Little House on the Mound: The Regular Ride

I'll explain the reason for this photo below, but first a little introduction to the topic:

While I kept it to myself (so as not to encourage others in the family with some real negative feelings about the move) a genuine misgiving I had about the move to Texas was the loss of the mountain biking trails I had enjoyed in Flagstaff, Arizona and then Danville, California, and which obviously could not be replicated in North Texas. However, shortly after we moved to Flower Mound, a friend at work suggested I check out the "North Shore Trail" along the north shore of Grapevine Lake, which in his view was the best off road (better term than "mountain") biking in the state. So I did.

Turns out the west trail head was just a little ways down the road from the house we had just purchased. This was (in my view) the best feature of the home we purchased (although as is often the case in such things, we did not know this at the time we bought the house; just plain good luck).

Below is a trail map. Our house on Wildgrove Drive, if located on that map, would be just above the "W" in "Wichita Trail."

For the first few years I road the trail a lot, typically on Saturday mornings, from the Twin Coves trail head to the end at Rockledge Park. Although lacking the climbs of mountain bike trails in other areas, it has some fairly "technical" sections and winds through wooded areas along the lake shore. While in the middle of a suburban area, once you're on the trail the vegetation coupled with the size of the park give you the illusion of almost being in a remote wilderness area.

After a few years I rode it less frequently and then hardly at all (for reasons noted below), but about this time Evie discovered the trail as the best place for the daily morning walks with the dogs - Kelly and Roderick and then Jewels and Roderick. The fact is that Evie and those two dogs (Jewels and Roderick) know every foot of that trail (and all the little side trails that don't show on the maps) between Twin Coves and Murrell Park better than most people know their own backyard.

Before leaving Texas I wanted to document some of the more memorable places along that trail, but ran into this problem

Note: Evie is walking on the vehicle access road. The brown wood North Shore Trail Head sign (which is where the trail starts) is in the water in the shaded tree area on the far left center and is barely visible.

While North Texas had been in a drought for several years, in May 2015 it rained 24 out of the 31 days for 16.96 inches in a single month. This was followed by another deluge from the remains of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Grapevine Lake flooded. Some of the flooding was intentional. The USACOE was releasing less water from the dam than what was flowing in to protect other areas downstream (i.e., the Trinity River levies in Dallas) from flooding. The practical effect was that all the access roads in and out of Murrell Park and Twin Coves and the trails were underwater. The water would eventually rise to flood where Evie is walking in the picture and will submerge entirely that trail head sign.

So there will not be any "memorial" pictures of our favorite parts of the North Shore Trail for this blog post (although I may later add some if I can find any among our old photos). However, google "North Shore Trail Grapevine" and you can find lots of images of the trail. The following is typical of the parts of the trail we used and came to enjoy.

Road Bikes

As a mountain biker, I was more enthusiastic than skilled (not having a great sense of balance or a being particularly athletic). On one occasion after riding the trail with Andy (who is a pretty good rider) Andy suggested I get a road bike. After getting over the unsaid implication of that suggestion, I did, and that caused me to discover the other absolutely best feature of our house on Wildgrove - it's close proximity to the rural roads through the horse farms of Bartonville and Argyle, which are just north and west of the part of Flower Mound we lived in. That also happens to be one of the more popular road biking routes in the area. For me there was no need to ride a long ways through heavy traffic to get to it or carry the bike on a car out to some place to start to go on a nice ride. I could leave from the house and in a few minutes was there - it wasn't a "project" to go on a ride.

The Route

After I got the road bike (a LeMond) I went on a few rides with some guys in the Ward. They were more serious riders (really more "into it" than me) and frankly I struggled to keep up with their pace. Nonetheless, what would become my "regular" ride was really just variations of the basic route they showed me. The route was about 48 miles, but with variations of between 40, 30 and 25 miles or so depending on how far east and north you go. I wasn't all that creative and tended to always to the same way. To explain to Evie where I was going, I came to refer to this as my "regular" ride, although I doubt that was all that informative to anyone else.

This is "regular" ride

This is the a shorter variation I often rode

A Century

For a few months I sort of got into the thing. Bought a bike computer (odometer, speedometer, clock) and decided to ride in the Cross Timbers Classic - a ride to support some local charities. It was a "fun" ride (not a race) and they had 100 (a "century"), 50 and 30 mile routes. The route generally followed much of the same roads, but to get to 100 miles they extended the route over to Justin and the Texas Motor Speedway. [Note: they have since drastically changed the route.] I did the "century" and while I wasn't among the first to finish, I wasn't last either.

Here's the t-shirt:

Sometime later I lost the bike computer and I kept forgetting to get a new one. One day I realized it didn't really matter to much to me how fast or how long I was riding since I wasn't really training for anything. So I never I have. I just go out and I ride for awhile along my regular route or some variation, which brings me to the purpose of the post and the picture at the beginning.

Scenery

When mountain biking you really only glance at the surrounding scenery, since you have to stay focused on the trail right in front of you with its twists, turns, rocks, roots, ruts etc. (since the ground is always changing under you, if you stop paying attention to the trail, you'll likely crash). However, on a road bike along a smooth stretch of highway it's different. You can look around at the scenery as you ride. That is what I'll miss about Texas; the scenery along my "regular" ride (which is ironic since I always complain about Texas in comparison to beautiful Park City). Here are some photos from along the ride and the part of Texas I'll really miss.

The Landscape

The views along the ride are mostly the wide open spaces you would expect in Texas.

The tower on the right is a cell and radio tower. This gives you a sense of how flat it is. But you discover on a bike that there are a lot more hills than you think than when driving in a car. My route takes me by that tower and on a bike you notice the grade up and down,

Somewhat surprisingly, much of the ride looks like this (and you could probably post a picture on Facebook and write about a great weekend in New England and no one would ever know)

Livestock

While there is nice scenery, what I enjoyed most were the animals you see along the way.The best part of the ride are the horse farms of Bartonville and Argyle. This is a typical view.

There are also a number of equestrian training centers with "jumping" courses.

This is the same course but if you look carefully you can see that there are a couple of horses on the course. At the times I would normally ride, it was unusual to see any horses on the courses.

SMU's equestrian team has its home off Jeter Road in Bartonville

There is a large facility behind a gate and some distance from the road (so you can't see much), but if you look carefully you can see some horses on the jumping course.

This is another smaller training course nearer the road with a rider

Same picture enlarged

Here's a training corral just off the road with a horse learning to get used to a saddle.

It is hard to see, but if you look closely right in the middle of the photo below there are a couple of Roderick's "cousins"(or more likely distant nieces or nephews) supervising the pasture. When I stopped to take a picture they came over to check me out (the horses pretty much ignored me).

These Texans like not just their quarter horses but these little guys as well. I think they're probably Shetland ponies.

When I first started riding out here you would often see buffalo, zebras, llamas and other more "exotic" animals. I don't see them much anymore, but now it seems that everyone needs to have some donkeys.

or some goats

Texas is cattle country and they're out along the ride as well. This brahma bull is always there presiding over this pasture.

Here's another, but with a friend

In the shade in the Texas summer

These black cows with a white belt around the middle are always out in a pasture off Jeter road. At first, and looking from a distance, I thought they had an actual blanket around them because the "belt" is so distinct; but no, it is their coat. I looked them up on Google. They're "belted Galloways" (aka "oreo" cows) originally from the windswept moorlands of Scotland. I doubt they're particularly well suited to Texas summers, which may explain why every time I saw them they were either in the share of this tree or standing in the pond. (Note, the donkeys also.)

And, of course, some longhorns (note the calf nursing)

Houses

Sometimes the houses along the route are nearly as interesting as the animals. Here's a sampling:

Some were more of a "vernacular" style

Also, every day is flag day in Texas. This house displays both flags (which is not always the case)

Fracking - Barnett Shale

In the late 1980s an independent oil and gas operator named George Mitchell began tinkering with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques in the Barnett Shale near Fort Worth and developed a way to economically extract huge amounts of natural gas from shale formations. This technology was quickly applied to shales in other areas and eventually to oil. It is hard to overstate the significance of this new "fracking" technique. It was a revolution in energy. It has turned the US into a large and low cost oil and gas producer (and potential exporter), bankrupted the coal industry, including the former TXU (a larger north Texas utility which was taken private by the smartest guys in Wall Street on a big bet on low cost electric power from lignite), the leading cause of reductions in CO2 in the US (as gas replaced coal), made all the various "energy policies" of every administration and expert energy forecasts essentially irrelevant jokes and turned upside down the politics of the Middle East.

My route sits atop a core part of the Barnett Shale where all this began and this is what that revolutionary technology looks like on the ground. Really, not that much to see for being such a big deal.

When I first started riding out here you would always see several drill rigs working in this area and were usually passed a few times by the tanker trucks supplying the drilling and fracking fluids. The rigs were noisy and the trucks were a nuisance and made mess of the roads (something you really notice on a bike).

If you look closely in the middle of the picture above just below the green tree horizon there are a couple of storage tanks. That's about the only evidence on the surface of all the activity from a few years ago. The roads have all been repaired and now all the action is really taking place some 6,000 feet plus below the surface. This is enlarged to show the tanks.

My route goes by a large pumping station for the gas produced in this area. It is pretty much hidden behind green fencing so unless you're looking for it you may not even notice it. Frankly, despite various efforts to reduce noise, it can be fairly noisy and I wouldn't want to live next to one, but it probably isn't any more annoying than having a commercial windmill next to your house. There's a dog kennel (Canine Country Inn) next to this facility.

Landmarks

There are some "landmarks" along the route that I always look for:

For orientation, Cristina's (the Mexican restaurant most of you are familiar with) is right behind the Shell station. The ride goes north through this intersection to the right (east) of that gas station and shopping area.

These folks are serious about karate

The Montessori Country Day School. There are several in the area, but I think this has the best location and sort of a nice western/country looking building. It is a"L" shaped "ranch" style structure with the rooms opening to the outside. Playground is in the back.

This is the kennel Roderick and Jewels used (where they, of course, charmed and endeared themselves to the owners)

Entering Bartonville

This picture requires an explanation. This is a popular area for road bikers and the local bicycle shop and other clubs sponsor group rides. These are also narrow country roads and when riding more than one abreast, especially in large groups, the bikers are really annoying to local residents and other motorists, who then complain to their elected municipal officials, including the police chief. When that happens the police start looking for reasons to give bikers tickets.

When I took this photo I was at the top of a "T" intersection. The top "horizontal" road is a through road - no stop sign, but the road making the "vertical" part of the "T" has a stop sign. The views from the intersection are wide open in all directions such that you can clearly see whether there is any traffic on the other road. Since momentum is important for a biker (it is really a pain to come to a complete stop and then start up again), bikers tend to roll on through the stop sign if there is no on-coming traffic on the other road. On those days when the Bartonville police decide to "crack down" on bikers, a patrol car would park near that water tank and surreptitiously watch for bikers not coming to a complete stop at the sign and give them tickets. It is the same as if you had been in a car; a moving violation with fines, points, traffic school etc. You always, always looked carefully for that patrol car when approaching this intersection. There developed an informal code among the bikers to warn those coming the other way if the police were out that day (and thanks to that code, I avoided a couple of close calls).

The ride goes west over I-35W. This is taken from the overpass looking north. My route goes a few miles west and then north and then back under I-35W about opposite the water tower on the right.

This is Robison Ranch, a retirement community on the west side of I-35. If you look back at the photo of the cows in the shade of a small tree in what otherwise is pretty grim looking country, that is near this community. Don't let the nice looking lake and tacky little houses fool you. It is usually too hot or too cold, but always too windy, out here, and I can't think of a worse place to retire to.

A little cemetery along the way.

This is the Denton Country Club on, not surprisingly, Country Club Road

This is as far north as I go - Denton city limit. I turn right here and up Hilltop road over to Copper Canyon and then start back south through Double Oak toward home.

A "boneyard" for monster trucks. I think truck the owner was now running was inside a garage being worked on and I couldn't get a picture. Further out back (and too far away for pictures) there were another 4 or 5 other old monster truck carcasses.