On a Roll...

Interestingly, after yesterday’s post where I mentioned that I had been thinking about a road bike and then, BOOM, a guy showed up offering me one, I’ve received several messages and emails about it.  Some have wondered if it might not have been God providing a bike for me.  Believe me, I definitely thought of that.  A lot.  It was an older bike and, although it looked like it was in good condition, – as much as I could tell from where I was – there are just too many things that I wouldn’t be able to adequately check on it, like chain wear.

Me?  I chose to look at it as an opportunity to differentiate between a need and a want.  Sure, I probably could have come up with the 6000 Lempiras the guy wanted, or talked him down a little, but, honestly, do I really *need* two bikes here?  I think not.

OK, on to my story about the two drunks:

I wanted to get some extra miles yesterday and even a little extra work on the hills, so I decided to head back up toward the Volcán for a second time.  I was not planning to go up very far, but just get some extra mileage.

I was not too far off the boulevard, not quite up to the cemetery yet, when I noticed that all the cars in front of me were stopped, and one of them appeared to be blocking the road.  “Oh, great!” I thought.  “I’ve run into a political protest or something.” I quickly scanned the road to see where I could bail out, but there was nowhere.  I kept riding closer since the cars were actually getting through, albeit slowly.  That’s when I saw it:  two guys on the ground in the middle of the street, throwing punches at each other.

Seriously.  I saw two guys rolling around in the middle of the road slugging it out.  Then, they both got up and one picked up a rock and threw it at the other one, letting out a string of obscenities along with the boulder.  He seemed to have a pretty good arm, but kept missing the other guy, who, as you might imagine, was also throwing rocks at his attacker.

Now, these weren’t just little stones.  They were big.  Huge!  I’m talking baseball- to softball-sized rocks, and there appeared to be no shortage of them.  Remember, I’m still riding forward while all this is happening.  By now, I’m riding as far to the right side of the road as possible and trying to dodge the rocks as they roll toward me.  One actually hit my front wheel, but glanced off of it.

As soon as I could, I picked up the pace and cleared the area.  So did all the cars that had been in line.  One car in front of me, once clear of the melee, started telling cars traveling in the opposite direction, those headed directly toward it, what was going on.  After about three blocks or so, that car pulled off to the side of the road.  I decided to go up and talk to the driver for a minute.

The woman driving still had her window down, so as I got closer, I called out a friendly greeting so that I didn’t startle her.  I told her that I had never seen anything like that here and asked her if it happens a lot.  She told me that, no, it was very, very rare, but the two guys were both drunk – which was pretty obvious.  She said that she just wanted to make sure that the people driving toward it didn’t get their  cars damaged by the rocks.

After that exchange, I continued on, riding a little bit further than I had planned to since I wanted to give both guys plenty of time to cool down and hopefully be gone on my return trip.  By the time I turned around and started back to town, the fight was just a distant memory, with only rocks and bags of trash marking the scene.  I even figured out the probable cause of the fight: a turf war.  Over garbage.  At the corner nearest the fight, there were lots of bags of trash and the guy who first started throwing the rocks was happily going through the trash, looking for treasure.  My guess is that the second guy stumbled upon, literally, all the trash and thought *he* would pick through it.  That turned out to be the wrong thought.

Looks like there really is never a dull day around here – on or off the bike!

Another Day in the Saddle...

For the third day in a row, I got out on my bike today.  Each day I've been increasing my mileage just a bit.  Saturday was 10 miles, yesterday 13.5 miles, and today 18 miles.  I felt really good when today's ride was over and I could tell that I'm getting back just a little bit of muscle tone.

Today’s ride started out like many of my rides, except that today was a bit windier.  In fact, for a while I felt that I was riding in Kansas, except for dodging the cows and pigs.  And the taxis.  Oh, and there are no palm trees or other tropical plants in Kansas.  OK, so I guess the Kansas analogy falls flat.  But, it was windy.

I decided to ride pretty much the same route that I’ve been riding the past few days.  So, at the appropriate spot, I turned off the boulevard and headed up toward the Volcán.   As I was riding along I started thinking about the trip I’m planning to do in January.  It’s a cross country bike ride here in Honduras and there will be lots of mountain miles.  Lots of uphill.  And, thankfully, lots of downhill.  I was thinking about how hard it’s going to be to do a ride like that on my mountain bike, even though I’ve done things like put thinner, slick tires on it.  It was one of those moments when I was thinking how nice it would be to have a road bike here. 

When I was a little more than a mile outside of town  a blue SUV pulled up next to me.  The guy slowed down to match my pace and opened his window.  He started asking me about my bike.  He told me that a road bike is much easier on the pavement than my mountain bike.  I told him he was right, but I have thinner tires on this bike.  I told him I had a road bike in the States that I ride when I visit there.  Then the guy told me that he has a road bike, and that he had it with him in the back of the car.  He rolled down the back window and, lo and behold, a road bike.  I stopped and we talked for a few more minutes. The bike was fairly old; it was still and it had down tube shifters.  I couldn’t see the brand, but it looked like a Bianchi, which was confirmed when the guy told me it was Italian.  Then he got to his main point:  he wanted to sell me the bike.  I asked him how much he wanted for it and he told me 6,000 Lempiras  (about $300).  I told him I couldn’t afford that and then he asked me how much I could afford.  I was able to graciously got out of the conversation without buying the bike and rode on.

Looking behind me in my mirror, I saw that the guy turned around and headed back into town.  Hmmm… He must have seen me riding by, tossed his bike in the car and chased me down.  Yeah, it was slightly tempting to buy a road bike, but without some serious test riding, I’d have no idea what I’d be getting into.  Besides, I’ve determined that I’m going to be in good enough shape to do the week-long trip in January on my mountain bike and still have a good time!

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about another first: two drunks and a rock fight!

One Day, Two "Firsts"...

Yes, yes, yes.  I’m finally writing on my blog.  I know it’s been a while.  I could apologize and tell you it’ll never happen again, but we all probably know better.  Anyway, I’m baaaack…  Let’s move on.

This morning I went for a bike ride.  Nothing unusual about that.  About one-half mile into the ride, I was really tempted to turn around and go home. I was tired.  My legs felt heavy.  Every excuse I could think of came crashing through my mind.  Thankfully, I didn’t listen to the voices in my head and pedaled on and got to experience a “first” today.  Well, actually, two of them.

I had decided to ride up the Volcán, or at least as far as I wanted to, to get in just a little hill work.  So, I was out there riding, enjoying the view as I rode past a mango orchard.  I turned my head back toward the road, looked down, and there it was, about to be run over by my front wheel: a snake.  A very long, green, skinny snake.  Very much alive and crossing the road!

I swerved and just missed the snake by a few inches.  I continued to watch as it wriggled on on its journey across the road, not unaware that it had almost tasted death.  I had never seen a snake like it – at least not in person.  It was beautiful. Simply beautiful!  It was about 4 feet long, and had a pointed, triangular head and very skinny body.  I noticed that the head seemed disproportionately large, relative to its body. I was determined to figure out what kind it was as soon as I got back to my house.

As the excitement of my “find” wore off, I continued on and eventually turned around to head back to town.  Before making it back to Enlaces, I bought some avocados from a guy selling them from his bike.  Then I stopped at a little roadside stand where I’ve been buying bananas.  I’ve become a bit of a regular there: as I got off my bike, the man running it asked me how many bananas I’d like today.  Yeah, he knows his customers.

One other “first” happened today…  As I was coming down the Volcán and was almost back on the boulevard, I passed two guys riding in the opposite direction.  No big deal there; lots of people ride bikes.  But these two guys were wearing bike helmets, gloves and even riding shorts.  I’m not used to seeing that here.  Maybe, just maybe, I’ve started a trend!

Back at the house, I got on Google and found what I was looking for.  I had seen a green vine snake.  Mildly venomous to people, but not really aggressive toward humans.  One of the reasons I am so excited about today’s discovery is that I haven’t seen any snakes here while riding.  NONE.  Dead or alive.  Anyone who rides a bike a lot knows that’s pretty unusual.  I had even asked people if there were any snakes in Honduras, and was assured there were. 

Well, now I’ve seen a snake here.  Of course, it might be the only one in the country.