BOOM!

Ride #32
Friday, January 14th
Almost 9 miles in sunny Folsom

I did a happy dance today when my sweetheart called from work to say he was taking the afternoon off so we could maybe take a bike ride. So we did.

Many dog walkers, families, marauding bands of pre-teens on bikes (behaving well, so marauding is not the right word but it is such a cool word how could I resist?) and just plain walkers. For a geeky bonus, we had a brief chat at the end of our ride with two fellows on trikes! Yay! One was on a Greenspeed and the other I was not sure what it was, but it had a large rear wheel. Very sporty looking. I found it interesting that the two trike riders we encountered also have more or less permanently removed their front fenders. I suppose when I get coated with muck on a ride I'll decide to put them back.

The sweetheart deliberately pushed himself a little more on this ride, so he felt a little off at the end of it. I had to pedal more often so I know our average speed was a bit higher. AND we went almost 9 miles, a mile longer for him than previously. The weather was in the high 50s and such a nice change from yesterday's deluge. I wore shorts and a t-shirt. So there! to my friends and family in colder climes.

So, I am pretty good (I thought) about checking and tightening things periodically, but the boom escaped my attention. Until today.

The boom, by the way, is the thing that sticks out in front of the trike with the pedals attached. Since you can't raise and lower the seat, it is easy to make a adjustable length pole and match that to the rider's leg length. Well, since it can move in and out, it can also rotate, and that's what happened to me!

Himself decided, at the bottom of a hill, to make that the turnaround point for today. I was in the Wrong Gear to get up that hill (a very short one) so what I SHOULD have done was drag the trike up to the top of the hill and resume the ride. But nooooooooooo! I had to try to mash my way up it and in the process of mashing I felt the whole front assembly start to twist! Yikes! A friendly pedestrian gave me a hand up and off the trike (difficult to do when facing up a hill with my feet much higher than my center of gravity, aka my butt) and I towed the thing to the top, dug out my set of folding wrenches, and was very very happy that the largest one was the right size.

So my beautiful beast is in the garage now, and the truck is exiled to the driveway, so I can make sure I have the right torque on the bolts and of course I need to fuss with the rear derailer. My derailer is quite nice, but I've decided that I like to fuss and it is somewhat like tuning timpani. I have to have it Just Right. Since it is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades, close is not making it!

No pictures today since I forgot to charge my little camera.

Next ride on Tuesday, since this weekend I am taking a two day wilderness first aid course. Yay!