The clouds finally parted after dropping more than 3 inches of rain across two days (yay, rain!) and Sunday turned out to be a stunning, cloudless, crystal-blue sky day of warmth. After church, the Petite Filet and Cutlet turned in for some naptime, and I loaded up my bike and headed down to the Trinity River Trails that encircle the lower end of downtown Fort Worth.
I rode two distinct sections, the first of which was sparsely used Sunday afternoon and a little less urban. There were rickety wooden train trellises, rusty metal bridges and solitude aplenty. As the trail neared the shadow of downtown before curving away, I noticed the stately old homes high above the fray. Below one of them, which would be hidden with foliage-laden trees currently left bare by winter, was a small collective of tarps, boxes and junk that was the "address" of at least one homeless person.
After awhile, I got tired of the solitude and headed back to my car. I reloaded the bike and headed to a larger park to experience that "up with people" feeling you get when you share the outdoors with hundreds of your neighbors. It's a different experience, to be sure, having to dodge pedestrians and dog poo, and having to contend with Lance Armstrong-wannabes with their flashy bikes, goofy-looking jerseys and disregard for anyone in their paths. Speedsters should stick to the section I rode before; there's nearly nobody to run into, and if there is, you see them coming from far off.
I chuckled when a group of them were crossing one of the spillways to the other side. They gingerly avoided debris that washed on top of the trailway. I waited until they cleared the small dam and followed them, my knobby tires chewing up branches and trash with nary a wimper.
I have no photographic evidence of my journey, but it was picture-perfect. I'm hoping the PF will get the itch to go biking with me on the relative safety of the trails. The Cutlet is still little enough to enjoy the ride from one of those pull-along bike trailers, and I think he'd like it, too. While I did have my cell phone with me, there's a certain safety in numbers. And pedaling with your peeps adds that much more to the journey.
I highly recommend the more than 20 miles of trails along the Tarrant County side of the Trinity, most of which I have yet to experience. But that's for another time, when the need for some two-wheeled, non-motorized sanity beckons me to hit the trails once again. The mere existence of the trails gives me hope that, some day, the Metroplex will be bicycle-friendly enough so that we can ditch our cars (and even the sporadic mass transit, for that matter) to go somewhere on our bicycles. Like ride from Fort Worth to Dallas without fear of an SUV plowing us down. Not give up our cars completely, but decrease our reliance on them. Just a thought.
Wanna ride?
