On Dawn And Mother-Daughter Realationships

Another dawn ride in the Sunshine State.  Really, given the heat and humidity, it really is the best time to pedal.  Plus, my parents live just far enough from the ocean that I can start just before sunrise and, within a few minutes, be treated to scenes like this:

That, from a place called Hammock.  And this from, appropriately, Painter's Hill:

At that time of morning, one finds more surfers or fishers than swimmers.  (Leave it to me to be, as always, a minority--both as a swimmer and cyclist!)  When you're up before most other people and throw yourself at a great expanse that seems like infinity, it's hard not to wonder about the meaning of it all:

As it turns out, the woman in the second photo was watching her daughter:

As my mother is not, and never has been, a cyclist, surfer, swimmer or fisher, we have a different mother-daughter relationship.  It was still more than welcome at the end of today's ride, in which I managed to beat the midday heat and afternoon rain.

Fred And Ginger In The Swamp

During yesterday's ride, I stopped at the site of the Mala Compra plantation.  The name means "bad bargain" in Spanish.  

As you can imagine, the place was so named because it turned out not to be as suitable for agriculture as was hoped.  However, there are some strange and interesting sights, including this:

At first, I thought it might be one of those "only in Florida" species.  But a second look reveals otherwise:

They are actually two different trees, one dancing around the other:

It seems that the curvy, languorous one wants to be closer to the upright citizen:

What is it like to be locked in a dance for centuries?

Three-Wheeled Thrills

After bumping along some trails and a "nature walk" that seemed to be a boardwalk above a swamp, I rolled along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and up the bridge to Flagler Beach.  While parking a bike that I call "mine" only while riding it, a man on an adult tricycle struck up a conversation with me.  "Keep on riding," he exhorted.  "If you'll do, you'll always be a fine-looking young lady."

If he weren't so sweet, I'd've suggested he schedule an appointment with his ophthalmologist, if not a psychotherapist. Instead, I thanked him and, I think, blushed a bit.  I also realized that he was the fourth adult tricyclist I'd seen this morning. 

Of course, that last fact did not surprise me:  Florida must be the adult trike capital of North America, if not the world.  While I hope that I can continue riding on two wheels until the end, whenever that comes for me, I know there's one thing to look forward to if I ever find myself on three wheels, whether by choice or not:  The folks I've seen on three wheels have been, invariably, friendly.

Also, I might take up something that, had someone told me of its existence just a few years ago, I might have asked that person to share whatever was intoxicating him or her with me:  tricycle racing.

Yes, such a sport actually exists.  I learned of it only recently.  As far as I can tell, there isn't much, if any, of it here in the US.  However, there was a very active three-wheeled racing scene in the UK about thirty years ago and, according to the author of the Roadworks Reparto Corse blog, the sport remains popular there.

Englishman John Read in a tricycles-only (!) time trial, 1984.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  After all, a few of the classic British builders created trikes with the same attention to design, detail and construction as their more famous bicycles and tandems.  And a few manufacturers offered tricycles that were more performance-oriented than the clunky ones often found in these parts.

The RRC author says that a shop that employed him as a mechanic stocked a conversion kit consisting of a long strutted axle, cogs and two wheels that could replace the rear wheel of your road bike.  I also recall seeing such a kit in one of the shops in which I worked, and I remember several mail-order firms advertising it in Bicycling! magazine when I first started reading it about four decades ago.  I wonder whether that kit, or anything like it, is still being made. A lot of them could be sold here, in Florida.