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Biking Buddy

02.23.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 2 Comments

I posted a message on the club’s Yahoo group last night that, given our terrific forecast for the day, it was time for the B riders to start showing up for club rides.

It didn’t work. Besides me, only two others came out (Meanwhile, the A group had 25 riders!). But that didn’t dampen my spirits any, because one of them was Maggie, who has become my favorite riding buddy.

About two years ago, our club president told me a new rider had come out for a ride I had missed. He said she made a noble effort to keep up with the A’s, but she was really looking forward to riding with the B’s. Maggie showed up the next week, and we clicked instantly. We ride at about the same pace. We have a lot of the same interests.

Bike Noob and Maggie at a rest stop in Buda. (Click pix to embiggen.)
Bike Noob and Maggie at a rest stop in Buda. (Click pix to embiggen.)

She’s really good at spotting birds and other critters on our rides. Often, she’ll start waving an arm, and I worry that she might be in trouble. It turns out that she was trying to call my attention to a red-tailed hawk, or a scissor-tailed flycatcher, or some other interesting bit of fauna that I might have missed.

On Sunday’s ride, the A’s dropped us about 10 miles in. Maggie and I conferred with Jim, the other B rider, about distance. We decided to go beyond Buda, but not as far as Kyle. That would give us about 38 miles for the day.

Our average speed was already high, because of the peloton effect with the A’s on the way out. On the way back, a three-mile stretch of a slight downhill kept our speeds high. When we pulled into Buda, we were averaging 16 mph. Unheard of!

Buda is still pretty sleepy at 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning.
Buda is still pretty sleepy at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.
At the Buda rest stop, Maggie and Jim talk about their gym workouts .
At the Buda rest stop, Maggie and Jim talk about their gym workouts .

The return leg took us past a large church that’s always crowded. Black-suited ushers in white shirts and red ties direct cars to parking places. I recalled one ride, where Maggie told me that she wanted me to turn “to go by the Mexican church.”

“Why?” I asked, making the turn to comply with her wishes. We passed a couple of the ushers, and one waved at Maggie, and called out, “God bless you.”

“That’s why,” she said.

By this time, the temperature was in the low 70s (22C), and it seemed that the only wind we had to contend with was the one we caused as we cut the air with our front wheels. Jim peeled off to take an alternate route home. Maggie and I decided to skip fast and dangerous Slaughter Lane, and instead took a detour through a residential neighborhood to get back to the start, where we sat at an outdoor table at Starbucks, sipped cold drinks, and chatted.

I enjoy being part of group rides. I also like to ride alone. But a good buddy who shares many of your interests, rides at your pace, and can keep up an entertaining line of patter…well, that’s a riding buddy who beats groups and solo rides.

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The Biking Butler

02.14.2012 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

A friend’s Facebook post sent me to the PBS website because they have “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Downton Abbey.” The smash British soap opera (Let’s be honest — that’s what it is — although it’s a very well done one) has been a favorite with both me and Mrs. Noob from the first episode. So I was interested in what new tidbits they might add about our favorite show.

Jim Carter as Carson the butler.

And lo and behold, what’s the second of ten things? “Jim Carter (Mr. Carson) does charity bike rides all over the world.” You can’t imagine how cool that is to me.

If you don’t watch Downton Abbey, this discussion will mean absolutely zilch to you, so you can check out at this point, and come back to Bike Noob in another couple of days to see what new twaddle I put up on the site. But if you do watch Downton Abbey, and you ride a bike, then you’ll never regard the stuffy, ubertraditional Mr. Carson the same way again.

An un-Carsonesque Jim Carter on a ride.

It didn’t take much of a search to find a shot of our favorite butler astride his two-wheeler. Oh, it appears to be a hybrid. Hm. But my wife rides a hybrid. And my wife dresses up in lycra jerseys and spandex shorts and wears a big ol’ skid lid on her noggin. So it’s okay that he rides a hybrid. Besides, he’s 63. So he’s too old to ride a road bike, right? Don’t go there. He’s only two years older than the Bike Noob.

It appears Carter’s interest in biking is to do charity rides, as the PBS snippet said. But they’re not just any charity rides. According to his entry in Wikipedia, he has done ten major fundraising rides in such far-flung places as Jordan, Costa Rica, Laos, Vietnam, India, Namibia, Chile, Argentina, and London to Paris (twice). His most recent ride was to raise money for clean water in the small town of Tafo, Ghana. He and 25 others rode for six days on that trip.

So here’s a touch of the forelock to Carson, with hopes that he keeps up his riding for worthy causes. Maybe one of these days, the Bike Noob will be able to join him.

 

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A Cyclist’s Heart Beats Again

08.13.2010 by Ray Niekamp // 6 Comments

Just about a year ago, I returned from vacation to learn that a local cyclist, Kevin Underhill, had died after crashing in a bike race.  I blogged about Kevin, who was a regular reader of Bike Noob.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Kevin was an organ donor, and his heart went to a man who also rides a bike.  Thursday, that man went back to the scene of Kevin’s crash.  Watch the story from Austin’s KVUE-TV.

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