Fall is here!

#290

Red Leader declined to get up early today and ride down to the workshop at Alphabet. So I rode down by myself.

We've been starting our ride down there at William Pond park. Today I decided to get some more miles and start at Sunrise boat launch.

44 miles with a 2 hour break in the middle. I'm tired but not hurting. Just perfect!

The weather was also perfect: cool and breezy and overcast in the morning (I used a windbreaker for a little while) and cool and sunny in the afternoon.

I saw no other recumbents on my ride down there (made up for by the awesome numbers of recumbents in the shop) and 5 on my way back, two trikes, and three bikes, one of them a tandem.

The nuts are still all over the trails, but many of them got washed off the trail by yesterday's heavy rain. That rain, however, made some impressive mud.

I was a little early for the workshop, so I detoured to Discovery Park, where all the brick bathrooms were locked, leaving me to push my poor trike through mud to the second worse portapotty it has ever been my 'fortune' to use. I touched nothing except the door.

Leaving Discovery the mud left the tires in a most entertaining fashion, flying off the tire straight up, straight back, and straight into my face. I kept my mouth shut until most of it was gone.

At the shop, I talked to Hugh and we decided it was time to put a new cassette on my bike. I have a brand new and shiny pile of gears on the back. Same as before (ICE's semi custom Shimano Capreo) but it works so well! I had not realized how awful my shifting had gotten. Hugh also adjusted my brakes, and got my indexed shifting set up (I tend to leave it on friction). My chain is not significantly worn, so we left well enough alone.

My shifter cables are a bit sticky, so I have two brand new cables that I'll try my hand at installing. Time to hit the books (Zinn's mountain bike book).