Slings and salmon

#164

26 miles today on the American River Trail.

I took it slower than the last time I went out on one of the 20 mile weekend rides. Yes, it was longer than 20.

This was another ride NOT organized by me but I got to help anyway by leading us out.

Well, I led us out once we got on the bike path.

I learned a new phrase today "bike salmon" when you want to travel on a specific side of the street but it is against the flow of traffic (you use the sidewalk). I am constitutionally opposed (what does that mean anyway? That it is against my personal Constitution or makes my physical self (little c constitution) disturbed?) to riding on the sidewalk to avoid crossing a street in traffic on a bike so I practiced Effective Cycling and got to the bike path before the salmon did.

Whew. That was quite a sentence.

It was cooler today (Delta breeze) so I wore my spiffy cycling jacket for all of 5 minutes. I think it never got over 80 today, but was certainally cooler than yesterdays near-90.

Pretty early in our ride a fellow on a yellow Greenspeed trike zoomed up to the group and tagged along. It took me a while to place him, since the last time I saw him he was on a diamond frame going up and down Beatty Road in El Dorado Hills on our club's annual New Year's Day hill-climbing suffer-fest.

Being totally observant (sarcasm here) I finally noticed that he had one arm in a sling. He had broken his collar bone two days ago in an 18mph mountain bike crash and was riding his girlfriend's trike one-handed because it beat staying at home discovering all the things he couldn't do.
He has a plate in his shoulder.
And the trike was far too short for him.
And one tire was not seated properly so he bump bump bumped along.
Other than that, he was fine.

We chatted for a while, then he found a couple of right-paced roadies to chase.

He would periodically return to the group, the pursue some more roadies. I noticed that the roadies worthy of pursuit were female. Remember, a triker's view of a roadie from behind is a spandex-clad ... well, behind.
I had a good laugh.

We had a variety of speeds along today; I was out in front with sling-man and two others. The ride leader was behind with the other two riders. It was interesting, and a bit pleasant, to be in on a group ride but with unencumbered vision.

We managed to stop at the same places twice for bio-breaks and water and rest, but we did not come to our turnaround point at the same time. Eventually, sling-man pointed out that we had been sitting and waiting for 20 minutes so we headed back, only finding the others nearly at the end of the ride. All's well that ends well.

I feel pretty good for having ridden 37 miles in one weekend. But I'd still like to bust out 60 or 70 in a weekend sometime.
7 more miles and I'll be at 100 miles for the month, 2/3rds of the way to my Bike Month pledge.

Keep ridin' and smilin'