Flapping Nostrils

Rides # 121 and 122

November 2nd and 3rd
26 miles in three counties: El Dorado, Sacramento, and Placer

My overnight hammock/recumbent trike expedition.

Why did I do this little trip? I've always wanted to tour by bicycle and my splendid machine is made for touring.

Beals Point campground (Folsom Lake SRA) is about 13 miles from my house, quite useful for my first human powered vehicle overnight.

It took me an hour and a half of actual rolling time to get to the campground and two and a half to get back. My average on the way out was 9 mph, and back was just over 5 mph. Yes, you saw that right. 5.2 mph. Oy.

Take a look at this little diagram for the reason:

At noon I rolled out of the garage, down the driveway, shifted to my most grannyiest gear, and slogged up the STUPID hill in front of the house. Every from-the-door-tour will start this way so I ought to get used to it.

Then I got to fly down the first hill on the main road and attained 37.3 mph! That's the fastest yet I've coasted on this bike. Or any bike. Ever.
My nostrils flapped in the wind. Weird feeling.

I traveled primarily on roads (usually no bike lane but with a shoulder of varying quality) but used a bikepath over Folsom Crossing (the road/bridge replacing the old dam road across the American River just below Folsom Lake).

There are multiple construction projects all around Folsom Lake.

Look for the guy to the right of the middle two machines.

My own personal lane! (closed to divert traffic from Folsom Crossing)

Sometimes Folsom Crossing is closed around noon for blasting or other exciting things. I timed it just right to have a nice break in the shade of the construction company's office parking lot. No blasting was audible.

OK, so this is a boring pic. The construction folks were cool. So there.

After Folsom Crossing, although I could have continued on the bike path to the campground, I chose instead to take Folsom Auburn Road, since I needed to pay my camping fee at the kiosk. $25 for the off season, no biker discount.

I chose Site #1 since I was tired and wanted to set up camp and there were two trees Right There for my hammock and I'd have plenty of 'campground TV' to watch since I was right off the main drag.


I loafed around and read and people-watched. Had some tea.

I critter-watched.

Loafed some more and ate dinner (sandwich from the deli I'd stopped at on my way through Folsom).

Gathered some HUGE pinecones (sorry, forgot a pic of those) which helped my twig and small branch fire look Much Bigger than it was.

Finally crawled into my hammock (this is what I use for backpacking - it has insulated quilts above and below: toasty) and read or listened to some podcasts until about midnight.

Got up multiple times in the night (why did I have two cups of tea with dinner? I KNOW better!)

Woke up for good at 6:30am and wandered around the lake shore for a while, then packed up and headed back.

Back over Folsom Crossing, then up all the hills I'd gleefully sailed down less than 24 hours before.

I whined a lot climbing up the hills, but I also had a chance to stop and admire the landscape.

Look! More hills!

Remember the 37.3 mph hill? Well, I had to go back up that. Ugh.

Arrived home 23 hours after I'd left, with way too many pics and video to process.

If you have not had enough of this tall tale, here's a link to a Youtube video I did.

Trikers! Front and Center!

Ride #60
Saturday, April 9th
15 lovely sunny miles in Folsom

This was an organized ride, with just two of us. We started off with a heart-pounding 5 mile up and down on some small hills, then cruised around the Folsom bike paths for another 10 miles. Lots of wildflowers, people, birds and so on.

While loafing at the duck pond, we encountered ANOTHER person who rides a trike! What am I, like a trike magnet? So. This other triker and I will get together and ride. This is going to be so nifty.

I did a little economic stimulus of my own the other day and picked up a few more items for my ride. I now have a bright green small PurpleSky flag to replace the generic orange safety flag I had on my seat-back. Now I have a giant pink flag and its little green sister flapping along behind me. I did notice the flapping more today.

And I picked up a Fastback Flash Frame Pack. Which is a very long name for a little tiny bag that velcros around the boom. I can reach it easily enough while I'm riding along. It is the perfect size for my point and shoot camera and a few other small things.

While warming up before the hills, I noticed that the road with the Incredible Disappearing Bike Lane has broken out in sharrows.
This is a sharrow.

It is supposed to encourage drivers of automobiles and riders of cycles to share the road.
This is a Google shot of the road with the intermittent bike lane. In this sat photo it has not yet been decorated with sharrows. The red arrows I scribbled in (I GIMP, do you?) show where some strange overgrowth from the sidewalk intrudes into where the bike lane should be.

I do not know what happened here, but I'll go ahead and imagine a complete lack of communication with the subdivision-planning-entity and the road-planning-entity.

Now, in other news:

Redbuds are out!

So are lots and lots of walkers.

Will try for a two-fer this weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Not quite cats

Ride #35
Saturday, January 22nd
9.9 miles in lovely Folsom

Led my crew of biking acquaintances around and around and around the paths of Folsom. No one got lost, left behind, or confused. And everybody seemed to have fun. My sweetheart (who came with us and graciously agreed to sweep the ride) said he didn't see a single one of my beautiful blue arrows. I did, but then I knew where to look. I think they look bigger from a 'bent then from a conventional bike. We finished off our ride with tasty Chicago style pizza. Yum!

Lots of strollers, toddlers, dogs, other cyclists, geese, ducks, coots, blackbirds, squirrels and so on. A busy day on the trails. Lovely spring weather in the low 60s - perfect for cycling around.

One usable pic today: of everybody else that was on the ride, stopped for a lot of chat at the duck pond. We left when the geese started noisily fighting over the bread some kids were tossing in. Some of us speculated on the possibility of nice fat goose for dinner. Yum!

I had to straighten my seat out a little bit (and I think I'll take another look at it before I ride again) and I really do need to check the indexing of my rear derailer as well. I like my Detroit Tigers baseball cap as a visor under my helmet, but I would like a visor or hat that does not have such bulky seams. Leaves an impression my my poor forehead! I like having pockets in my shirt, but I hate how the stuff in my pockets pulls the shirt on the back of my neck. Time to get serious about figuring out some kind of seat-side pouches for assorted stuff: camera, snacks, handkerchief.

I'll take a couple of days off and then it will be back on the trike again!

Blue days, all of them gone ...

Ride #25
Thursday, December 23rd.
A beautiful sunny 7 mile trip on a bit of Folsom's bike paths.

My sweetheart said that the coding problem at work (he is on vacation until the end of the year but email never sleeps) would not get solved today so he came for a ride with me. Booyah! Yes! There was much rejoicing! Und so weiter.

The less he has to do to get out and on the bike, the more likely he is to go. I love fussing around with bicycles so I don't mind at all pumping up tires and loading equipment and all that. He led this ride, with me bellowing occasional directions from behind. I polled him every once in a while if he wanted to go on or turn around and eventually he decided to turn around.

Today's route was partly on the route we could not finish on the 16th, and I think himself is interested in doing the whole messy complicated route one day. We talked a bit about how where we turned around fit into that other ride. He avoided cotton next to his skin and he was more comfortable this time. We might go shopping for a lightweight baselayer for him after xmas. (He borrowed a wicking t-shirt from me and it was, um ... snug. He looked a bit like a giant olive green Buddha.)

My trike worked beautifully today - I just needed to mess with the barrel adjuster for the rear derailluer a little bit near the end of the ride. I moved my tools and bike lock to a seat-back bag and I like having less stuff to paw through in my trunk bag. I was sure there was a baggie of raisins in there, but I could not find them. I'd better check again!

I've ordered a replacement digital point and shoot (a refurbished Canon Powershot) so pictures should appear again soon.

I am scheduled for a 30 mile ride on Sunday, but there is an 80% chance of thunderstorms, so I fear the ride will be canceled.

Happy holidays everyone - time to tinker with my egg nog recipe!

Enticed or Bedeviled?

Ride #23
Thursday, December 16th. 7 miles, mostly on Folsom bike paths.

What a lovely afternoon for a ride! My sweetheart played hooky from work and we went on a short ride in the late afternoon sun. I like parking at the light rail parking lots and by 3pm there were spots open at the Glenn station. It is easy enough to get on to the bike paths from that parking lot, but getting back at the end of the ride is a little awkward. I need to figure out a better way before I lead any rides from that location. Should I confess that I directed us through a corporate parking lot via the sidewalks? Ok, then I won't!

The really fun loooooooong bridge.

There were plenty of little bitty hills to conquer where the bike path swoops under surface streets. We saw some other bicyclists grimly pedaling along, and some dog walkers. Humbug and Willow Creeks are nice and full, but since it has not rained for two whole days the undercrossings are dry enough.

I had mapped out a longer ride, but himself got a little tired so I sent him up a set of steps with his nice lightweight bicycle and zipped around a loop with more ups and downs to meet him on the uphill side of the steps. Our curtailed ride necessitated a little bit of street riding (and we even took and used the left/straight lane) to get back on the bike path.

The new overcrossing at Bidwell in Folsom

I had wiped a lot of leaves out from between my fenders and my front tires before this outing so my ride was back to being nice and quiet. I did a little surgery on my seat and uncovered the water-bottle braze on points unhelpfully covered by the mesh. I like drinking from a bottle better than a hydration tube so I'm glad I took the time to do it.

Instead of a bladder on the back of my seat I put a bag just for tire repair and locking up, so my trunk bag on the rack is a lot less heavy to carry around at stops.

My sweetie is having the same problem on his bike that I had on my hybrid: not enough low gears. We'll head down to the shop and see if he can get a different gearing setup.

It is supposed to rain from tomorrow until Christmas, so there will be a dearth of posts for the next ten days. Unless I get desperate ....