Dropping in

#269

Took the opp to ride on the American River Parkway trail today, from Wm Pond to C St. in Sacramento. Yesterday was rain and sometime in the next few days it will break 100.

Alphabent, the recumbent shop where Red Leader and I bought our trikes, has moved their shop from Dixon to Sacramento.

To get to their shop (they open at 11 on weekdays), take the American River Parkway Trail (ARBT) west to about mile 3, then where an overpass and a wooden bridge pass over the trail, take a left onto the rail trail (unmarked, but follow the sign saying Downtown or something). Stay to the left and it will take you on to C street, right next to the Blue Diamond processing plant.
Today, the plant was sugarcoating nuts. Smelled SO GOOD!
Follow the bikeway signs on surface streets around the plant, eventually returning to C street. The shop is just past 12th St. (light rail tracks), on the left.

They are in a nice large building at 1114, a former motorcycle shop. They are across the street from the old Global Mill building. The front of the building is a giant roll-up door, so I was able to roll right into the shop.

I got some advice about my idler, and ordered a pair of the X-shaped waterbottle mount adapters for the Ergomesh seat. I can't tighten my seat across the lumbar area while I have the waterbottle cage mounting screws going through the seat's cover.

The Terracycle idler I have is slightly larger in diameter then the stock idler, and when I settle my giant butt into the seat, things shift around, sometimes letting the curved seat flange, clamped by one of the seat's quick releases, contact the edge of the idler.

A couple of extra washers added to my existing stack (I'm up to 5 now) from the shop's bin of random bits and pieces was enough to shift the idler out from the frame, letting the seat flange ride between the two edges of the idler, while still clearing the toothed cog.
I need to take a picture and send it to Terracycle.

It was getting warm while I was riding back, about 85 or so. I kept sucking down water and pedaling along. When I finished my ride, the sweat (that had been evaporating with the wind of my passage) started pouring down my face, getting in my eyes. OUCH.

I saw two unusual things on the trail today. One was a horseback rider near Sac State (never seen one in that area before) as well as two very confused people in a blue sedan driving along the bike trail. Did they think it was a road? How did they even get on the trail? Arrrrrrgh!