flat, fat, fast, fun

Ride #90
Thursday, July 28th

13 miles on the ARBT

I spent entirely to much time this week moping around the house feeling fat so today I finally pried myself off the big comfy couch and climbed onto my smaller but equally comfy trike. (yes, even I have bad days)

I decided to see what kind of average I could maintain for the six miles from Sunrise to Wm. Pond. I was pleased to see it was just slightly over 13mph. I don't know how long I could maintain that (I suspect less than 15miles, in favorable conditions) but it was sure fun zipping along today.

Once I fixed the flat. Yes, my second flat in over 1000 miles. On the right front (the side that gets all the debris on the side of the trail). I could not detect a leak once I removed the tube (I'll do the water bucket test in a little bit) and I did not feel any sharp things in the tire. So I installed a new tube and went on my merry way.

I also tried messing around with a couple of camera mounts today. One is a handlebar mount and the other is a helmet mount. I need to revert to my old helmet to make the helmet mount work, and I may need a lighter, smaller camera. I think it will wobble around quite a bit.
The handlebar mount was a little too big for the accessory mount on the front of my bike, but some innertube scraps from the last flat helped. However (and I knew this but had to try it anyway) the front of a trike is WAY too bouncy for video.
I am now the proud creator of several minutes of very jittery video. Really unwatchable. I had to shrink it down quite small on the computer to stand to watch it and I think a whole lot of caffeine might have helped. The jitters might cancel each other out. Or not. Where's my coffee!?
But I did get a couple of frames of other recumbents (not very high resolution, but better than nothing). I wonder if I can set that video camera to take frames every few seconds. And if so, what would the resolution be? Have to read the manual, I guess.

This is a fellow who made his own recumbent trike. We had a nice long chat about the geometry of a recumbent trike, the possible benefits of changing to shorter cranks, and the goodness of clips (on the shoes, you know).

He is planning to make a tandem recumbent trike so his wife can ride along with him. Lucky lady!
We also shared war stories about that little short very steep ramp up to the Hazel bridge. He has one bad knee so he made it up by mashing with his good leg, applying the brakes, spinning the cranks around backwards, releasing the brakes and mashing with his good leg. Rinse, repeat, until at the top of the hill.
He definitely needs some bigger gears in back!

And I know I've seen this guy before, and probably ridden with him on the monthly recumbent rides, but I have no idea who he is. But he always sticks out a hand. I try to remember to do so also, but usually forget. But it is a cool kind of laid back thing.

Social graces are not always my strong suit.

I HAVE HAVE HAVE to get that reflector on the left side to quit squeaking. It is going to drive me nuts. I'll just take it off for now, then put it back on for a night ride, then forget to take it off and whine some more when it squeaks. Which is what I did last time, which is why it is still on there and still driving me nuts.

Let's see. What else.
Oh, I saw a deer leap over the trail, and a turkey hen and a half-grown turkey. I clicked at them and they scurried off into the scrub.

I'm contemplating a ride in the Delta this weekend. We'll see. The lure of the couch may be too much.