ankle-biters in Banjo county

So I was out riding the countryside like two weeks ago. Just kinda picked a direction and rode. South, into the hills. I may've benefited by having a more.... planned route in mind, but I'll get into that later.

Now, I've been chased by dogs before, and it's always an energizing experience, but really I've been able to keep a good distance between me and them. I've learned to keep an extra ounce of leg for just those instances. But this time, I had friggin' Wishbone chasing me through gravel up a hill in traffic. Then, half an hour later, I had a German Shepherd trying to bite my ankles! He actually ran me off the road for a bit, which wasn't a big deal or anything, but still, the shock. 

Then, another half-hour later, Google Maps failed me for the first time! On the route I was taking, the road (according to my phone) took a hairpin turn and then connected with a straight drive back to the city. But in reality, that road never took that sharp left turn, and turned into dirt in between a horse farm (ranch?) and a redneck outpost (which was actually rather quaint). But there I was, chased by dogs, stranded and semi-lost in the middle of Banjo-County Arkansas, and wearing bright red Lycra.

Not a good situation.

Eventually, I got over my stubbornness and accepted that I had to turn around. Although, feasibly, I could have continued over the dirt/gravel roads, but I had no idea where they were going, so that prolly wasn't a good idea. But I went back the way I came, past the dogs again (who this time didn't even bark), and yeah, back to civilization.

The trip back never seems to amount to much, this time was no different.

About Lycra...

So, it has been a while since my last post. Apologies to all two of my followers, and thanks to the one who kicked me in the butt enough to actually get me to write. Yay fiancee! The bright side is that I have plenty of stories by now!

Cycling is an interesting sport... activity... thing. If you think about it, it's not an inherently social activity. I mean, you can ride your bike, cycle as much as you want, and never make eye contact with anyone else riding a bike and still be a cyclist. Or a bike rider, but that leads to confusion about riding motorcycles and frankly, I wear Lycra, not leather. Lycra (just say that out loud for a moment. There. Feel that texture of the word in your mouth). I figured out, a while ago, the difference between riding a bike and cycling. It all boils down to Lycra. If you take yourself so seriously that you ride essentially naked in public by wearing Lycra, then you're a cyclist (Cyclist: give that a capital "c"). If you wanna look good and feel comfortable and wear actual clothing, then you're bicycle-riding.

[I decided to split where I was going with this into two posts, so below I tell you a story and some other time you'll get my overarching and frankly esoteric point. Deal.]

So I was riding the Little Rock River Trail a while ago on an amazingly warm winter day. Like seventy, seriously. The total loop is about twenty miles and the north side of the trail is quite nice. Lots of good scenery, cliffs, a few gentle hills and few homeless people. It's nice, really; not as nice as all the advertisements would make you think (see the back of the latest Bicycling Magazine). The catch with doing the whole loop, though, is that you go through downtown Little Rock. It's not like you're going through gang territory (although you may), but you are nonetheless going through some incredibly sketchy territory.

Abandoned warehouses. Underneath overpasses. Dried out culverts and (dear God!) homeless people. And you're wearing Lycra. Complete strangers look and well, they can see your junk completely and thoroughly, and you tie up traffic because you've only got the two wheels.

And I ran over glass and got a slow flat, so I don't recommend the south side.

But the north? Fantastic. If you get a flat, there's a bike rental place with a really friendly dog and a guy who'll offer all the help you'll need.

But you'll sit there in your Lycra, pumping your tire up yourself, with your spare, when an old guy comes up and (remember that you're in Lycra, now) assumes you know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to biking -- I mean, Cycling.

Ugh, I've been going on for a while, so I think I'll shut up for now. See y'all in a bit!

Now With Pictures!

Yep, got me a nice raspberry today. Well, that's the motorcycle term for roadrash (pretty sure that's a motorcycle term, too), but am going to delay explaining how exactly I got nice and bloodied for as long as possible, because it's just that lame a story. In the meantime, revel in my gory glory!

I ended my day with some spicy eggdrop soup, which I made myself (I'm trying to brag here, ya mind?). Turned out to be perfect for ending a night of riding around in shorts and tee-shirt at about thirty or forty degrees. The saltiness of the broth and the protein in the eggs was darn near perfect, but what really did the job was when I added the Sriracha! For those of you who don't know what pure delicious fire tastes like, it comes in a bottle and can be found in just about any asian restaurant. And it glows red and for some reason has a rooster and a bunch of Chinese (?) characters on it. The Chinese makes sense; it's the rooster that sticks out as weird. I digress; just know that you should google search "eggdrop soup" and follow the first one that pops up, but add sriracha. Nothin beats breathing fire after freezing to death.

Hey, awesome link: http://blog.thesrirachacookbook.com/post/1535833396/sriracha-food-group-food-pyramid

Side note: I tried adding wasabi and extra ginger, but neither worked like sriracha and soy sauce (thank you fiancee for the soy sauce idea).

I had weaved around rush-hour traffic to get to the only coffee shop in town that is not a Starbucks. I'll rant about Starbucks, but suffice to say: they're evil. Really, it was a chance to use up my punch card's free drink and reestablish my ability to ride a damn bike, after having fallen. I had basically given up for the day, worn out earlier than I was expecting, and discouraged by an unbelievably cold and strong wind. Really, I'm pretty sure I was riding in an outdoor wind-tunnel in Antarctica. Like that image? I do. Took me a while to come up with it, though. Not proud of that. But, long story short, I had to man-up after having wussed out earlier.

...

No way around it; I fell, with one foot still attached to my bike. I misjudged the slope of the parking lot as I was dismounting, and my weight was on the right while my left foot was the one actually detached. Hilarity ensues, and I get up with some nice scrapes to lie about for a week or so.

I fought a bear.

I was jumping off a cliff.

I attempted to fly.

I stopped a robbery.

Anything other than I fell off my bicycle and skinned my knee.