Stories from India (भारत) - How Silk is Made

more to come

Stories from India (भारत) - Flora & Fauna

Besides big cities with lots of traffic and people, India has to offer a big variety of open nature and wildlife. There a plenty of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks spread across the country - fortunately, because only in the last 40 or so years the preservation and protection of the Indian wildlife became a topic. Before that, plenty of hunting for elephant, tiger, was totally normal and widely common over there.

While in Bangalore we visited the Bannerghatta Biological Park which has a zoo and safari area with has plenty of adopted and rescued animals in a nice place south of town. Entry fee for zoo & safari was $3.50 and you could spend pretty much all day there. We saw some cobras, pythons, leopards, monkey, siamese(!) jackals, elephants in the zoo and plenty of tiger, lions, bears on the safari.

The Nagarhole National Park, where we spent 3 days, is 4-5hrs southwest of Bangalore and if you ever in India I recommend you go there for a few days. This park and the neighbouring Bandipur park has the highest density of elephants in entire Asia (1500+) and around 65 tigers living free and roaming the 248 sq mile (Nagarhole) area. Traveling via boat on the Kabini river, we saw elephants, marsh crocodiles, deer, lots of monkeys (rhesus macaque and langur), and many different birds.

After getting up at 5am in the morning on Saturday, we headed out via boat to cross the river and then onwards on a Safari truck in search for tigers. Unfortunately, there was no sighting of them that day but still plenty of langur monkeys, gaur, wild dogs, hogs, and again all types of birds to watch.

buck fight!

Stories from India (भारत) - Traffic

-After a long season it was time to take a break and we headed to India to visit family in Bangalore, India who moved there for work a year ago. I've seen parts of South East Asia but India is so much different, from culture, religion, food, languages and much more. Plenty of things to see and explore. 2 weeks are not enough time to see and understand everything but you get a descent idea of what life is like over here.

Traffic is crazy here, at least when you're coming from Europe or the US where driving is somewhat 'regulated'. Not here. Someone said you don't use your brakes, you use your horn instead. Having a horn is more important than having a working turn signal or lights on your car. It 'regulates' the traffic - Indian style. As a driver you are responsible for what you see ahead of you - the operators of other vehicles (bikes, rickshaw, scooters, cars, buses, etc.) just have to watch out to not hit you from behind or side. It all looks weird, and - for western standards - dangerous but it works out just fine and you rarely see any accidents. And last but not least, you don't want to hit a cow - ever. They are holy here and traffic comes to a halt if there's one on the road. And that happens quite often and everywhere - you just make your way around it or honk your way by.

Conquer The Coast

After only a half-way satisfying-result last week in Laredo, Carlos, Sheri and I went down to Corpus Christi for the Conquer the Coast Criterium. Smaller race in a huge parking lot. Unfortunately, they don't have the cool downtown/hilly course from 2 years back but nevertheless it was lots of fun and some exciting racing. After the Women showed the 35+ 4/5 Masters how to win a sprint (Rheannon won, Sheri 3rd), we lined up for the P/123 75minute race - at 9:30pm! Alcala & Co. were at the start again but this time we got the better of them when Wally Groda (BikeBarn) and I rode away and ended up lapping the field 35minutes in. After Carlos pulled the same thing solo Wally and I went again and gained another lap on what was left of the field. Rather than sprinting against a fellow non-sprinter I decided to go for it with 3 laps to go and solo'd in for the win with Wally in 2nd and Carlos in 3rd.

Thanks to promoter Craig Hottell who found us a great hotel - the V Boutique - in Corpus on 701 N. Water Street. A very stylish, and nice place in downtown CC owned by a Vietnamese family including an in-house Vietnamese restaurant. If you're ever in CC, check it out.

Part two of city review is the Aqua Java coffee shop on William St/Water St. Great place for breakfast with (huge) $2.89 sandwiches and all kinds of sweets including a variety of coffees from around the world.

isolated thunderstorms over I-35

room at the "V Boutique" hotel

Aqua Java got plenty of coffee in the house...

Best Weekly Crit...in the country?

If you've never attended the Thursday Night Driveway Crits in Austin, you better make your way down. Last race is October 21st. Awesome crowds, tough races with big fields, and lots of great people. All thanks to Andrew Willis & Crew at Holland Racing!

tight finish with Wenger, yours truly, and Tyler Jewell (1st) last Thursday night. Photo by DCM Photography.

Interbike

I haven't been there for a few years so when the opportunity came up I jumped on it and headed to Vegas early Monday morning. Never been to the Dirt Demo on Mo/Tue so that was a nice change from things - riding bikes at 3000ft in Boulder City, checking out some new gear, talking to folks and seeing old friends.

I took a few pictures and put them up here in that Picasa slideshow:

Racing in Laredo

After TxTough on Thursday night we decided to drive down 3 1/2 hrs on I-35 to Laredo, only a stone throw away from Mexico. On a regular basis you'd drive 3+hrs up to Dallas on I-35 but going South on I-35 is pretty sweet - no traffic and instead of DFW you end up (almost) in Mexico.

There was a race called Laredo International Cycling Classic and a few locals asked me to come down there and race. Basically it was Carlos and I vs. Mexico since Alcala & Co. showed up in full force. This was a non-sanction USAC event so you don't need a license to race. Sheri did the Women's race and finished 4th - that's what Jerry Bueno and I saw at least. The "officials" gave her 5th, though. Go figure...

It was raining the whole day and a half we were down there. Some roads around the city were partly flooded and the 3.5mile circuit (10 times for 35miles total) had a plenty of water on it. But nevertheless we started with maybe 15 guys in the Open race. After a few laps Carlos was up the road with Hugo Hector and another guy. I was stuck with Alcala and 3 other "amigos", although they were not really friendly...After I punctured in the pouring rain it took me 20minutes to catch back up with the four guys since they obviously hit the acceleration button after I was gone. None of the dudes would work with me so I just covered every single of their attacks until they realized they wouldn't go anywhere today. In the meantime, the 3rd guiy in Carlos' lead group flatted and I was convinced CV had the win in the bag for us.

In the final sprint for 3rd I was on the right wheel (Alcala) but we drifted a bit too far right and the giant finish banner along with the officials standing on the road(!) made it a bit unsafe so I ended up 4th. End they actually gave me fourth place, too :-) Hugo Hector ended up beating Carlos in a tight finish for 1st so we had to be content with the $600 for 2nd place. Still, a good day considering the conditions.

We stayed in a nice hotel in South Laredo, 100yards away from the Rio Grande and "The Bridge" - the border to Mexcio. The hotel "La Posada" is a good place to stay if you ever down there and their restaurant is inexpensive and has some good American & Mexican cuisine.

giant dragonfly caught on camera

view from hotel (note: the flag on the Mexican site is at least 5 times bigger than the US flag on the Texas site)

the issues in Mexico are headlining the news in the local papers

Time Trialing in Floresville...

...was fun and successful for Team Hotel San Jose ;-)

Photo courtesy of Photographs by Jim

oh, and something cool, courtesy of Kyler Eastman of University of Texas:

Life

If you were at the local Thursday Driveway Crit last night, you know what this video below is about. If not, watch it again or read the article on KVUE here or visit Donate Life Texas.

Inspiring story to say the least.

Tuesday Night Time Trials

Check out these vintage comic pages from many years back. Thanks to Jen Purcell for finding that on www.outyourbackdoor.com! Featuring Klaus, from Leipzig, East Germany (are they referring to Klaus Ampler maybe?)