380 Greenbelt Park - Actually Green

The 380 Greenbelt park is one of the precious green spaces in the city of Denton, TX. The park is the starting or ending point of a 10 mile trail that meanders through the Ray Robert's Lake green belt/ watershed area. Most of the trail is surrounded by trees which makes it very beautiful during the spring months. This place is thronged by everyone that loves outdoors - runners, hikers, walkers, photographers, cyclists, even kayaking and fishing enthusiasts. The elm fork of trinity river runs along the trail making it an ideal spot for Kayaking.

I was at the trail on Monday and I was able to sight a Possom, a fox probably or coyote... both the animals were so quick that they scampered into the bushes as soon as I neared their location. I will be visiting this park often and will post updates as I visit.

 

Ervin Park, McKinney, TX

Here are some more pictures of Ervin Park landscapes. This is a large and sprawling park with great hiking/ walking trails. I will definitely complete this trail soon... it must be a few miles long.

Ervin Park, McKinney TX

This evening I decided to take a short break and visit one of the local parks. McKinney, Texas has a number of large parks with great outdoor activity options, Ervin Park is one such location. There are miles and miles of walking, hiking, bicycling, mountain biking trails in this park, some tree cover and mostly vast open spaces. Of course there are fire pits, gazebos and picnic tables for people to enjoy the outdoors. Surprisingly there are camping areas also, I wonder who would come and camp here, so close to the city.

Here are some pictures:

Lake Bonham Recreation Area

Bonham, Texas is a small town with just over 10,000 population, but it has enough attractions to sustain a tourist inflow of many times its population. The Bonham State Park with its beautiful lake; the Sam Rayburn library and museum, the Fort Inglish Park and then the Lake Bonham Recreation Area. Each one of these places attract several visitors during the summer when the weather is nice and warm.

Lake Bonham is particularly interesting because it is a huge lake, with several channels and recreational opportunities. Sprawling over 1,000 surface acres the lake's azure waters are a treat to the eye and its fish are a treat to those who catch them and eat. The of course like every other recreation area there are camping, walking, hiking, boating and other recreational facilities.

Entrance to the Lake Bonham Recreation Area

Picinic area Lake Bonham Recreation Area

Fishing Pier at Lake Bonham Recreation Area

Lake Bonham facade

Swimming beach in Lake Bonham Recreation Area

Bonham State Park

Last week I visited Bonham State Park in North Texas area. This is a comparatively small park with a 261 acre lake in the center. The park offers the usual activities such as bicycling, walking, hiking, some wilderness, camping, swimming, canoeing, boating, fishing, among others. Anyway now it is winter and coupled with the bad economy, there were hardly any visitors in the park. It seemed as if apart from the staff I had the park all for myself. I drove around the lake, took some short walks along the trails and departed.
Here are some pictures of the Bonham State Park.

Bicycle Trails in DFW Area

I have been bicycling in the area for the past 6-7 months and here are pictures of some of the trails I have hit in this time. My favorite trail continues to be the Chisolm trail in Plano which flanks a creek and has the best scenery and minimum road intersections. Another trail I like is the Blue Bonnet trail because of its convenient location adjacent to our apartment. Take a look at the pictures and decide for yourself. In Irving I like the Campion trail which runs alongside the Elm fork of Trinity river. I haven't biked on this trail since a long time, hope I will hit the trail again soon.
Blue Bonnet Trail, Plano


Campion Trail, Irving



Arbor Hills, Plano

Folding Bicycles: Great commuter tool!!!

I am a big time bicycle fan and as such I have always been enamored by different types of bikes. I first came across the folding bicycle in an English film where a London office goer gets off the train, unfolds the bike and starts riding it to work. I was pretty impressed back then and I read up more about this amazing phenomenon of bicycles. Here in Dallas bicycles are mainly used for pleasure riding in the park or around residential communities where traffic is sparse and speeds low. But in London the scene is quite different. It is common to see multitudes of suited and booted executives getting off the train and riding their fold-up bicycles to work.

If one were to take a cursory look at the bicycle it doesn't appear impressive. But only the mechanically oriented individual knows what a engineering challenge it is to make a folding bicycle. The vehicle not only has to be easily collapsible and light weight but it has to retain its alignment and fine movements. This was one of the thoughts of Andrew Ritchie when he set out to create a bicycle which would be so small that it would fit into your pocket. At that point Ritchie was still one of the several Undiscovered Business Entrepreneurs in London. In 1976 he registered his own company Brompton which designed bicycles. Despite his great designs manufacturers didn't show much interest in his project. But determined as he was Ritchie went into production on his own. Initially Ritchie and his sole employee would build about 300 bikes a year. As time passed the product was such a great hit that his company has grown leaps and bounds from then. Today Brompton has an annual sales turnover of over £10million with a year on year growth of 25%. These fold up bicycles have become extremely popular in big biking nations of Netherlands, Germany, USA and Japan. With new eco-consciousness setting in more and more people are beginning to bicycle. This number has doubled since 2000.

Tour de Cure, DFW

Despite the heavy downpour bicycle enthusiasts across the DFW area participated in the four bicycle rides organized in various parts of the metro area. I volunteered for Tour de Cure organized by the American Diabetes Association, I was at the very first rest stop which was visited by all the riders except those who did the 5 mile route. I guess because of the many rides in the area riders were split between the events and there were only about 500-odd riders participating in the Tour de Cure. Organized to raise funds for diabetes research this ride has special meaning to me personally because both my parents are diabetic and I hope a cure is discovered soon so they can get off the pill and lead normal lives.
What I saw at the ride was even more surprising. There were several young children riding and volunteering for this ride who were diagnosed diabetic. But they were spirited and wanted to do something about it and hence they were there braving thunder storms and the sudden cold to cheer riders or to ride themselves.
I managed to capture some good images of the riders from my vantage point at rest stop 1. It was bad lighting and incessant drizzle so the pictures have not come out all that good, but here is perhaps the best of a bad lot. Do let me know what you feel about it.

Views of Plano Fun Ride

I volunteered at the 1st Annual Plano Fun Ride, a bicycle rally organized in aid of few local charities. The short ride (5 & 10 mile) was cut further short due to thunder storm. I was standing at the intersection playing the role of a signpost and directing traffic. Only about 250 riders showed up for the ride and less than 100 people completed the 10 mile ride. Here are some pictures I shot from my vantage point.

Views Getting Boring

When I started this blog I was posting loads of pictures because of two reasons. One I was new to this country and everything that seemed different from the place I am from appeared wonderfully and awesome. Two I didn't have much to do and wasn't licensed to drive so rather than sitting idle I started capturing the views by the road.

But now I am neither new to the country nor am I the perennial passenger. I have got my license and have started driving. This unfortunately cripples me while traveling. I can't just take pictures while I am driving. So this blog like many others is kinda becoming text heavy.

In this post I hope to present some interesting pictures of the recent biking event I attended: The Collin Classic 2009. Since I was riding the Collin Classic I didn't carry my camera and had to depend on Flickr where I found a user's (Ateupamateur) album with some nice pictures, which I am using here.

Riders at the start line

Riding in the blazing hot sun

Riding in the blazing hot sun

Rolling Hills of Collin County

Yesterday I participated in the Collin Classic, a bicycle ride put together by Plano Cycling and Fitness and Bikin Mike. The organizers had carefully planned the ride in such a way that cyclists could choose the distance they are comfortable with and yet participate in the event. Distances ranged from 4 mile family route to 55 mile hard-core cyclist trail.

The website explained that the ride would expose participants to the rolling hills of Collin County. Having been in Dallas for over 18 months I haven't seen any real hills. I thought these guys are just joking when they talk about hills. But it became obvious that I was wrong in the first couple of miles itself.

The ride started off at 8.00 am sharp with the US national anthem and then there was mayhem on the road cyclists racing each other. This is a perfect example of road rage in its most human form, rage of humans on vehicles powered by humans. Riding my street hybrid bicycle I was quite a spectacle for many of the serious guys riding carbon-fibre framed $1,000-10,000 bikes.

The ride took us through the real countryside of Texas, hundreds of acres of corn and wheat lined the roads on either side. Unlike the MS-150 this ride was more adventurous and in remoter areas of the state. The villages I passed through had badly potholed roads, especially New Hope, Melissa, Blue Ridge, etc. There were couple of mile-long uphill stretches which had to be negotiated.

Towards the third break point (half-way through), we had negotiated about 12 miles of uphill ascents and my left thigh was threatening to collapse. I ordered myself to persevere and conserve energy and complete the ride. It would have been embarassing if I had to call for SAG support. I took a slightly longer break, massaged myself poured water and rode on. As I rolled across the finish line 2 hours later I felt glad I had recognized the signs of muscle fatigue and conserved my energy to complete the ride.

Some interesting sights of the ride I could never forget include, seeing a donkey breeding farm, undulating roads of Collin County, vast corn fields, among others.

Collin Classic is tomorrow!

Dallas area offers some great opportunities for some varieties of outdoor activities. Bicycling is by far among my favorite. I have been riding the various trails in the DFW area. Last month the MS-150 was the highlight of bicycling in Texas, with over 3,000 cyclists riding the 87 miles from Frisco to Texas Motor Speedway through back country roads. That was the also the event in which I clocked the fastest time of my life, 28.8 mph, completing the distance in about 6 hours.

Now tomorrow is another big bicycling event, not as big as the MS-150, but pretty big. The event titled Collin Classic is being organized in the country roads of Collin County. For the convenience of different grades of riders, they are offering numerous routes, from 4 miles to 55 miles and each route is uniquely different.

I plan to hit the longest ride 55 miles and hopefully will be able to complete the ride in under 5 hours. Will post pictures of the event tomorrow.

More views of Blue Bonnet Trail, Plano

Yesterday I went cycling on the Blue Bonnet Trail in Plano, Tx. The trail is within a mile from our apartment and hence very easily accessible. Before I go on to describe the 5-mile paved bicycle trail I'd like to say something about the planning that has gone behind creation of this trail. Blue Bonnet trail is the by-product of electricity. Yes the entire trail runs along high-voltage cables and electrical transformers. Town planning engineers/ architects have utilized this trail so efficiently made use of this trail to create a green space for the entertainment of all city folk.

Thinking back about my home town (Bangalore) in India I have seen similar large electrical cabling and transformers back home in India and these are usually converted into medians of main roads. Lack of space coupled with insensitive planning has led to these grotesque steel monsters being installed on roads close to homes. This is not only unsafe but also makes it very difficult to service in case of problems.

But I certainly am impressed by the thoughtfulness exhibited by the town planners of Plano who have created this unique space for sports, leisure and entertainment of the tax paying public.

A field of flowers, beauty for visitors to enjoy

Electrical transformers though metal monsters, in this space they look kinda good

Electrical transformers an integral part of the trail

A honey bee enjoys nectar from the wild flowers