That's Ms Mama Duck, thank you

Ride #101

11 miles around Lake Natoma
Saturday August 27th

It is supposed to get mighty hot today, so for some reason that now escapes me I scheduled this ride to start at 9am instead of 8. What was I thinking!

Nevertheless, it was OK since the group today was speedy. Speedy like roadrunners, or fire-tailed cats, or greased lightning (wouldn't that just ignite? Nevermind). So we beat the heat.

I had 9 people on 8 bikes (a tandem was along for the ride - cool!) behind me from Folsom onto the American River Bike Trail, and then over to Hazel Bridge, a stop at the state park there, and back to Folsom along the 'south' side of the lake. No mishaps, no mechanicals, no stupid freaking thorns, no heat problems. Just a great ride with fun people.

There was some kind of low-key running event on the ARBT side of the bridge, but since it was not signed 'trail closed' we decided to just use the trail anyway. We soon ran out of runners (ha ha) and had only the usual bikers and hikers along the path.

I did scare one beautiful golden retriever nearly to death. His owner was not controlling him very well and he was tending to wander onto the trail (she was also walking with traffic, not against it, so the dog would have wandered right into my trike). As I came up behind them, dinging my bell like a nut, the dog suddenly noticed me and teleported himself from the path to the ditch, cowering and flinching from the terrible machine that was going to EAT him. Or something. I am sad that I scared a dog (I like dogs and hate to see them scared) but I'm still a little irritated at the in-need-of-a-clue owner. I sure hope she had water for herself and the dog.

Some of the group stopped after the ride at Karen's Bakery Cafe (yummy yummy, good neither for my pocketbook nor my waistline but how could I resist the lure of fresh orange juice and an avocado/bacon/chicken sandwich). Half the sandwich is waiting in the refrigerator for my dinner.

I got to chat about my trike with a couple of people, always fun. One fellow had a scrumptious orange Catrike (another recumbent brand), one of the super speedy ones. After food, conversation and bike-chat I spiraled my way up to the top of the parking structure and loaded my trike.

I don't think I've really talked about that so here goes. When I'm driving the SUV, I just roll the trike up a pet ramp and into the truck.

I have to lift the front end of the trike since the bumper is high enough that the front of the trike would dig into the concrete. With the rear wheel supported, it is easy enough to move.

My flags, and their multitude of pole-pieces, tend to become scattered around the car, so I've taken to bundling them together with rubber bands.

Then tucking the whole mess behind an unused seatbelt along the side of the car.

The red thing is a shop rag and the white things are my sun sleeves. There are these nifty little plastic hooks along the sides of the car good for tucking random stuff into. The floor pump (blue) is usually piled on top of the flags out of the way.

The 'light bar' from the last post is coming along, just waiting for a few more lights. And I've decided that it is time to modify my front chainrings to a smaller 'big' and a slightly smaller 'middle' and a smaller granny.
Time to go count teeth and reading up on the procedure. I'm pretty sure I still want three rings, even with the duplication that can occur.

A longer ride tomorrow, and then probably a week off while I get ready for a weekend of house-partying.