“It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”
―Ernest Hemmingway
Skiptooth Front Cog
Frisco Heritage Center
Frisco, Texas
“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle
Fixed Gear Bike locked to a parking meter in Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
I think it belongs to the bartender at Pecan Lodge
“What I want to know is, in the Middle Ages, did they do anything for Housemaid’s Knee? What did they put in their hot baths after jousting?”
― H.G. Wells, Tono-Bungay
Bicycle Joust
Dallas Tweed Ride
Turner House
Oak Cliff, Dallas, Texas
Fun activities on the 2014 Bike Friendly Oak Cliff Tweed Ride.
“They had laughed. They had leaned on each other and laughed until the tears had come, while everything else–the cold, and where he’d go in it–was outside, for a while anyway.”
― Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
One of my favorite new places in Dallas is the Cold Beer Company. It’s on the far east side of Deep Ellum, and has been built as the rebirth of an interesting old building. It’s in a good location, has nice outdoor seating, and, of course, a good selection of cold beer.
I rode my bike there and noticed the brick patio entrance. Right in the middle of the paving was a single brick marked “Lawrence, Kansas.” I asked the waitress about that and she said one of the owners went to Kansas University, my alma mater.
“And he likes to talk about it,” she said.
So when he came out of the back I asked him about KU and the waitress was right – he liked to talk about it. He seemed a little sheepish about the brick. “They weren’t supposed to put it right there in the middle.” I’m not sure I believed him.
We talked about Lawrence and the Kansas winters. When I would look around, the waitress and bartender would roll their eyes.
I think they had heard it all before – many times before.
Paving brick in front of the Cold Beer Company
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
Patio in front of the Cold Beer Company,
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
My Xootr Swift folding bike in the cool bike rack in front of the Cold Beer Company
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
“Don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour – but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands – and who knows what to do with it?”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
A lot of my photos from New Orleans are taken from my favorite spot. It on the corner of Governor Nicholls and Decatur in the French Quarter. There’s a bar/restaurant called the Mojo Lounge – and there is a table right on the corner, outside, on the sidewalk, under the balcony. I’ve been known to hang around until someone leaves that table and jump in. The Mojo is primarily a bar, but like a lot of bars in New Orleans, the owner is a chef and takes pride in his food. But the real attraction is the view from that corner table. It’s in the quarter, but far enough down toward Frenchman that it’s not too touristy. There’s a bicycle rental down the street and Wicked Orleans catty-corner across the street. That makes for an interesting parade all day and all night.
I discovered the place a few years ago after being caught in a sudden torrential downpour while walking away from the French Market one Saturday before Mardi Gras. I ducked in and ended up staying all day and most of the night.
Outside the Mojo Lounge, New Orleans, Louisiana
Two orange bikes rented from A Bicycle Named Desire, French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
“He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery – love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow, that’s how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
“For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Magazine Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
“Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let’s choose executors and talk of wills”
― William Shakespeare, Richard II
We lost about half the ride at Lee Harvey’s – but here’s the rest at the Santa Fe Trestle Trail.
(click for a larger, better version on Flickr)
A week ago I went along on an organized bike ride that, in the spirit of upcoming Halloween, explored three of Dallas’ historical cemeteries. I left the house and rode to the DART station, taking the train downtown. This was the last week of the giant State Fair of Texas and the trains were packed with last-minute fairgoers, but I made it without any problem. I rode from the West End Station down to the Continental Bridge Park and met up with about twenty folks there.
We rode down into the Trinity River Bottoms and followed the new paved bike trail and some gravel roads to the Santa Fe Trestle Trail. Then we headed up Corinth and into South Dallas. Working our way through the neighborhoods we arrived at our first stop, Oakland Cemetery.
This was a very peaceful and interesting place. It’s one of the oldest cemeteries in the city and is full of locally famous folks – the names on the tombstones are reflected in many familiar street names. One feature is that when they constructed the cemetery they left the native trees – making it one of the few first-growth forest spots in the city. There are a number of unique sub-species of trees found only there.
We rode around without stopping – I plan on going back soon for some photography there.
Leaving Oakland Cemetery we went a few blocks up a side street and stopped at an ordinary small rental property. It was the house where Ray Charles lived for a few years in the 1950s – while he was making some of his most famous music. I had no idea there was any connection between Ray Charles and the city of Dallas – the house is not marked or preserved in any way. The local blues scene was influential on his musical growth and style at the time. He was traveling a lot – but became a regular performer at local clubs like Woodman Hall and the Arandas Club.
Ray Charles’ rental home.
Dallas, Texas
We rode back on side streets into The Cedars where we stopped for lunch and a beer at Lee Harvey’s – which appeared as we turned the corner like an oasis in the desert.
The day was getting long and I thought about heading home, but I was convinced to ride back across the river to another historical cemetery, Oak Cliff Cemetery. It was another interesting and beautiful spot – but the sun was starting to set so we headed off to our last destination, Western Heights Cemetery.
I was getting tired and started to fall behind the main group. A strong cyclist stayed back with me and we became separated from everybody else. It was dark when we made it to Western Heights. We waited for a bit – but the others never made it.
Historical Marker at Western Heights Cemetery
Dallas, Texas
The most famous person buried in Western Heights is Clyde Barrow. A few years back I visited Bonnie Parker’s grave, north of Love Field. Her family insisted on her being buried far away from her infamous partner – there has been some interest in having them moved together over the years, but nothing has come of it.
Bonnie Parker’s Gravesite
We clambered over the fence to take a look at the grave of Clyde and his brother Buck.
Grave of Clyde Barrow and his brother, Buck.
It was getting late and I was a long way from home, so I took off, riding back to the Trinity River, over the Continental Bridge and catching a train at the American Airlines Center back to Richardson. We had ridden a little over thirty miles, which is a long way in the city, especially for me. There is nothing better than a fun and exhausting day.
We have just folded space from Ix
Many machines on Ix
New machines
Better than those on Richese
You are transparent—-The Third-Stage Guild Navigator to the Emperor Shaddam IV, Dune (the movie)
My Xootr Swift folding bike, folded up against the wall of Four Corners Brewing Company, Dallas, Texas
Sometimes I fold my bike when I’m locking it up. I’m not sure why – it certainly doesn’t make it any harder to steal – you could simply pick it up and throw it into a trunk. Maybe I hope it makes it look less like a bicycle and more like a random pile of pipes and parts.
I was thinking about David Lynch’s surreal, preposterous, and insane version of Dune, the movie from 1984. I read some old reviews – everybody hated it. A lot of people walked out. Someone said, “It sure isn’t Star Wars.”
Now, after all this time, I realize that (although I can’t even say Dune is a good movie) I actually like Dune better than Star Wars. It has certainly had more of a lasting effect on how I look at the world, that’s for sure.
I mean, what other movie ends with a real WTF knife fight to the death between Sting and Agent Cooper with Captain Jean-Luc Picard watching.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
― Albert Einstein
Continental Bridge Park, Dallas, Texas
Unless you live in North Texas – you have no idea how horrifically big the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is. The entire complex of cities is seventy miles across… side to side or top to bottom… from Rockwall to Benbrook, or McKinney to Cleburn, or Denton to Waxahachie.
That’s a lot of territory. Miles and miles of Texas. That’s almost five thousand square miles of urban landscape.
That’s too much city to cross by bicycle. Or at least by bicycle alone. So, as always, I combined the bike with mass transit – specifically the web of train tracks that once took cattle back to the eastern slaughterhouses… but now shuttle city denizens around the concrete vastness.
Last week, I was surfing the web, checking out facebook, when I was confronted by a photo of a restaurant menu. The restaurant was Brewed – a craft beer/coffee/gastropub in Fort Worth – and they were offering a Temptress-Topped Waffle, paired with a special keg of French Quarter Temptress Stout.
Tempress is a milk stout produced by the Lakewood Brewing Company, located only a couple miles south of my house. I consider Temptress to be one of the best things on earth. Not beers… Things.
So on Saturday I set up my Xootr Swift Folding bicycle and set off for Fort Worth. That is too far for me to ride, so I would combine the bicycle with the local trains. My departure was delayed for an hour after I discovered a thorn in a tire – but I set off nevertheless for the nearest DART station and took the Red line to downtown Dallas. There I boarded the TRE Line for distant Fort Worth.
The only problem was that they were doing some bridge maintenance west of the airport, so the train stopped, everybody piled off and onto a brace of waiting buses, and rode to the next stop where we reboarded another train. The bus had a bike rack on the front; I had never used one of those before. It worked fine, but I felt a nervous jolt in my stomach every time the bus bounced over some pothole or ditch. I could imagine my bike bouncing off, crushed under the wheels.
Of course, the people that designed and built the rack knew much more than me and the trip was fine. Still, the unboarding, boarding, moving, and reboarding took a lot of time and it seemed like forever before I left the train at the T&P station in Fort Worth.
I used Google Maps bicycling directions to find a route to Brewed, locked my bike up outside, and found a seat at the bar.
My Xootr Swift locked up outside Brewed, Fort Worth, Texas
Lakewood Brewing Company, French Quarter Temptress, Special Glass, Brewed, Fort Worth, Texas
Temptress-Topped Waffle, Brewed, Fort Worth, Texas
The French Quarter Temptress was excellent – the waffle with Temptress laced syrup and whipped cream was even better. I really like Brewed – coffee, craft beer, and good food – what can be better than that? The restaurant has a fun, eclectic décor (including a “Seventies Room”) and would be a regular place for me, for sure, if it wasn’t so darned far away. I sat at the bar, chatting with the staff and customers for a lot longer than I intended, but it was fun.
We talked about local beer, about coffee, about New Orleans, and about the asymmetrical rivalry between Dallas and Fort Worth.
I left the restaurant later than I had planned, but still wanted to get a few miles of bike riding in before I headed home. The French Quarter Temptress came in a special souvenir glass – I carefully wrapped it up so I could get it all the way back unbroken. Again, using Google Maps I wound my way to the west, past the Fort Worth Zoo, and along the trails along the river back into downtown.
I wanted to visit the Water Gardens and get some photographs but I felt the pavement grow ragged under me and I realized I had another flat (another thorn) and had to take the time to fix the leak. As I sat on a bench and worked the tire irons and portable pump I kept glancing across the street at something on the sidewalk. It looked like a photorealistic sculpture of a homeless man standing there, holding his shoes, staring into the distance.
During the entire time, maybe twenty minutes, I worked on my tire, the thing never moved, not a fraction of an inch. It must be a sculpture, I thought, I even kept an eye on one little stray lock of hair – which never budged. Testing out my new tire, I rode across the street, and the sculpture turned and looked at me. It was a real homeless person, semi-catatonic, standing stock still until something moved near him.
That shook me a bit – and it was time for a train, so I rode into the T&P station. The trip back included the same train-bus-train dance. So it was TRE train-bus-TRE train-DART Red Line Train-three mile bike ride to get back to my house. I was well after dark when I reached home.
A fun day – but a long way to go for some waffles.
Bill Chance 