rode around a wee bit on what appeared to be a dirt trail for a minute or two and then took a break at one of the picnic tables. Then I noticed a blond person (adult - but couldn't tell the gender) walking very carefully in the field. Like he/she was tracking something. And he/she had what appeared to be a big stick. He/she was kinda weird overall, so I didn't stay there too long.)

Back near the lake, there were the usually families bopping around. Some walking, some fishing, some walking next to wee ones riding little bikes, etc. As I rode around the lake a few times, I could hear snippets of different conversations here and there.

"You don't have cable?" a woman on her cell phone asked the party at the other end of the call.

"??????" Something in Spanish; not sure what it was, but it sounded happy.

"!!!!!!!!!" Something else in Spanish, from another person - this time NOT sounding so happy.

"******" Okay - this was a couple that appeared to be Indian, so I assume they were speaking an Indian language. Maybe Tagaloo, Hindu or something else? I can only guess - but the couple seemed pretty happy. (I must say the reason I particularly remember this couple wasn't so much that they were speaking in another language, but that the man seem to think that a striped polo went smashing with plaid shorts. That's what I call multi-cultural fashion disaster.) Even though I have lived in TX for almost 6 years I still get a kick of how many different languages one can hear in one's neighborhood. It never gets old for me!

Anyhoo, I moved on north past the playground, and towards where the horses can ride, over the creek, back out into the grassy area, and then took a sharp right (before I hit under the Spring Creek bridge) onto the path that connected to the Oak Point Preserve trails.

There were a lot more people on the MUPs over there that night. A LOT more. There were several families walking, as well as a lot of people on bikes. I was surprised how busy it was. When I got near where the trail forks, I took the usual right towards Los Rios. I have to admit I was a bit wuss, and couldn't make it all the way up the hill that hits Los Rios, and walked my bike most of the way. (But walking is exercise too, right?) Walking up the hill, a young fellow with a red helmet and green mountain bike gave me a polite smile as he passed me. He was young - most likely between 17 and early 20s. By the time I got up the hill and had turned around and heading down, he was flying UP the hill towards me! Zip, zip, zip!

Of course, I was jealous. But in a good way.

So, I fly down the hill (oh I do love going down that hill!), and of course have to slow down quite a bit as I get near the bottom. There is still quite a bit of dirt at the bottom of the hill where the trail takes a sharp turn, and it isn't something I think I could handle going to fast.

I continue on, and pass where I hit the fork, and go in the other direction. I pass the trail that goes off to the parking lot near the amphitheater, and expect that I will hit the end soon. I ride for a few minutes, and then a few more...and keep riding and riding. I then notice that I am approaching a small lake (well, they call them lakes here - really just a big pond, like Bob Woodruff "lake" is), and the path forks off again, and circles the lake. I bear right and continue - and see that there is another trail that breaks off from this one that goes farther to the right and winds up a huge (to me) hill up to a street (which ends up being Los Rios).

OH. MY. GOD. What a winding road it is!

Of course, the hill is not really huge - you have to understand that anything that is not flat can be a bit of a challenge to me. The hill is not something I can get up all the way just yet. But never mind that - what is really cool about the hill is that you can see how it winds all the way up. It is just really neat to see all these people riding up and down the trail on there bikes, winding up and down. You don't see that down here very often. At least I haven't. And riding those winds, just a blast.

As I was getting closer to the top and walking my bike, a lady with a big black dog was walking down. She smiled and said "Oh I bet it will be fun riding DOWN!" I smiled and said "I hope so!" and made my way to the top.

As I FLEW down the hill, floating around the various twists and turns, I tell you what - it was like I was 16 again and on my silver Motobecane flying down the hills in NH. Oh it was so very sweet! As I came up on the woman that was walking her dog I called out and said "You were right! It was a blast riding down!"

(Before I forget - the kid on the green mountain bike was there again, flying UP the hill as I came down. Pretty impressive brat, no?)

I took a right, so I could go around the rest of the lake. I noticed that the trail went off again in another direction, but I didn't really have too much time to explore that, and decided to save it for another day. It was getting dark and I figured I should stick to the trails I was familiar with after the sun went down. After I got around the lake, I headed back, took a detour to the amphitheater parking lot, came back, and headed back to the Bob Woodruff trail, and made my way home.

All in all, I rode about 12 miles. This was the longest ride I had taken in about 3 years, and hands down the best ride I had had in 10 years. (Which really isn't too big of a deal since I didn't really ride a bike for about 7 years haha.)

Tuesday Night

Tuesday night I went back to the park, for a shorter ride, staying mostly around the lake at the north pavilion at Bob Woodruff. It was already really dark, and though I had lights on the bike (I added two small flashlights), I didn't want to venture too far.

Funny story: I turned the flashlights off when I was on the well lit part of the trail. However, as soon as I was hitting a darker area, I would turn at least one on. This wasn't so much because I needed to see, but so a light was cast up a head so people in front of me would notice the light and get out of the way. This was really useful because not everyone pays attention when you say "Excuse me - coming up on your left!" etc.

So, anyway...this guy - maybe 15 or 16, was skating in a darker area around the lake when I was coming up behind him. I turned one of the lights on, and he noticed it. However, the light was going left to right a bit, since I was moving. This kid had on headphones and couldn't hear me, and started freaking out because the light went a little to the right, and then the left hahah.

Finally he turned around and yelled "Officer! I didn't do anything!" and then I rode by...and you could kinda hear a sigh of relief when he realized it was just some Fat Chick riding her bike at night and not a cop running him down haha.

Not sure how many miles I rode - probably no more than 7.

Wednesday & Thursday Night

Wednesday night was a bummer because not only did it rain a little, but we had a good bit of lightening. I decided not to risk slipping on wet pavement or getting struck down by the gods, so stayed home.

Thursday night I had planned to take my bike up to White Rock Lake to join a group of women for an easy ride. However, the organizer had to cancel it, which was probably good, since it was over 20 miles. So, I ran errands instead. Bought a cool new headlamp, as well as food for the minions and husband. By the time I got home I was too pooped to ride.

Friday Night

Tonight I went for a shorter ride - about 2.25 miles. this was just around the neighborhood. Though my little cheap flashlights were working okay, I didn't like how they didn't really focus the light on where I wanted the beam. Tonight I attached the light I purchased last night to my bike, and tested it out. What is really cool about it is that you can adjust it so it is pointing more down. This is wonderful, since usually the light points straight ahead and doesn't cover enough ground in front of me. It also has three settings:

Spotlight (1 white bright LED, which I prefer to use)

Night (2 red LED lights)

Flood (2 white LED Lights)

It is pretty handy dandy, and I like it much more than the bike lights I have looked at recently.

Tonight's ride we pretty short - it was all over in about 17 minutes. I pedalled my little fat heart out, and felt like I was flying when I was on flat road or going down the small hills. However, this route had several long inclines. They were not steep, and they were not very high. The problem is that I still cannot handle anything more than small short hills, so I was doing some serious peddling to get up the little hills. But I didn't have to walk up any of them, so I am pretty happy about that.