T-Bone dog

Jorge and I wanted to ride this weekend, but neither of us were really up for a strenuous Mule-style outing, or for that matter an early start. I proposed a gentle ride along the Bayou in Terry Hershey Park and a gentlemanly 8.30 am start, so that's what we did.

Jorge hasn't done a ride in Terry Hershey before and he enjoyed the scenery, if not the traffic, so we were glad to get to George Bush Park and open it up a bit. He's been in Bush Park before and likes it. He particularly enjoys the stretch of boardwalk which I frankly don't - I'm always worried that I won't be able to make an emergency stop on the wooden surface. Anyway we made it to Fry road in pretty good order.

After a break I suggested the Four Parks route, instead of doing an out-and-back. The only drawback is that there are several stretches where you have to ride in traffic, but having grown up in Colombia he's used to sharing the road with 18-wheelers. So we headed north on Fry towards Cullen Park.

Once in the Park we stopped for water and then hit the trail. I warned Jorge that we would have to take it slowly, as there were lots of blind turns and usually a fair amount of foot traffic. I should have listened to myself! Towards the end of the park I saw a man and woman walking with a dog (looked like a white bull terrier). I though the mutt was on a leash but it wasn't - the man tried to call it to heel but it swerved away at the last minute and I T-boned the damn thing. I was braking hard anyway but moving fast enough to go over the handlebars, landing in a heap in the dirt on the side of the trail. I got up and was immediately concerned for the dog, but that breed is basically a tube of muscle, and it had pottered off up the trail, completely unscathed. Its owner was much more concerned about me than his pet but I was fine apart from some scrapes. My bike was OK, too - the handlebars were out of alignment but easily straightened, the brake hoods and levers were scraped but nothing else.

Jorge and I remounted and set off again. As we went we heard a jogger chewing the dog owner out for running his pet without a leash - quite right too. The rest of the ride was uneventful, but overall it was a bit longer than we had planned, about 39 miles. We got back to my place and regaled Susan with the tale over cold beers.