Coasting Uphill

#186 / #19

Himself and I have not been on our trikes in two weeks!

So today we went on one of my regularly organized rides: 11.5 lovely miles around lovely Lake Natoma with a lovely bunch of 12 people. And the weather was lovely too!

Himself led the group out and I played sweep, so it was a casual bike sandwich with 'bent bread.  I had two folks show up without RSVPing. I don't have a problem with that, although I do have the option of making the meeting location (as posted on the site) private. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

Besides having fun, my goal is to provide a chance for folks to get out and ride. I hope the one fellow decides to sign up with the group. The other woman is already a member, but was not sure she'd keep up with the group. I'll call her "Seven Speed".

Those are the two reasons I've heard most often "Oh, I just want to check the group out" and "Oh, I'm not sure I can keep up."

Seven Speed, on her seven speed bike (get it?) did have trouble keeping up, she was going about 5mph while the rest were going between 10 and 12mph. I hung back with her, chatting about gears and shifting and her shifting got smoother and her hill climbing got less wobbly. Since she had not RSVPed, I felt no obligation to stay with her, so eventually we discussed how to get back if she decided to turn around and I zoomed on ahead.

I caught the trailing member of the group (and picked up one who had missed the turn) just before getting to our rest stop. It was a lively group of people, many conversations and much laughter. My sneaky plan by having Himself lead is he gets to spend more time socializing with random strangers. He seems to enjoy it, also.

We were just getting organized to go over the big bridge and head back, when up rolls Seven Speed!
Yay! You made it!
She and another rider decided to head back on their own, retracing our route, since they knew how to do it.

We got to see Seven Speed again, when she found us at the very end of the ride. Double Yay! She will do just fine: she used to ride that route on a fixie, something I would never consider doing.

Only one mechanical today, one fellow dropped his chain off the front when shifting. He hopped right off and fixed it. No worries.

Himself tells me he finally got his trike up on two wheels (and he didn't flip - not that I really mind). It was on a very sharp corner (more than 90 degs) with the slope of the corner going the wrong way, making it even more likely to flip.

CU (Rubber side down)