Saturday, May 14th
38ish miles in Lodi, CA
Today I saw:
Hawks
A Magpie
Cows
Sheep
Goats
Emu (!)
Llamas
Horses
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| Puffy clouds, vineyards. Lovely. |
and some bikes:
Road
Mountain
Tandem
Tandem recumbent
Recumbent, plain
Recumbent, trike
Recumbent, handtrike
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| Most of the vineyards have lovely roses. One I passed seemed to believe in my principle of "no rose unless it is a stinky rose". Like pedaling through perfume. |
I was passed nicely by:
Farm equipment
Pickup trucks
Sports cars
Motorcycles
Other bicyclists.
Not so nicely by a couple of sedans. Hrmph.
This was a ride organized by the Lodi Rotary to raise money for their charitable efforts. The 15th one!
I decided to do the shortest ride they offered, the 50 km.
I dithered about trying twice that distance for a moment, but decided that I am not ready for more than about 40 miles at a time right now. As it was, the seemingly endless stretch of Peltier Rd into a headwind on the return ride wore me out!
My average speed for the first half (no headwind) was just shy of 11mph (10.9 if you must know) but my overall for the whole ride was exact-ally 10. Which which I am pleas-ed.
And down to the Mokelumne River I attained a zippy 28.6 mph. It was soooooo nice to coast! I'm not sure I really am in love with the constant pedaling necessary for truly flat rides.
OK. That last statement was inserted by my evil twin, Skippy.
Moving on.
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| Row of palms on Acampo Road |
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| The Acampo store was more interesting to look at but this building was easier to take a picture of. |
This was a bit different from the Napa Cycle for Sight I did earlier this year: everyone checked into the Lodi event as they arrived, got a nice red t-shirt, a wrist band, and a route map, unloaded their bikes, and set off.
Some folks traveled in pairs or bunches, but there were other independently minded singletons like me. The Napa event was 3 separate mass starts.
The camaraderie of the large group was nice, but I really think I prefer riding by myself. So I guess that's OK for a solo-tourist-wanna-be.
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| Rest stop at Clements Fire Department. |
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| Sorry, strawberries already eaten in this shot. |
There was a lot of fresh fruit at the rest stop, so I pigged out. Despite that, the aforementioned headwind took enough out of me that I stopped for some dried fruit and nuts on the side of the road.
I had picked up some Kirkland (Costco) brand individually packaged fruit and nut mix (dried cranberries and cherries, almonds, walnuts, and dry-roasted pistachios). Convenient enough, but I would have liked salted nuts in there instead. Time to make my own!
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| This picture is for all the people who grew up with human-sized haybales. It was a Very Large hayfield. |
Returning to Lodi High School (home of the Flames), I loaded my trike in the car, ate a nice tri-tip lunch provided by the organizers, and drove home.
I had no real problems mechanically (although I did regret my decision to re-install the left wheel reflector - it sang to me the entire ride).
I need new batteries in my Cherry Bomb rear light; my Serfas seat-stay light (I have it on my headrest) came apart in the parking lot at the end of the ride (I had not gotten the battery cover back on correctly when I changed the batteries); but my Cateye Opticube HL-EL450 worked just fine.
I like the Cateye light: it has a strobe mode which my larger brighter light does not, it is small and easy to attach to a smallish tube with an o-ring. "But wait," you say! "Doesn't that light have an attached nifty clamp-strap thingummy?" Yes, it does, but it broke on the third use and it was such a pain to use that I don't want another thingummy anyway. Hurrah for o-rings.
I think I need to take apart my right bicycling shoe and see if the metal plate and cleat screws have shifted around.
And, major triumph, I stuffed my trike into a Toyota Prius!
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| It does, after all, fold |
T-storms in the forecast. Should I be a responsible ride leader and cancel tomorrow's ride? I've another hour to decide.
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