06 February 2011

Look! I forgot to make a title!

Ride #41
Sunday, February 6th
11 or so miles on the American River Trail

Somewhere between 70 and 80 degrees today. Moderate breezes, and shockingly green grass. My nose is stuffed up and the dog is shedding like there's no tomorrow.
It is spring. I'm sure it will rain again and be cold and miserable before May, but right now that is very hard to imagine.


My sweetheart felt a little queasy (happens sometimes when he over-exerts himself) so we stopped for a while at a beautiful shady spot along the river to rest, drink some more water, and share a orange. Yes, the grass really is that green - unreal, isn't it? We saw a large raptor circling overhead, and heard plenty of birdsong. Not so many squirrels as yesterday. Several folks stopped to check that we were OK and that we were not too far from the car and so on. Lovely people, bicyclists are. Recovered, we finished our ride.

Today, we decided to go around Lake Natomas (something we have not done since they've been doing the Hazel Ave. improvement project, and something I'd not done on my trike). I'm sure it will be lovely when it is finished, but right now it is not stellar for a trike. There is a steep grade going up to Hazel from the "north" side of the lake, Granny handled that just fine (but I did wonder if Himself would have to push me up the last bit - there was some swearing as I powered up the steepest part. Yep. Me. Potty mouth). However the interface between the very wide concrete sidewalk on the upstream side of Hazel and the existing bike path needs some work. I only had to dodge one oncoming cyclist and travel against traffic for a little while. I'll be glad when the construction is done.

The other thing about the Lake Natomas loop is getting across the river at the Folsom end. There is a bike lane on Folsom-Auburn Rd., segregated from traffic by reassuring concrete walls, but that path is quite narrow for a trike, even my trike which can fit through most doorways. The other option is to take surface streets to the old wooden bridge across the American River, which is what we did today.

Something I forgot to note about yesterday's long ride - I added some gel forefoot inserts (marketed for women's high heels) to my yellow Superfeet insoles in my bike shoes. I was looking for something that would be a little cushy but not too squishy, since on the 30 mile ride a few months ago the balls of my feet felt a little pounded on. Much better with the gel inserts. Since I unstuck these from a pair of heels I don't wear very often, I needed to stick the edge down with some paper medical tape since the trailing edge of the insert tends to roll up and attach itself to my sock. I think some of the 'stick' remained in the other shoes.

And on today's ride, I again managed to drop my chain between the small and middle chain rings while shifting down. Himself held the back of my ride up and I wrestled the chain back into place. I think this happens when I am applying a little more force to the cranks then I might normally when shifting, and when I am in a smaller ring in back. Easy enough to fix, just annoying and greasy. I was worrying about my sweetheart and not paying attention to my shifting!

A couple of rides scheduled for next week: hope the weather holds!

I did my best to show how the Hazel interface worked today: no guarantees...

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