Cycling Drops in North Texas

The House from "Nightmare on Pecan Street" - Halloween 2012

I read a lot of cheery stories around the USA how cycling is UP, UP, UP. Well, looking back to just three years ago, I can tell you that really isn't true, at least in North Texas. THIS house led me to the horrific discovery.

For those that are not even more observant than Sherlock Holmes, I made a post about the above house, located on Pecan Street in Bedford as Halloween approached in 2009.  The post is HERE. The photo below was from that post. This year's display is completely different at this house than it was three years ago. Somehow, these people (if that is what they really are) put up a bigger and new display every year.

Pecan Street House in 2009

But I digress from the subject. You see, in that very same post, I included a search using Google Trends in which I discovered that the search term VAMPIRE is ten times as popular as the search term CYCLIST. That was bad enough, but Texas ranked number seven in how popular vampires were, while it was not too high in ranking cyclists.

After looking at this, I decided to see how things had changed. And they've changed a LOT. Unfortunately, for my loyal local reader, the news is not good. The diagram below shows the same search today. Texas has moved from number six in Vampire share to first in the ENTIRE USA. Texas may not be known as a cycling Mecca, but it appears to have become the "Vampire State." Next you know, they'll be building the "Vampire State Building" in downtown Dallas as the husks of poor deceased cyclists are blown about in the wind; all the blood sucked from their poor bodies.

Yup, things are NOT looking good for cycling around here. In a faint attempt to cheer y'all up, I'll part by saying "Ride Happy Clear Across Texas," though I'm not sure if that has any conceivable relevance to this post.