Tour de Hood

Today I rode in a bizarre bike ride. It was the first annual Tour de Hood. It was started by a man who wants to promote bike riding and general exercise in a low-income primarily black area of town. I have been on about a dozen organized bike rides in my life. This one was very different. The website said it would start at 7am but it didn't start until after 8 am. Apparently part of the reason for this is because the founder was hit by a car last night as he was putting up the signs for the ride. He showed up with bloody knuckles and a big white bandage covering his entire head. It was hard to get mad at the guy for the late start.

On most of the rides I've been on, there's been mainly hard-core riders with all the gear. This ride only had about 25% hard-core riders and 75% novices. It was a strange combo. They even had bikes for people to borrow that did not have their own. The founder told everyone to please bring the bikes back. It sounded like they could just borrow them without any I.D. or deposit. Strange.

All these people together made for a strange ride. My dad was almost taken out by a ten year old boy on a light pink loaner bike. It was pretty funny. I am not sure where the kid's parents were. On most rides you all start together and then everyone rides at their own pace. On this ride, we kept having to stop so that people could catch up. This was annoying since I have clip on pedals that I have to clip out of to stop. We went about 8 miles in two hours. Normally I do about 12-14 miles an hour.

Another purpose of the ride was to learn about the history of the six wards (or areas) of inner-city Houston. We didn't get to hear too much since my dad and I quit after about 8 miles. It was too frustrating to start and stop and the ride seemed to be taking forever. We did get some really cool "Tour de Hood" t-shirts. The experience made me want to go on another organized ride- maybe one that was more orthodox.

After the ride, we visited my parents' good friend, Vic in the hospital. He had been in a bad biking accident. Apparently he fell in a hole at a construction site. He was briefly paralyzed but seems to be doing okay now. He's getting a bit stir-crazy in the hospital so pray for a quick release.