Howdy y’all.

We left Houston by cycling through the city centre. Not the ideal route but we had another bicycle shop to visit. You see, we had to replace the spare tyre and, after a frustrating search, one was ordered from Dallas. Even then it’s far from the ideal tyre (it’s a ‘Schwalbe Kojak’ for all you tyre fetish people). However, its for emergencies – let’s just hope we don’t have any more emergencies.

Now I know we have at least one statistics fetish person reading the blog (Hi Iain ✋🏻) so for your pleasure its 1271 miles cycled to date, 14 spoke incidents, six punctures, one blown tyre, one leaking front brake, 10 bike shops visited and 126 beers consumed. Can this be represented on a pain/pleasure chart? Colour and big type please because most of the people reading this are old and I’m keen to raise the ‘accessibility’ rating of the blog.

After we picked up the tyre we headed west and Google Maps came up trumps again. Set to bicycle guidance it steered us through residential neighbourhoods linking to cycle tracks. Almost traffic free progress through Houston. This is us leaving the city centre.

After 51 miles we ended up at the lovely Katy.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking because we’re on the same wavelength but, unfortunately, it’s a town. It wasn’t even named after a girl called ‘Katy’ and was actually named after the local MKT railroad company which was commonly referred to as K-T. Reality takes away the romance yet again.

Time for another picture but first let’s discuss ‘road vehicles construction and use regulations’. At this point some people will run away screaming but let’s just show you what happens when you don’t have proper C&U Regs.

In the UK, the body (wheel arches) of a car should cover the tyres but here in America they go for huge tyres on their trucks that protrude to a ridiculous degree. Fair enough but we all know that if you don’t have proper regulations then there’s always one smart bozo who will exploit the loophole.

Yes, it was the same on the other side!

It did get me to wondering how they would work on a bicycle with ‘Aston Martin James Bond type tyre slashers’. Yes, that’s another movie reference and the old people will know which movie it was and the young people won’t care.

After Katy we cycled to La Grange. It’s easy to write that but oh my goodness we suffered. 82 miles and 2500 feet of rolling hills and the sun baked us all day. It was 42c on the bike and the ‘feels like’ temperature was ‘oven roast chicken’.

Imagine being on a beach and lying out with no sun lotion from the minute the sun rises until it sets with no shade apart from a 20 minute spell for lunch. We were frazzled. Here’s Susan taking the only bit of shade at one of our stops.

Yes, I know she’s not sharing but when it’s hot she’s not a ‘sharey’ type of person. You just don’t even ask!

We both suffered hugely that day. No, let’s not brush over that – today is the day after and we’re still suffering from that day.

Lots of hydration and bananas, lots of bananas, got us through. I was even feeding Susan bananas when she didn’t want bananas. I wasn’t doing it to help her – I was just getting her back for not sharing the shade!

Thankfully, we found a general store where we got a super large ‘fountain’ – that’s a big polystyrene cup of cola.

I’m assured, however, the weather is going to improve. How do I know that? Well I’ve been eavesdropping two ‘half cowboys’ that were chatting at the petrol pumps.

Let me explain. One guy had a cowboy hat (proper Stetson), checked shirt, waistcoat and to complete the picture he had faded pink shorts and sneakers. Yes, unusual, but when I thought about it later, that’s just the kind of gear I would wear if I wanted to be cowboy and its hot! A kind of cowboy beach look.

The second guy had an ordinary t shirt, cowboy jeans and the most magnificent cowboy boots. So, if you put the top half of one guy and the bottom half of the other guy you would have the perfect cowboy. I think there’s a children’s game just like that where you match the top and bottom half of people. Well, I had the real live version!

‘Bottom half cowboy’ said to ‘top half cowboy’, ‘it’s sure hot for October in Texas but I’ll take it’.

‘Top half cowboy’ replied ‘yah, but there’s a low pressure that’s going to drop down in the middle of the month and the highs will be 79f‘.

‘Bottom half cowboy’ replied ‘that’s good, I’ll take it!’

You see that’s a true Texan – whatever the weather he will take it cause he’s tough! Not like us British always complaining about the weather! Texans just get on with it.

So that’s my ‘cowboy weather report’ – it’s going to get cooler in a week’s time and Susan and I can’t wait.

We’re now in Bastrop and will cycle to Austin tomorrow.

I’ve nearly reached the end and you’re probably thinking – wait, wait there’s not enough interesting facts?

So I will leave you with this – did you know the original Stetson hat was called ‘Boss of the Plains’ (1865) and is still in production today? The American Cavalry hat was a Stetson and the Canadian Mounted Police still wear Stetsons. Stetson went on to become the world’s largest hat manufacturer.

Got to go now it’s dinner time. Another motel on the edge of town and although I can see the Golden M from my window we’re going to Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. I wonder how many margaritas Susan will let me have?

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