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    Alert to pedal pushers

    Time to start training for Houston's annual BP MS 150 charity bike ride

    Ken Hoffman
    Jan 2, 2018 | 11:59 am

    Again this April, I will jump on my trusty, rusty old bicycle and pedal from Houston to Austin in the BP MS 150, the biggest and most successful weekend charity ride in the world. Yeah, the world.

     

    This year is going to be different, though. I'm actually going to train — for real — so I don't wake up crying with leg cramps the next week. (Ever get those? Man, they hurt.) The BP MS 150 is an amazing fundraising event. And it's fun, don't leave that out.

     

    Over two days, 13,000 riders, all shapes, sizes and ages — from all across Texas — will form a two-wheel conga line to the state capital, raising money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I said it's big and successful, right? Like $253 million since 1985 and counting. They're counting on $14 million more this year. It costs $120 to ride, and you have to promise to raise at least $400 in donations.

     

    My first BP MS 150 was in 1998. One of the editors at the Houston Chronicle asked (ordered) me to write about the long-distance ride. Maxine Mesinger, the Chronicle's grand dame of Houston society back then, had Multiple Sclerosis, and the bosses liked her a lot more than they liked me. I said, "Sure, I'll do a column about the ride. In fact, I'll do the ride. I have a bike. How hard could it be?"

     

    I pulled my bike out of the back of my garage. The tires were completely flat — that's how long it had been since I rode it. I showed up at the starting gate wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. I was not properly dressed. I didn't know there was bicycle couture. Practically everybody had on Spandex shorts, skintight bicycle shirts and special clickety-clack shoes that lock into pedals on expensive bikes.

     

    That outfit probably makes aerodynamic sense, but come on, fellas. No one needs to look at that.

     

    I ran into a sports talk host who apparently had no friends — at least none who would tell him, "maybe Spandex isn't the right fabric for you." He looked like a kielbasa about to explode in the microwave. (He's still on the air. This afternoon, in fact.)
     
    I did the entire ride, from Houston to La Grange on Saturday, and La Grange to Austin on Sunday...on a bike with no gears. I even did the long route, over torturous hills in Bastrop State Park. Some of those hills were like riding a bike straight up a wall. I didn't know there was an alternate route around the park. Now I know. I've never been back in that park.

     

    There are three starting points on Saturday, and two routes on Sunday, so the ride can be as short as 121 miles, or as long as 165 miles. Which route do I take? Hey, I invented 121 miles.
     
    Lunch on Saturday is at a school in Bellville. I tried that once. Then, I discovered that if you ride a couple of blocks past the school, there's a Dairy Queen, a bakery, and the Bellville Meat Market. If you listen to Doug Pike's fishin' and huntin' radio show on 790 AM, he talks about the Bellville Meat Market a lot. I don't fish, and I think hunting is killing, but the place makes really good sandwiches. My Sunday lunch spot is the Roadhouse in Bastrop. Their chocolate shakes are double fudgy. You can patch pot holes with them.

     

    Saturday night, most of the riders sleep in tents at the Fayetteville County Fairgrounds. Not me. I'm a delicate flower. My friends and I stay in a motel in La Grange. It's not exactly the Four Seasons, but it has a TV, air conditioning, and a bathroom with a door and a lock. (I like my privacy.) One year, we must have gotten the honeymoon suite, because there was a large hot tub in the middle of the room. (That's odd.) Another year, I was in the shower and noticed a cigarette burn mark on the edge of the tub. (That's classy.) There was a year when my friend Jeff Minkoff decided to wash his underpants in the bathroom sink. He threw them in the microwave to dry out. Instead, steam from his wet, nasty underpants filled the room so it smelled like the boys' gym in middle school. I haven't used a hotel microwave to make popcorn since.

     

    I've done the BP MS 150 with different friends over the years. One year, Austin Crossley got a flat tire. He told the rest of us to go on ahead. He'd wait for a rescue van to take him to the next rest stop where he could get his flat fixed. About an hour later, I noticed that Sean Pendergast, wasn't in our group. Where did he go? There was nothing wrong with his bike. We were eating cookies at the next rest stop when the rescue van pulled in. Austin spilled out, followed by Sean. Huh? What was Sean doing in there? "We had a flat tire," he said, pointing to Austin. "We?" It was the first reported case of a "sympathy" flat tire.

     

    I noticed that many people wanted to ride the MS 150 but thought they needed to be part of a team . Not true. So I organized a team called “The Stragglers.” We had T-shirts made for about 150 lonesome riders. I leaned on I.W. Marks to sponsor a huge tent for our (their) overnight in La Grange, and Tony Vallone — that “Tony” — catered our dinner. The lobster lasagna as divine. Take that, you over-the-top corporate teams with your designer shirts and catered meals!

     

    The last few years, I've done the BP MS 150 with Mark George, the famous business magnate. Because of him, I pedal much faster. He has a speaker on his handlebars and plays "Engelbert Humperdinck's Greatest Hits" and "The Best of Tony Orlando" and "Bing Crosby: the Early Years." You'd pedal faster to get away from that, too.

     

    How difficult is it to ride the BP MS 150? Very difficult ... or really kind of easy. You don't have to be whippet-thin or have legs like pistons. I can't run around the block, but I can pedal a bicycle to Austin. Mind you, I don't set any speed records. I ride between 12 to 15 mph, depending on whether the wind is my face or at my back. I prefer at my back. I've been passed by children, women on roller skates, a man in a tuxedo on a unicycle, guys dragging wagons with loudspeakers, and one guy pulling a mini-refrigerator on wheels.
     
    Making the finish line depends more on whether your rear end is used to rubbing on a bike seat for hours at a time. If you try to do it cold, like I did the first time, your butt will scream bloody murder. Bike seats can unleash excruciating pain, especially on guys. There’s a vein "down there" that gets crushed and sore. You can do some real damage if you ride on the wrong bike seat or a bike seat that's tilted too high or doesn't fit right. I once called a friend who owned a bike shop and asked, “Is there a bike seat that doesn't hurt, or destroy any chance of there being a Hoffy Jr.? He said, “Here’s what you do. Get a bunch of sandwich-size Baggies, fill them with mango Jell-O, and stick them in your shorts. But it has to be mango, other flavors don’t work.”
     
    Seriously? “No, I’m kidding. There is no such thing as a comfortable bike seat. The only way it won’t hurt is if you ride a hundred miles a week and you develop ‘Bike Butt,’ which only means you've become conditioned or numb in that area." Nobody wants that. I embarked on a search for a painless bike seat. I tried seats with inflatable air pockets, seats with soft implants (calling Dr. Rose), seats covered in gel pads, seats without that phallic part in front, seats with holes in the middle for...you know. Nothing worked. I just endured the long ride and walked like Fred Sanford for a couple of days.

     

    Then I heard about the "Green Carbon Comfort Bike Seat" from RideOut Technologies. It looks a little weird, but it’s "optimized for commuting and hybrid bikes, great for distance touring as well." My bike is a hybrid with upright handlebars, like Mary Poppins or Pee-Wee Herman's bicycle. It's nothing fancy, way too heavy, and cost about $200. The only adjustment I make for the BP MS 150 is having a bike shop put on skinny tires. I’ve been bouncing my butt on the "Green Carbon" seat for a few weeks...painlessly. (And yay for no numbness!) It’s available, $85, at rideouttech.com. If it doesn't work for you, or you don't like it, you can send it back.

     

    So you won't be surprised, here's an after-effect of the BP MS 150. Pedaling to Austin builds up your appetite. I can't get my head out of the refrigerator when I get home Sunday night. I remember asking John Lopez, then a sports columnist, now a sports radio host, “I can’t stop eating. Is this normal?” He said, “I’m eating. I’ll call you when I’m done, maybe around Thursday.”

     

    Yeah, it's normal.

     

     
    ---
     Sign up for the BP MS 150 here. CultureMap's sister radio station, ESPN 97.5, is the sports media partner of the BP MS 150.

     

     

    Folks pack the starting line, ready to brave the Houston-to-Austin trek.

    BP MS starting line
      
    Courtesy photo
    Folks pack the starting line, ready to brave the Houston-to-Austin trek.
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    game, set, zina.

    Best of Ken Hoffman: Interviewing Houston's greatest tennis icon

    Ken Hoffman
    Aug 29, 2024 | 12:30 pm
    Zina Garrison, tennis player
    ITATennis
    Garrison, a tennis legend, is now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation.

    Editor's note: After the sudden death of beloved columnist Ken Hoffman on July 14, CultureMap is republishing some of our favorite "Hoffman's Houston" columns. In honor of the U.S. Open, here's Ken's interview with Houston tennis legend Zina Garrison; it was originally published on June 27, 2022.

    As a child, Zina Garrison learned how to hit a tennis ball on the public courts at MacGregor Park during the 1970s and became, simply, the most accomplished player ever from Houston.

     

    She developed into a Grand Slam champion, a Top 5 ranking in the world, Wimbledon finalist in 1990 with 20 tournament titles, Federation Cup captain, and Olympic gold medal winner and later Olympic coach.

     

    Now Garrison is back where she started, only this time she’s devoted to making Houston a great place to learn and play tennis … again. Like she did.

     

    “I am now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation,” Garrison tells me. “I’m over all the public tennis programs and facilities. The job came open recently and I applied for it.”

     

    Wait... she’s the greatest champion this city has ever produced — and she had to apply for that job?

     

    “To be honest, I was more interested in the benefits than the money. As you get older, you start thinking differently,” she shares.

     

    Unlike the major sports leagues in America, tennis doesn’t provide any healthcare insurance or assistance once a player, even a legend, retires.

     

    “They’re working on it,” Garrison, 58, notes. “But as of now, nothing.”

     

    Garrison said her first priority as Houston’s tennis director is to repair the public courts.

     

    “I want to bring the public tennis facilities up to where I’d be proud, where everybody would be proud, to bring people to use our courts. There are cracks in the courts. Nothing’s really been done in the last 20 or maybe 30 years,” she says.

     

    “I’ve traveled to Florida and some other places and they have really nice public courts. Tennis in Houston was really thriving for a while and we had nice courts and people could play in the parks. We had junior programs. We flourished. That’s my main goal.”

     

    While I had Garrison on the phone, I served up some questions:

     

     CultureMap: Wimbledon is on. You’re familiar with that tournament, right? Who are your picks to win the men’s side and women’s side?

     

     Zina Garrison: Yes, I’m familiar with Wimbledon. I have my alarm set for the early morning so I can watch. I have a weird pick, a more personal pick, for the men.

     

    I would love to see Rafael Nadal keep going on, but it’s going to be tough for him. The guy from Italy, Matteo Berrettini, I watched him play a couple of weeks ago and I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people. And I am absolutely in love with that little guy, Carlos Alcaraz, from Spain. He’s made me watch tennis again.

     

    On the women’s side, I don’t think it will be Iga Swiatek. I think it’s just too hard to keep a streak like hers (35 matches in a row including the French Open title) going in today’s game. It’s really wide open. I don’t really have a pick, it’s just who comes in and plays well at the right time.

     

     CM: What do you think about Natela Dzalamidze, the doubles player from Russian who switched her nationality to Georgia so she could play Wimbledon, which has banned players from Russian and Belarus this year?

     

     ZG: I don’t like that she was able to do that. I was just on the phone with (former pro turned broadcaster) Chanda Rubin talking about what’s going on in tennis these days.

     

    First of all, there is the human rights stuff that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine. We have to start forcing accountability for actions. A lot of people didn’t agree with what Wimbledon did, but I think they had to take a stand.

     

     CM: The women’s GOAT is easy — it’s Serena. But who do you think is the men’s GOAT?

     

     ZG: Wow, that’s a hard one. If you had asked me earlier this year, I would have said Roger Federer because of everything he’s accomplished. But right now I’m going to have to go with Nadal. Nadal has taken tennis to a whole ‘nother level, of getting people to watch, coming out of the pandemic, where he has matches and you think he can’t come back and he’s still grinding no matter what.

     

    For me, he is the epitome of what we need in this world right now: Never give up but not be selfish about helping others. I know it sounds clichéd, but that’s what I’m going through right now.

     

     CM: When I first met you, you were painfully shy. It was hard to get an answer out of you. Now you’re a TV commentator and a regular chatterbox. What happened?

     

     ZG: I was an introvert but I had always been intrigued by people of wisdom. A lot of it came as I developed confidence in myself. I had always been told at a very young age, if you really knew me, I spoke a lot. If you didn’t know me, I would be quiet. I would only speak about things that I was extremely passionate about.

     

    As I’ve gotten older, because of my experiences. I feel like I can help people so I’m not afraid to say what I want to say.

     

     CM: Starting the week after Wimbledon, coaches will be allowed to communicate with men players during matches. Up to now, that’s only been allowed in the women’s game. Every other sport allows coaching. Do you think tennis should allow coaching, too?

     

     ZG: I don’t think coaching should be allowed. That’s one of the great things about tennis. That’s a part of the sport, that you grow and figure things out. You learn to think for yourself.

     

    There’s always been little signals from coaches, but now you have these full blown conversations. Another bad thing about allowing coaching is it gives the players the opportunity to blame a loss their coach. That’s not good for the sport.

     

     CM: You were known for wiggling your butt when receiving serve. Did you know you were doing it? Did you do that on purpose?

     

     ZG: It started off as kind of a joke with my coaches. They said, we need you to move your feet. I said, you mean like this?

     

    So, it started as a joke but I realized that it helped get my feet moving: Okay, I’m going to keep doing this.

     

    I’ll never forget that year after I got to the Wimbledon finals, 1990, I went over to Japan and there were 1,200 people there … and all of them started wiggling!

     

     CM: What was the first extravagant thing you bought for yourself when the tennis prize money started rolling in?

     

     ZG: It was 1982, and I bought a candy apple red Volkswagen convertible with a white top.

     

     CM: You were on the Biggest Loser, the show where contestants compete against each other to lose weight. Let’s just say you didn’t win. Are you happy you went on that show, or do you regret it?

     

     ZG: I was one of the first who had to leave the competition. (No, you were THE first.) It was an experience, but I probably shouldn’t have done it. I think I regret going on there. It wasn’t what I thought it was.

     

    It was reality TV and at the time I didn’t know what reality TV was .I was more ready to get out of there than anything else.

     

     CM: Now here’s the big question, Zina. For years, I’ve had a running disagreement with ESPN 97.5 FM morning host John Granato about which is a more demanding, tougher sport – golf or tennis?

     

     Granato says it’s golf, because the tournament winner has to beat every other player that week, while in tennis the winner just has to beat seven players at most. And, each week, golfers have to contend with a different course.

     

     But, I say it’s tennis because players have to be in top physical condition, while nearly anyone in any shape can win a golf major.

     

     Plus, in golf, players have a caddy helping them make decisions. In tennis, players are on their own.

     

     In golf, you can have a bad day on Thursday and still win the tournament. In tennis, if you have a bad day in the opening round, you’re on a plane out of there.

     

     In golf, it’s the player against the course. There’s no defense in golf. In tennis, there’s a human opponent trying to beat you.

     

     In golf, the ball is lying still. In tennis the ball is coming at you at 140 mph.

     

     So which is the tougher sport, golf or tennis? I’m right ... right?

     

     ZG: Are you serious? Who is this guy who says golf is harder? The answer is tennis and it’s not even close.

     

    You’re playing against someone. You’re only controlling the ball when it’s on your side of the net. You can’t control what the other player is doing. It’s almost like a boxer coming at you.

     

    You have to have both the physical and mental capacity to win. In golf, if you have a bad day, it’s because you’re having that bad day. There’s no opponent competing with you. So, I’m saying it’s tennis.

     

     CM (note to John Granato): I win. Granted, it might have been the way I asked the question. Also, Garrison is a former tennis pro.

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