Morning Bike Ride in Shanghai

Exploring the mega city while most people are still asleep is a good way to experience many aspects of Shanghai. 

Here is a map of this particular bike ride

Shanghai, bike, ride

A ride through the streets of Shanghai

Check the video here 

 

Hot Summer Morning on the Texas Trail

Hot Summer Morning

Today I decided to beat the heat and get on the bike trail early in the morning. I was on my bike by 8am and actually enjoyed relatively cooler weather even though by the time I was reaching my house – at 9:40 – the temperature had risen significantly 

lesson learned – in the Texas summer – head out as early as possible – I know this is no rocket science but still needed to be reiterated

on the positive side – while on the trail I encountered plenty of wild life – a coyote and a roadrunner 

the coyote did not spend but a minute looking at me, turned around and ran back into the woods…I was too large for his liking.  

The roadrunner as usually just walked importantly along the trail until it decided to chase something in the brush and disappeared 

unfortunately I could not take pictures of any of them – too short of a encounter, but here is a pic from the trail anyway.

Texas hill country

Texas Hill Country Trail

 

Biking in Texas – Spring Views

Biking in Texas

The mountain biking season in Texas goes through its ups and downs.  There are months when it is cold and wet, I know somewhat counterintuitive statement about this state where draughts are more common than rains, but trust me it does rain here and it does get cold….The same temperature that causes New Englanders to break out the shorts and flip-flops, makes folks in Texas claim a cold spell is upon us.  

While our weekends lately have been very busy with family related happenings – we were able to sneak in a bike ride here and there (late on Sunday – almost evening – after coming back to town).  The weather and scenery of the Texas bike trails were beautiful.  

The photos below make me feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to get on a mountain bike and cruise through the wilderness, calm and nature of the bike trails in the Hill Country…. What a great experience….!

Christmas Bike Ride in the Texas Hill Country

Christmas Bike Ride

Austin continues to amaze me…!  Why?  Well, today is the day after Christmas, it is December 26th, however the weather was beautiful – warm, sunny, a perfect day for a great bike ride in the Texas Hill Country.

Texas Austin Warm Weather As you can see from my iPhone Weather App, today was a very warm, sunny, and overall a great day, unusual even for Austin in December….!

Having said that, we are not complaining 🙂

Instead, we put on the biking gear, pumped up the mountain bike tires and off we went into the green belt in West Austin.

It was almost too warm….

You can see some great pics from the bike ride below.  I took photos of the winter landscape, the Barton Creek, the trails in the Green Belt and the dormant trees which even in this state are quite something… Well, enough said – take a look at the photos and let us know how you like them… Happy Holidays!

 

Biking Kentucky

Biking Kentucky

Biking in Kentucky is something that at first did not come to my mind.  Then I went to visit a good friend of mine – someone I have known since I was 14!  Yes, indeed, it is great to have the ability to stay connected with your classmates from high school and be able to visit and spend time together…But enough of the touch and feely stuff – let’s get back to the topic…

I have always associated Kentucky with horses, horse races of course, and tons of beautiful farms with endless bluegrass covered meadows.  Well, since my visit earlier this week, I now know that this state also offers great opportunities for enjoying the rolling hills, horse farms, and yes, biking!

Kentucky Biking

 

Here are a bunch of photos I took during the week of Thanksgiving to help you see the opportunities to have some great rides – in this particular case in the Lexington area.

Kentucky Lexington Biking

Kentucky Horse Country biking road

Kentucky Lexington Biking

Just outside Lexington

Kentucky Lexington Biking

Lexington bike road view

Kentucky Lexington Biking

Near by Lexington Horse Farms

Kentucky Lexington Biking

Biking road – near Lexington

 

Texas September Mountain Biking

Mountain Biking in the Texas Fall

Well, we are thinking about the Fall.  Even-though, according to official records and if according to the recognized norm, the Fall is still several days away.  Nevertheless the Texas mountain biking scene is picking up steam.

There are new bike shops sprouting around the city — that tells you about the growing popularity of biking in this great city and State;

Then there are the great flowers and views along the bike trails,   Here is a sampling of those views as captured by my trusted iPhone:

Texas Wild Flowers Texas-Austin Strange dogs,

something that looks like a wild version of the morning glory

These flowers were all over along the bike trail along Barton Creek

 

 

 

Texas Beauty Berry

Very interesting and colorful plant….Interesting to see

 

 

 

Here is the collage of the some of the photos – for a quick view – then later on the blog post I will get some of the individual photos showing so you can appreciate the rich ecosystem of Texas in the late summer — especially this year — rather than getting a burnt outdoors this year we have tons of rain and as a result the fields are green and there are tons of wild flowers.

texas Collors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USA AUSTIN BARTON CREEK TRAILSo one thing to remember though – you absolutely have to enjoy the great outdoors but you also have to remember, the summer is still in full swing here and temperatures are high – i.e. carry plenty of water on your ride…. Take a look at the photo below – that is you environment!

Bike Highways – Mega Cities Investing in Bicycle Infrastructure

Bike Highways

Over the last century or so, the world and its cities have spent trilions of dollars on automotive related highways.  The interstate highway system in the US or the autobahns in Germany are example of engineering greatness – creating efficient and very convenient (for cars and trucks) roadway system.

Now we have examples of significant investment going into biking infrastructure in big metro areas.

  • Paris: investing approximately $164M to build a 28-30 mile highway for bicycles;
  • Atlanta: pledging to invest $1B over the next 25 years into biking and walking infrastructure in order to make the city more liveable

The Paris plan is being described in the article by CityLab and per that article hopefully it will get completed.   From personal experience – Paris desperately needs the bicycles as the congestion in the city is pretty bad.  I remember spending hours stuck in traffic trying to leave the city on the way to near by towns and then come back in the evening…

Atlanta is no different — yes, it needs the plan and its results…Here is more on it

Well, check them out and encourage your local communities to do the same…

Texas Bike Trails in April – Continued

Last weekend I posted a bunch of photos from the great trails in Texas – if you like mountain biking, the spring in and around Austin, Texas is a great time to experience nature from the bike seat… You get to see great colors, may be even encounter some wild life on the trails.

This April has been wet – tons of rains in the area – resulted in greenery everywhere and of course tons of wild flowers.

As a result of the rains, the local creeks are also running wild – so you may need to be careful on some of the trails.  Lucky for me – by this Saturday the trails along Barton Creek (photos below) were almost dry with only some areas that were still under water – but easy to bike through on your bike.

I think the photos speak for themselves – April is a great time to go out and ride the trails.

Austin-Texas-Mountain-Bike Austin-Texas-Mountain-Bikes Texas Austin Mountain Bike Austin-Texas

 

Texas Mountain Bike Trails in April

Gallery

This gallery contains 6 photos.

This winter and spring have both been fairly unpredictable and actually not cold.  As a result both the trails and the actual biking conditions have been rather pleasant if not a bit muddy. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to hit … Continue reading