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.

Will ride for ice cream

#99

Friday, August 19th

A largish group of casual bikers headed out late this afternoon on the American River Trail with the promise of smoothies, ice cream, or coffee at the end of the ride. We had people on road bikes with those bars you might remember from your 1970's 10 speed, upright-posture comfort bikes, a splendid white cruiser, a mountain bike, my friend with the trailer-full of kids, and me on my recumbent trike.

I had the singular honor of leading the parade down to the riverside trail (the fellow on the white cruiser was the actual leader of the ride) and I even managed to keep my speed down to a casual-friendly 10mph. I did a lot of coasting.

We did not see any deer or coyote, but there were a lot of turkeys around. Including some humanoid turkeys on motorized skateboards. Grrrr. Not supposed to be on the trail! Oh well. They buzzed off up the Fair Oaks bridge and out of earshot.

I eventually caved in to my need for speed and took off down the trail like my tail was on fire. I managed 19.4 as my top speed and I know I did not hold it for long since I distinctly remember some gasping going on. I cruised on at about 13mph after that.

We hung out at the pond at our turnaround point, carefully avoiding many fine deposits of duck-shit. Ick. Green and squashy.

As we made our way back to our starting point, dusk happened, so I turned on my lights, the Cateye Opticube in flash mode on the front and the Cherry Bomb in the rear. It was nearly dark when we got back to the Sunrise bicycle path, so I stopped to add the high-viz sleeves from my old windbreaker and some flashing bands that I picked up at REI. I think they are supposed to go on your arms, but I find I can wiggle them over my shoes and wear them on my ankles. I also had two flags with reflective patches on them and a rear reflector. There are also some reflective patches on my trunk bag and the edges of my seat.

I felt highly invisible even with all that. So I need to figure out how to add more lights and reflective stuff to my ride, especially stuff that will be visible from the sides. Must ponder this.


I know I turned off the bike path onto the correct street, but I somehow was unable to find the smoothie place. Hrmph. I suck at nighttime navigation. Heck, I can hardly find the place in broad daylight. My GPS enabled phone helped, since I could remember the name of another business in the same building as the smoothie place (which I already knew was not in Google Maps). So I got there eventually and had a lovely pomegranate something with bananas and granola on it. Yum!

While I was sitting in the store waiting for my order, the two kids decided that the flashing bands on my ankles were too cool! They lay on the floor at my feet (I felt like a disco demi-god for a while, with two devoted worshipers) happily poking the buttons to turn the flashing on and off.

I am just as smitten with my trike as I was the day I brought it home, but my appreciation of its capabilities has grown as my ability to take advantage of those capabilities has grown.


What will the next year bring?
More long organized rides (I'm registered for Foxy's in October and a friend reminded me of a ride in Lodi's wine area also this fall), and hills. Hills since I want to tour.

Speaking of touring, here's a sketch of possible art for a recumbent cycle touring business card.

The ancient Egyptians got nothin' on me.

8 towns, 3 surfaces, 2 memorable roadkills, and 1 happy 'cyclist

Ride# 87

Tuesday, June 28th

43 miles from Rescue to Elk Grove, CA

I should have taken a picture of the utterly totally completely flattened cat. The poor thing had expired in just the right conditions to tell that it had been a tabby while still admiring the still cat-like shape yet bookmark-thinness. There was also a very large raccoon, also dead but not nearly as flattened. The smallest dead thing I saw was some kind of small grey songbird.

I also saw plenty of live things as well: kill-deers, an egret, and lots of little finch-like birds. No rattlers.

There were also innumerable shards of glass (clear, brown, green), bicycle parts (a brake lever and a bell), car parts (license frame, tire shreds, trim), construction debris (wood, a composition shingle, unidentifed but sharp metal things) and the aforementioned roadkill on the shoulders of the roads I traveled on. I was pleased and amazed to have no flats.

My top speed was 37.6 mph, my average was  9.2, my total time with wheels turning was 4 hours and 39 minutes, the total time elapsed was 5 hours 30 minutes or so.

Although I've ridden farther in one shot on my trike (57 miles), this felt like a much longer ride: probably because of the variety of terrain and number of towns along the way.
Rescue, El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Gold River, Rancho Cordova, Vineyard, Sheldon, Elk Grove. Now, some of these (Gold River, Vineyard) only exist as separate entities when considering the census, but they show up on Google Maps. So there.

I flew down Green Valley Road (the map at the bottom shows only approximate beginning and end points), white knuckled and swearing like a sailor (I even invoked various flavors of Christian profanity, not my usual form. The rest was made up of good old Anglo Saxon four-letter words). My shoulders and neck, despite my best efforts, were tense enough to bounce rocks off of.
.

In addition to all the other things, Green Valley's shoulders are littered with economy size pine cones. These, at least, were out of the way.

The only actual bouncing rocks were the fresh gravel my tires flung when I crossed the recently tended Deer Valley Road intersection. Flinging gravel while white-knuckling along at 30mph is ... interesting. Yeah. Interesting. I could hear the gravel banging through the spokes and just hoped for no gravel strikes on my tender hide.

Green Valley at 6:30am is probably not the best choice, but it is my route to Folsom. There is no bike lane, but a not terrible shoulder. There were also a LOT of cars zipping by in excess of the posted 55mph. Most of them went way around me.

The next terrain was the old familiar bike paths in and around Folsom neighborhoods. What refreshing change! I took my time and tried to relax from the adrenaline-induced hypervigilant state I found myself in.

Those clouds should have told me something.

Tailings from gold dredging. Along the feeder route from Parkshore Dr. to the bike trail along the river.

The next leg was the bike path along the south side of Lake Natoma to the Nimbus dam and then on to the Folsom South Canal path.

Looking upstream to the Hazel Bridge.

There was a strong steady wind from the southwest, so I had it in my face for the almost 2 hours I was on the canal path. Since this trail is very little used (no vehicular traffic and I saw only one cyclist) I went ahead and used my IPod to keep me moving along and un-bored. I'm sure the earbuds meant I did not hear when my brand new Sleipnir flag stopped audibly flapping behind me and took off for parts unknown. Taking the new pole and my little reflective flag went along with it. So very sad.

Weedy canal path.

Killdeer closeup

However, a friend who saw me pedaling down South Sunrise with my remaining flag (a large pink one) said I was plenty visible. And at least I know where the flags went missing.

I exited the canal at Jackson rather then continuing onto Florin Rd. as I had planned, since the already weedy canal-side road got a lot weedier after Jackson. Sunrise was a good alternative, with a nice wide shoulder, marred only by hordes of double-trailer gravel trucks.

OMG. Rain clouds?

Florin Rd. takes you by a materials reclamation site, so once I was past that the traffic dropped way down. Florin's wide shoulder disappears at Eagle's Nest road, but I was passed only a few times in the two miles to Excelsior Rd. Once by a large commercial semi, and once by a pickup. The rest were a handful of sedans and one minivan, who behaved admirably! Thank you, champagne colored van, for staying patiently behind me on the blind hill as I crept up at 10 miles per.

On Excelsoir, I got a friendly beep from a passing truck. I waved, he waved. A warm fuzzy moment.
Tuesday is trash-day in the Elk Grove area, so I dodged some trash cans. Same old same old. I have a genius for trash-day excursions.

Calvine, at least where I rode, has a splendid bicycle lane. Yay!

I used the loop behind the school at Bradshaw and Bond to avoid yet another non-bicycle-aware traffic signal (at least, I suppose it was not bicycle triggerable.) The son of the friend I was visiting was most impressed that I had bicycled right past his elementary school.

I finished my ride on quiet neighborhood streets, the white-knuckle flight down Green Valley already forgotten.

This is my last ride for a while, I'm scheduled for rotator cuff repair surgery in a few days. But I'll be back posting as soon as I am back on the bike!

Breakfast is important, but not that important

Ride #86

Saturday, June 25th
12 or so miles around Lake Natoma in Folsom, CA

A group ride of 12 or so happy casual riders and one maniac (me) on a recumbent trike. We only lost one person but she found us again.

Bad leader! No biscuit!

I was the leader of the merry band so I get to say that.

I'm the bossy looking woman in pink.

AND I did not take any pictures. These pictures are from one of our merry band of bikers.

I got home from the ride and my stepson told me that I had forgotten to eat my oatmeal this morning. So I had post-ride instead of pre-ride oats. Not too bad cold. Kind of refreshing.

A few days ago I finally got around to taking the front wheels off my trike, figuring I might need to check the brake pads and it is easier for me to take off the wheel then to remove the caliper (and get it back in the right spot).
No problems. Nothing to see here, move along.
Nothing fell off on the ride today so I think I got everything back correctly.

Finally had a flag made. Slepnir has too many legs for a horse and my ride has too many 'legs' for a bike. Not that I'm comparing myself to Odin, or that my ride is the unnatural offspring of a trickster or anything.

For those of you actually paying attention to my ramblings (for crying out loud! don't sit there, go outside and play!) I did not go on a Friday ride as promised, but will go on a Tuesday ride.

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.

OMG! May I please borrow a lung?

Ride # 16
Tuesday, November 16th. A shade over 6 miles. In traffic. Ooooh yeah!

I love riding for fun, but I also plan to use my trike (as I used my bike) for running local errands. So today I did.

My doc changed hospital affiliations, so I needed to sign a form allowing the old lab to send my records over to the new lab. My sweetheart works at the 'business' end of town, near the old lab, so I took the opportunity to get a lift to that end of town and cycle back to the house on this beautiful sunny day.

For those out you who worry about cyclists on the roads I was dressed for visibility: wearing a screaming yellow windbreaker, both tail lights blinking, the very bright headlight on, and two flags flapping merrily away.

I scooted from one end of Cameron Park to the other, using a route made mostly of residential streets. When I am a stronger cyclist, I'll run errands via a round trip from home. All kinds of interesting things are just a short ride away: a good hardware store, the library, grocery stores, my dentist, my doctor, the pet store (but I'm not planning on hauling 30 lbs of dog food home), multiple places for coffee, even haircuts!

For the first part of the ride, I slogged up the hill on the way to the lab (not a big hill, but bigger than I'm really ready for) in the granny gear, huffing and puffing. I took advantage of my trike's stability and low gearing to simply stop and catch my breath at two spots on the hill. The second time I stopped was because of two dogs who had to come over and see what I was.

Uncontrolled off leash dogs worry me quite a bit, not because I'm afraid of them, but because I am afraid for them. These two dogs were on the other side of the road, and charged heedlessly across two lanes to have a visit.

In about 5 minutes, a pair of dogs will come over the hill.

A car in each direction had to stop to avoid the dogs. I stopped (I needed to anyway) and let the owners get their dogs back. A stationary trike is less interesting to the dogs, especially since I had spoken in a cheery voice, identifying myself as human.

Although my route home followed the valley that is Cameron Park, there are still little hills. Down hill is fun (that hill I slogged up at the beginning gave me 30mph on the way down!) but uphill is boooooooring. I am so out of shape I had to stop and just breathe in certain carefully selected shady spots. I suppose I need to do this some more?

Nice and quiet road, horrible chipseal!

I wore my usual cotton capris (since I can't seem to find my non-padded bike shorts) and a very lightweight wool short sleeved t-shirt. The wool shirt is MUCH preferable to a cotton shirt. I was about ready to shed my high-viz windbreaker, since I was getting rather warm, but I treasure the visibility it gives me so I just pedaled slower. Yeah, that's why I was so slow. The windbreaker. Wanna buy a nice bridge? Oceanfront property?

I averaged 7.7 mph, top speed 30mph, slowest about 3 mph. My cleats stayed put on the shoes, my trike shifted well (but I still need to check the limit screws for the rear) and I had no flats, despite riding on the shoulder for most of the ride.

The trike is fine, the 'engine' needs some serious rehabilitation.

I'm still hoping for a picnic on Sunday! If it is cancelled, I'll slap the fenders on and go for a ride anyway.

Squirmy cleats, sharp sticks, and other misadventures.

My my, what exciting stuff can happen on a scant 5 mile bike ride!

Ride #6, 11 September 2010.

We (my sweetie and I) were out again this weekend on the Folsom bicycle trails – it was around 90 F and there were more bicyclists then walkers out on a Saturday afternoon. Now, I'm on a recumbent trike so I can creep up slopes quite slowly and, if I get in the wrong gear, I can slow quite unexpectedly. So it is not wise to tailgate me. Also, the lovely Purple Sky flag I have is quite long and because it is in an improvised temporary holder on my rack, angled back somewhat more than it might otherwise be. The eyes of a 6' 4” fellow on a fairly upright bike slowing suddenly behind my trike are about in the same place as the end of the flag! But we had more fun than not (and more than a sharp stick in the eye).

We stopped twice to adjust my sweetheart's seat and I had a little bit of trouble unclipping my left the second time we stopped. I also had serious damp butt since I had sat on the end of my hydration tube for a mile or so. Then I started getting a squirmy feeling between the left shoe and the cleat, and by the time we got back to the car, I could not get my left shoe out of the clip, so I just left the shoe on the pedal and we loaded up the car. The shoe looked pretty silly just dangling there. Turns out (as I'm sure the more experienced among you know) that one or both of the screws holding the cleat to the shoe had loosened. I released the tension spring almost all the way and finally got the cleat and shoe off.

I was going to do a Sunday/Tues/Thurs week but since this was the second day in a row, I think I'll be wise and do MWF again. So tomorrow I'll work on adjusting the rear derailleur a little bit. 

Time to improvise a shop rack!

This is how it's supposed to be!

Ride #5, just under 7 miles. I feel good after this ride - no twinges or anything. Not too tired. So I think this will be a good distance for the next week. Then I can see about increasing a little more.

A few posts back I mentioned my shoulder troubles. Well, a night of rehearsing for an upcoming concert can often set the shoulders talking to me and last night sure did. I went to yoga this morning and had a lot of trouble with my shoulders, enough that if I had planned this ride on a conventional bike I would have had to have canceled my plans. I was a little slower and more careful getting the trike in and out of the car, but that's the only way my shoulders affected my ride. Yay! Boo-ya! Go Team! And there was much rejoicing and so on and so forth.

The Friday morning population of the bike paths is a bit more dense (like: populous, not dim) than other weekday mornings. The usual assortment of fitness walkers, dog walkers, and other cyclists. Including one tending to the road bike side of things. My route today was essentially a torturous double lobed circle and every time I came around to face east, which I did 14 times, I got a face full of early morning sun. Bleah! I'm considering a longer visor for my helmet.

Today's route was planned with streets! So I loaded up my bike with two flags and two rear taillights and a headlight.

Parked for a moment just off a bike trail

The large pink flag comes from a small company called Purple Sky. This is the largest flag they have and the gray circles are reflective material. Someday I will learn to take photos without excessively cluttered backgrounds.

The pole for this flag is six feet tall, and the theory is that it will be about windshield height on a SUV. I figure the little orange bike flag will get the rest of the vehicles.

I don't normally succumb to naming vehicles, but I know a couple of people who specialize in horse names for their bikes. They've had classical names (with Homer you never need to run out) and I think names from horse stories (but don't quote me on that). And not just ordinary horse names, but Elvish ones from Tolkien. So how could I resist naming my beautiful orange machine?

Sleipnir.

You know, that crazy eight-legged horse of Odin's. Half stallion and half Loki in the form of a mare. Those gods.
What can you do?

So I need to make a Sleipnir flag (a little preview - based on an eighth century stone carving). I figure it's perfect - a trike has too many legs for a bike and not enough for a horse. And the trike is made in Germany (yes, I know Germany is not Scandinavia - sue me.)

Anyway.

Besides the flags and lights, I also added a tiny bike computer (odometer, speedometer, trip etc.). What is this insistance on having directions with NO WORDS - I like words. Pictures are OK, but words make more sense. Anyway, I'm still figuring out all the things it can tell me but, assuming I've set the tire size correctly, my top speed today was 19 miles an hour. I did get pedaling pretty fast at one point so I'm not totally surprised.

This trike is working out very well and I look forward to going outside and getting exercise. And aerobic and all that.
A cycle, no matter how many wheels, does you no good unless you use it.

So get out there and indulge in your favorite form of exercise!

Next ride, and next post, this weekend.