30 May 2016

May is Bike Month roundup

IOU three posts. It is hot and my brain melted. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

22nd May
#420 / #214
Really nice in-the-groove ride again. AND (news flash) Red Leader's longest ever bike ride. 33.5 miles. So proud of him.

25th May
#421 / #215
Ugh. I just could not get those pedals moving around. Did I do too much? Probably.

30th May
#422 / #216
AND WE DID IT. Red Leader and I both met our pledged miles for May is Bike Month. 200 miles (well, a little more). Next year, I'd like to try for 15 logged rides in May. That's just 6 more than we did this month.
Today was hot hot hot. So RL dragged himself out of bed a bit earlier than he might on a vacation day, allowing us to finish our ride before 1pm. Most of the the time there was a nice breeze, but some of the short hills on the American River Trail were just little bitty bake ovens.
The American River Parkway was jam packed with people. Kids, families, a pair of sisters(?) who happened to ride our same route at the same time and showed up as part of our Strava reckoning. Plenty of other two and three wheeled recumbents. Various rafting parties doing the rubber centipede thing smack down the middle of the paved trail.
Intoxicating smells of barbeque wafting from every park.
We are grilling tonight.

CU - three weeks until Tater TOT! WHOOOO!

20 May 2016

Turk-lets. Gob-lets, poults?

#419 / #213

Thursday, 19 May

Another lovely day on the American River Trail, filled with wildlife.
Baby turkeys were seen: my husband, Red Leader, speculated that they would be called  Turk-lets. I voted for Gob-lets. A post-ride consultation with a dictionary yielded 'poults' as a general name for immature fowl. Our designations were better.
Then, there was another edition of Suicide Squirrel. I came as close as I ever have to clobbering one. I missed. But because I missed I think I noticed the face I made. If I'd hit it, I would have no recollection of any facial gyrations on my part . I didn't brake, I didn't swerve, I didn't stop pedaling. Instead, I tilted my head to the left, scrunched my mouth, and clenched my nostrils. Apparently, that was enough to cause the squirrel to teleport out from under my trike.

CU and may your rides be critter-safe.

14 May 2016

Caterpillars on Parade

#418 / #212

Woolly Bears were all over the pavement today.

Thursday's cloud of contentment had dissipated today. I stopped at William Pond and Red Leader went on. I just could not get warmed up. The beginning of the ride felt like the end of a 30 mile ride.
Anyway, Wednesday should be better!

Rubber side down

13 May 2016

Happy people

#417 / #211

Thursday, May 12th

Today, as Red Leader and I cruised around Lake Natoma and up to Sunrise and back, I could not but help notice all the happy people out on their bicycles, and tricycles. No unicycles (GET OUT THERE, single-wheel riders, you've wrecked my little word-picture).

The riders on their aero bars hunched over did not look particulary happy, except for one guy singing along to some music as he sped along.

Then there was the Cloud of Sound in a different fashion - probably the loudest bike I've ever heard: bangs, rattles, rumbles, squeaks, high-pitched tinging like when one tries to get the happy couple at a wedding to kiss. And the dude bombing along (he was moving fast) amidst this sound cloud sported a truly enormous beard. He also had a truly enormous grin.
We saw him again, near the end of our ride.

I was rolling along in my own cloud. Well, two clouds - one of pure pink and blue contentment (contentment must have a color, don't you think?) making a Venn diagram with the cloud of bugs which joined me whenever I slowed down significantly. So my pretty contentment-cloud was covered with bug-parts, like your windshield would be in farm country on a spring evening.

Anyway, it was another great ride.
Hope to get out again on Saturday for a 30 miler.

CU

11 May 2016

MIBM El Dorado Edition

#416

Tuesday, May 10th 2016

Took a quick solo spin up the El Dorado Trail to Government Center for the May is Bike Month kickoff.
Again, the only recumbent there. Spent some time answering questions. The Dude in Charge (sorry, don't remember his name) recognized my ride from past years.
Picked up my free t-shirt (orange in the logo this year, matches my bike!) and rode with the mob back down the hill.
I coasted pretty much all the way to Weber Creek, then chugged up the concrete section, then back to where I had parked off of Missouri Flat Rd. Much of the rest of the mob rode back up the hill for the free lunch.

CU

08 May 2016

Bluebirds and happiness

#415 / #210

Sunday, May 8th

It finally stopped raining, so we rode down to Alphabent to get my shifting looked at.
Other Shop Dude fixed it right up, and also used the compresser to blow a lot of dust out of my brakes.

The shop has a bluebird, with 5 babies, nesting in an outer wall of the shop. Mrs. Bluebird perched for an instant on Red Leader's flag pole.

A nicely shifting bike is a happy thing.

CU

Rolin' on a Tuesday

#414 / #209

May 3rd

Our usual Tuesday music meeting was cancelled today, so we snuck out for a quick ride - about 15 miles if memory serve me correctly (I'm imagining memory in a formal suit, spotless white gloves, and carrying a silver tray). Anyway, we rolled back into the garage about dusk, HUNGRY.

I resolved to get to the shop on the weekend and get my shifting looked at.

01 May 2016

Comfort is not a four letter word

#413 / #208
Sunday May 1st

May is Bike Month!

Red Leader and I rode 25-26 miles today, taking advantage again of the annual one day rural county road closures in Sacramento County.

I rode 8/10ths of a mile further than RL because I was trying to find the people who had signed up for my Meetup ride. I never did find them among the chaos of an overfull parking area, construction, traffic, and lots and lots of other people looking for THEIR groups. No, I'm not with the Sierra Club. Thanks.

I got Red Leader to sign up to log his miles, and we had fun reading the QR code at the Engergizer Station with our smartphones. For some reason, loading and using a QR reader made his Strava app stop working, but his Garmin heartrate thingy made a fine  back up for mileage.

We answered the usual questions about our trikes. Yes they are comfortable; yes you are welcome to exhibit a tinge of condescension from the lofty and uncomfortable perch of your arse-busting wedgie; yes - it looks easier but, like many things in life, you get out of it what you put into it; and 'comfort' is not a four letter word. Someone riding around on a laid back machine is not 'cheating'. We have exhibited learning behaviour, thankyouverymuch.

Apparently, a slight facial sunburn (sweated the sunscreen off) makes me a bit cranky.

Rain in the forecast for the week, but I hope to get the rest of my 50 pledged miles in anyway.

CU