Homo Sapien Indoorus

This Saturday brought perhaps the best weekend weather day to Houston during this short 2008. With no running on the docket, I headed out on my trusty Trek 4300 bike for the first time in at least 9 months; the early start to marathon training last year put my bike into a serious state of neglect. The plan for Saturday was to ride around Buffalo Bayou, as I figured the Memorial bike trails would still be wet from the heavy rains on Thursday. The hour long ride went well, with no spills or similar such calamities, but there was one big obstacle; homo sapien indoorus (in - door -us). This offshoot of the human species believes that the good lord invented roofing material, HDTV, and air conditioning but for one reason; for them to enjoy it all year round! However, on this Saturday, with TV being a sporting wasteland and with the primal call of the wild luring them outside, indoorus was well represented at the Bayou.

Let me be clear, I don't begrudge folks who don't get out much the chance to go enjoy such a beautiful day. What I do find vexing is their complete lack of respect for others who are also seeking to enjoy the multi-purpose trails of the Bayou. Whether it be the three guys walking shoulder to shoulder and blocking the entire trail, or the wedding party that completely shut off the downtown branch of the trail, or, my favorite, the indoorus who purposefully jumps in front of me forcing me to the left (and into bike/pedestrian traffic behind them that they can't see), I seemed to be dodging indoorus for the entire ride. After bobbing and weaving my way around the river, I headed to the "hills" (read, big speed humps) by the Bayou Park Apts to see if I still remembered how to jump my bike. A couple of circuits on the speed humps yielded some decent jumps and some very spent legs, so I headed home satisfied with my first bike ride in quite a while.

I awoke Sunday morning with plans to go to the gym and swim. For some reason, I just can't make myself do this! I swim with so much wasted energy I figure I'll last about 15 minutes, so I envision the 15 minutes drive, 15 minute swim, and 15 minutes return; not a good use of time. So what to do ... take out the bike! With only about 18 hours having passed since my afternoon ride I was rather painfully reminded that one's tush needs more time than that to recover from the first ride of the year. Ignoring my saddle-sore rump, I gingerly made my way to Memorial Park. The mountain bike trails were still closed due to wet conditions, so I headed for the home turf of road bikers who are too afraid (and rightfully so) to bike amongst Houston's crazy drivers; the Memorial Park picnic clover leaf.

Though mountain bikers are the amphibians of the biker world, perfectly at home on trail or asphalt, there are some serious differences between road and mountain biking. Key amongst these differences is that when you get above 12 mph or so, an area a road biker lives in, your main speed culprit is air drag. Therefore, road bikers are frequently clad in the tightest of lycra, sucking in every bulging inch of Christmas diners past that would otherwise break a clean airflow and rob them of their precious speed. They sit atop rail thin, aerodynamic masterpieces, with their feet clamped into their pedals by special shoes so as to milk every ounce of torque from their lycra clad legs into their aerodynamic crankshaft. A truly refined sight to see!

Then there's me. The mountain biker wanna be. Maintaining friction with the ground, not airflow, is my main concern. Also, the more crap I wear means there's less chance for a stick, twig, bike pedal, or tree trunk doing serious damage when I take my inevitable spill over that rock that I didn't see in time! I sat atop my not terribly aerodynamic 35 pound beast of a machine, complete with speed robbing front shock, with an untucked running shirt up top, regular gym shorts flapping in the breeze, an old pair of running shoes atop my squeaky pedals, and a camelback water reservoir strapped to my back. Looking as if I received a memo saying all asphalt would give way to earthen trail sometime Sunday morning, I started my loops at the cloverleaf.

Though most road bikers simply passed me, going about their 25 mph or so way, I got introduced to a new guy this morning; the drafter! At top speed on the relatively flat cloverleaf, I can churn out about 18 mph worth of speed. This is more than enough to pass rollerbladers, kids on bikes, or even the occasional lycra clad road biker who is more interested in mileage than speed. So as I checked behind me to pass a lazily strolling rollerblader, I noticed my shadow behind me. But it wasn't my shadow. Upon a second look, it was a black clad road biker on a black bike all of about one foot off my back tire! As I stated above, road biking is all about aerodynamics, so my hulking beast of a bike, complete with it's rider in a not very aerodynamic upright position, was undoubtedly cutting a huge swath through the breeze. But really, why draft?!? I'm told by those who bike a lot that drafting is generally forbidden, or at the very least, frowned upon. If I were to make a sudden move, the drafter might be forced to eat my back tire, leaving him and I in a very bad way. And though I certainly didn't need to go, there's the sage advice of long distance triathletes; if you draft, you will get pee'd on!

After several minutes of drafting (he was so close, it was actually hard to see the guy), I heard the click of a bike transmission, and he smoothly went on his way around me. Why would one of the lycra-clad elite draft off my slow moving mountain bike? Perhaps he needed a break from the windy day, and decided to let me do the air slicing? Maybe it was a Godfather-esque intimidation technique, letting me know I wasn't welcome amongst the road bikers? Probably not that sinister, he was likely just practicing drafting for use in a race or some kind of competition. Whatever the motivation, it brought a little intrigue to my morning ride.

This time last year, after my first bike ride at Memorial, I was bleeding profusely and had to get a tetanus shot the next day! So all in all, a fruitful bit of exercise and a good way to enjoy a great weekend. Hopefully your weekend was good!