27 July 2012

The Snakey Samba

#181 / #13

15.5 miles on the lovely American River Trail

And we averaged 12.6 mph! Both my Strava app and Himself's Garmin app agree.
I set some "personal bests" on some segments of our ride. Not that I care. Well, really I care a little bitty bit. Like, enough to post about it. But, you know. Not really. Sure. Yeah. Totally believable. May I borrow your backhoe? My shovel is not doing a fast enough job.

Enough of that!

Plenty of critters out tonight. Suicidal bunny-rabbits, a Very Large flock of geese (we crossed the crossing geese during a gap in their line), turkeys, and a Very Long snake. I believe it was a rattler. The oncoming bike traffic yelled some incomprehensible thing, the next oncoming traffic was clearer "Snake on the trail." I decided that 'snake' is not very intelligible at evening ARBT speeds, and think 'reptile' would be better. Of course, by the time you get to '-tile' the oncoming traffic would be 50 yards to your rear, so maybe not. I did try waving my hand and arm in a snake-like movement, which did no good at all. Well, I did get a weird look. So maybe it was worth it.

Anyway, we successfully avoided the snake and I hope he had a nice dinner of vole or something.

Once again, Himself got his boom to rotate. He tentatively identified it as happening when "powering" (I call it mashing) up a hill. His left cleat was also quite out of place by the time the boom shifted.
My theory is that some motion he makes while powering/mashing is causing his foot to wiggle on the pedal, which is moving his cleat, and when the cleat can't move anymore, the boom twists.
My torque wrench has taken up permanent residence in Himself's trunk bag.

It is time to lube my chain again, and I think it is also time to break down and get a Terracycle idler for my ride.

Admire the new picture for the blog: most of my riding is with Himself, so I figured it was time for a picture-change.

25 July 2012

Glimmer Glimmer Limmer-ick

#180 / #12

9ish miles in Folsom

We kind of phoned in our ride plan this evening. Inertia prevented us from going farther than the next town to ride.

And after a nice dinner of hamburgers (!) (Yum!) I'm too fat and lazy to come up with much of a ride report:

A trike-riding pair from out West
Thinks riding at dusk is the best
The air's kind of cool
Dusk stars are like jewels
So they ride in the summer with zest

Plans for the American River Trail on Friday.

CU

22 July 2012

'Round and 'round she goes

#179

11.5 miles around Lake Natoma, on the usual ride with unusual people

I had a flock of 8 riders, mostly newcomers the the group, to shepherd around the lake today. We left at 9am to beat the heat, and mostly managed to, as it was only 90 at 11am when I drove off after the ride.

An occasional rider with the Casual group came along on his mountain bike (nice new tires due to a recent blowout on a ride) and I voluntold him to lead the group out. He set a brisk-ish pace, about 13mph, and everybody seemed OK with it.

We regrouped at the Nimbus boat launch, then straggled across the Hazel bridge to the other side. I stuck with our slowest rider (who was not all that slow, really) and we caught everybody up at Negro Bar, where once again the water fountains were shut off (no body needed water this time so no worries) and made our way across the bridge and back to our starting place.

Himself was still sound asleep when I got home. He had dithered around last night about the ride (for him to even consider getting up at 8am on a weekend to go cycling is a world-shattering event) but the 104 degree forecast changed his mind.

I have grown accustomed to riding with Himself, so hopefully we can get out some evening this week.

I've changed the description of my blog to match the riding I do now. Riding with my sweetheart instead of myself.

 Now I just need to take a new picture with both trikes for the blog header.

16 July 2012

Turkey Trot

#178 / #11

Afternoon ride again today. A little earlier since the weather cooled off significantly today.

For a change, we started in the parking garage in Folsom and took the rail trail that parallels Folsom instead of the rolling hills of the trail closer to the river.

Maybe not a great idea since this trail make numerous street crossings. Badly planned street crossings with extremely tight turns and impossibly placed cross walk push-buttons.

To make it even more 'interesting' my digestion was acting up and we made several stops to deal with the trots. Are they 'trots' when one is on a bike?

Anyway! things settled down somewhat and then took a break at Nimbus Flat boat launch and debated going farther down the trail, but ultimately decided to cross the Hazel bridge and head back.

Himself set a blistering pace once we hit the slope down to the river's edge and I managed to move up to within less than 1 minute of the Queen of the Mountain on Strava (QOM is the fastest female on that segment of trail as recorded on their database). So that was a little bit o' fun.

I have a hike on Wednesday, so we probably won't ride again until Thursday.

13 July 2012

buzzin' along

#177 / #10

Friday, July 13th

6 miles on the El Dorado Trail

I had not been on this trail in over a year, so it was nice to see it again and interesting to watch Himself's heartrate climb and climb and climb as we climbed and climbed and climbed.

For those of you just joining us, this trail is built on parts of an old railroad grade. And it is heading into the Sierra Nevada mountains. So it was 2.5 miles of NO COASTING then 2.5 miles of ALL COASTING.

Although it was still in the 80s when we set out, the trail from the Mosquito Road bus station is very shady. So we enjoyed the relief from the heat.

We decided to turn around at the US 50 overcrossing, since it was about a half hour before sunset.

Himself turned on his blinking front light, and I turned on my rear red flasher. I also put on my bright yellow windbreaker and then we sailed down the trail, my un-grease-packed hub making a racket like a swarm of bees. The noise we made bell ringing and whooping was enough to keep folks out of our way.

No flats or other mechanicals, despite the date

07 July 2012

Fiat lux

#176 / #9

17 miles on the American River Trail

The Recumbent Riders of Sacramento's monthly Moonlight Ride.

I had never gone on this ride before, but figured it would be a good longer ride for Himself, since there was a long dinner break at the halfway point. We did the short version, starting and ending at William Pond park; while the rest of the riders started from Discovery Park, at the far end of the bike trail.

We had a few minutes to wait, so Himself demonstrated the multi-functionality of a recumbent trike.

It's a lounger! A dessert topping! A floor wax!

Recumbents and their riders started arriving, a tandem, another trike, and a couple of single seater two wheelers.


It was still hot when we set out, despite the early evening hour: 7:15pm. We rode east on the trail to Sunrise, then straggled into Jack's Urban Eats, where I had one of the most disappointing salads of my life. Not much in there but the spines of romaine lettuce. Bleah. However, the company was excellent.


We set out back down the trail in the cool evening with the sun just setting, lights blinking and my headlight much dimmer than I remember it being. I was not a happy camper. I stuck right on Himself's tail, pretty much blindly following his extremely bright blinking taillight.

In between whining to myself, I noticed that the Purple Sky flag on Himself's bike was really really visible (others said so as well) so I'm glad I have two of these flags with retro-reflective material. I'd like to get another, but they may not be available anymore.

I thought the rest of the riders were right behind us, but they only caught up when we were nearly back to William Pond.

How did I know they were catching up? Because I was sure alien spaceships were following me. Or maybe a car was on the bike trail. Or a low flying very bright very quiet helicopter.  Holy cow, Batman! Those lights are BRIGHT. I gotta get me one.

Or, maybe not. The problem with a moonlight ride in the summer is we did not get home until 10:45pm. That's late. Folding up the bikes and putting them in the car at night is a pain. I don't much like doing anything at night, walking, driving, canoeing. None of it. Not my thing. Himself was treated to my full vocabulary of "four" letter words. Repeatedly treated. Such a lucky guy!

He had a good time. I'll recover.

I demanded ice cream so we stopped on our way home for some vanilla. Split between the two of us and bedecked with maple syrup, it made the perfect end to the evening.

Himself not only made his boom spin today, he also had cleat problems. The Shimano cleats will not stay put and twist out of place. So then his heel hits the crank. Then he turns his foot to clear the crank, inadvertently unclips, and bounces his foot off the pavement. No damage done this time. Maybe locktite on the cleat screws?

06 July 2012

Bents!

#175 / #8

Thursday, July 5th

14 miles on the American River Parkway

Himself and I dragged ourselves away from our comfortable couch (he took Thursday off) and met up with the Sacramento Recumbent Riders for the Thursday evening ride.

I was a mite confused about which ride was which (and I 'broke' my email subscription to the email list so could not post and ask questions), so we ate dinner THEN went back down the trail with the group. Hey, we got to ride, so there!

Because the days are so long right now, we did not have to use our lights, but we did anyway!

Himself did great, monitoring his heartrate and keeping it at a good level. We were usually in back of the small group.

I think I'm getting hooked on evening rides!

Hope to make the next Moonlight ride as well.