Afternoon Ride 11-11-10

Less than a week ago I was commenting about our lack of fall color. On my ride today (I had the day off) I noticed quite a change. It's like somebody flipped a switch and our trees changed from green to gold and red in unison.

Here's a typical neighborhood street here in Fort Worth.

Ahhh...pretty.

My scrappy little Charlie Brown tree has kicked things up a notch.

The sky was mostly cloudy today. When the sun did peek out the cormorants at Trinity Park took advantage.

Unfortunately, my wife neglected to feed me before I left the house. I showed my displeasure by stopping by Fred's and eating something unspeakably fattening and unhealthy. That will teach her.

Lone Star Beer, "The national beer of Texas".

**************************************************

The next house in my series of ride by photographs of mid-century homes. This house is on a dead end road which made it difficult to be inconspicuous.

The Ride to Fred's

I took the opportunity today to join a group for a ride through downtown and ending at Fred's Texas Cafe, a local landmark. I've got to say that until very recently, easy paced group rides in Fort Worth were practically unheard of, or at least they weren't advertised to the general public. Now it seems that there's a ride happening practically every week. That's progress! I believe much of the credit for this has to go to Bike Friendly Oak Cliff which has spawned a slew of Bike Friendly groups across the U.S. and even the world (New Zealand).

Here are some photos from today's ride:

I felt like riding something different today. With this being an easy paced ride I dusted off the Raleigh Folder. The problem with the Folder is that there is nowhere to carry a water bottle. I had to improvise.

The group gathered up at Trinity Park.

Emily powers up Radio Shack Hill (for lack of a better name).

Everybody grabbed some shade waiting for the group to reform. Did I mention that it was about 100 degrees today?

Our destination.

Locking up the bikes.

Twister's trying to decide what to eat.

***I've recently started moderating comments to my blog. I had been receiving lots weird comments in Chinese with links to questionable sites. As a result I noticed a couple of legitimate comments ended up in my spam filter and weren't discovered till this morning. I apologize for this and hope that you guys don't think I was being rude. I get pretty busy and can't always respond to comments but I want to be sure that your comments are visible.