A balmy 75 degrees

Ride #91

Sunday, July 31st
11ish miles around Lake Natoma

You'll see this ride repeated probably once a month. It makes a good ride for beginners and it is pretty, even with the grass turning brown for summer.

We, this was a group ride led by moi (thanks, Miss Piggy), set out at 8am, early enough to beat the heat, and late enough that only one of the signups overslept. We saw circling raptors (hawks, what kind I won't venture to guess) and a few butterflies. I don't normally pay much attention to butterflies, but one of the folks along for the ride does, so I looked for them today. This is why riding with random people can be fun. Never would have occurred to me to scan for butterflies.

There were also lots of folks out using the trail. Some of the groups announce themselves when overtaking, others just fly by in intimidating silence. One lovely pack of four even gave us a count of how many would pass. Thanks, guys!

One other pair made audible comments about there being a center line and traffic should stay on the correct side. C'mon guys! This is a recreational trail. If you are not comfortable (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt) passing on a blind corner, maybe you could wait? Ok. Now I'm just being sarcastic. Yes, one of our riders was probably wobbling around a bit, but give him a break. In retaliation for the snide-ish-ness (snide-ni-tude?) I busted out one of my patented sarcastic waves (I'm pretty good at nonverbal communication) and got a chuckle from our party.

The Lovely Nimbus Dam

So how does one successfully lead a ride? Here are my thoughts.
Know your riders. Have a vague clue of their abilities and the kind of ride they'd enjoy. This is kind of self-selecting for the rides I lead, which are fairly well described and the riders choose the rides which interest them.
I have had to only once discourage a rider from one section of a two part ride, since I was pretty sure he was not physically fit. He found the second, easier half "just right" so that worked out OK. AND he got to hang out in a coffee place while waiting for the second half to begin.

Mother-hen them just a little bit, but don't get crazy with the rules. I routinely ask folks before we set out if they've locked their cars and if they've got water bottles, since water is a safety issue and worrying about your car sucks all the fun out of a ride.
Helmets are required on our rides, but that's an easy visual check. It is there or it is not.
If there is an epidemic of mal-adjusted helmets, I'll mention briefly how helmets are supposed to fit, and see who wants help fixing theirs. Here's a good resource for that.

Let the group know what's expected of them. Explain the rules of the trail, mention rest stops. Use rest stops to talk about what's coming up, don't try to pile all the information on at the beginning of the ride. Although it can be fun to watch their eyes glaze over.

Check on your riders every once in a while. I like to buzz by up the line of people (I'm usually in the back, sweeping unless there's a tricky-to-follow part coming up) and ask them how they are doing. If someone for instance (as happened today) is stuck in one gear for the whole ride but can handle it, don't worry about it.
If someone is looking like the heat or exertion is getting to be too much, get them to take a break and recover for a while. Make them drink water and eat something (I've had to do this). Sometimes you have to hassle them into taking it a little easy, but it beats calling for the EMTs down the road (which I have not had to do).

Know your route! If you are blazing new trails, make sure the group knows it and are comfortable with it. Many will not be. They want to see the leader as infallible. Where's the fun in that, I ask?!

Be prepared. I carry a first aid kit and I know how to use it. Although I don't have a common tube size, I do carry an assortment of tools with me. I know how to change a tube, remove a broken link, and unjam a chain. I stink at adjusting deraillers.
I have fed people along the trail, loaned out a spare helmet, handed out bandaids, and insisted that a rider borrow a waterbottle.

Have fun. If leading rides becomes a hassle, ask yourself why you are still doing it? If you still want to do it, fix the hassles and carry on.
Fun is contagious, but so is un-fun.

It seems that I'm recovering well from my recent surgery, so I'll be piling on the rides for August. Yay!

flat, fat, fast, fun

Ride #90
Thursday, July 28th

13 miles on the ARBT

I spent entirely to much time this week moping around the house feeling fat so today I finally pried myself off the big comfy couch and climbed onto my smaller but equally comfy trike. (yes, even I have bad days)

I decided to see what kind of average I could maintain for the six miles from Sunrise to Wm. Pond. I was pleased to see it was just slightly over 13mph. I don't know how long I could maintain that (I suspect less than 15miles, in favorable conditions) but it was sure fun zipping along today.

Once I fixed the flat. Yes, my second flat in over 1000 miles. On the right front (the side that gets all the debris on the side of the trail). I could not detect a leak once I removed the tube (I'll do the water bucket test in a little bit) and I did not feel any sharp things in the tire. So I installed a new tube and went on my merry way.

I also tried messing around with a couple of camera mounts today. One is a handlebar mount and the other is a helmet mount. I need to revert to my old helmet to make the helmet mount work, and I may need a lighter, smaller camera. I think it will wobble around quite a bit.
The handlebar mount was a little too big for the accessory mount on the front of my bike, but some innertube scraps from the last flat helped. However (and I knew this but had to try it anyway) the front of a trike is WAY too bouncy for video.
I am now the proud creator of several minutes of very jittery video. Really unwatchable. I had to shrink it down quite small on the computer to stand to watch it and I think a whole lot of caffeine might have helped. The jitters might cancel each other out. Or not. Where's my coffee!?
But I did get a couple of frames of other recumbents (not very high resolution, but better than nothing). I wonder if I can set that video camera to take frames every few seconds. And if so, what would the resolution be? Have to read the manual, I guess.

This is a fellow who made his own recumbent trike. We had a nice long chat about the geometry of a recumbent trike, the possible benefits of changing to shorter cranks, and the goodness of clips (on the shoes, you know).

He is planning to make a tandem recumbent trike so his wife can ride along with him. Lucky lady!
We also shared war stories about that little short very steep ramp up to the Hazel bridge. He has one bad knee so he made it up by mashing with his good leg, applying the brakes, spinning the cranks around backwards, releasing the brakes and mashing with his good leg. Rinse, repeat, until at the top of the hill.
He definitely needs some bigger gears in back!

And I know I've seen this guy before, and probably ridden with him on the monthly recumbent rides, but I have no idea who he is. But he always sticks out a hand. I try to remember to do so also, but usually forget. But it is a cool kind of laid back thing.

Social graces are not always my strong suit.

I HAVE HAVE HAVE to get that reflector on the left side to quit squeaking. It is going to drive me nuts. I'll just take it off for now, then put it back on for a night ride, then forget to take it off and whine some more when it squeaks. Which is what I did last time, which is why it is still on there and still driving me nuts.

Let's see. What else.
Oh, I saw a deer leap over the trail, and a turkey hen and a half-grown turkey. I clicked at them and they scurried off into the scrub.

I'm contemplating a ride in the Delta this weekend. We'll see. The lure of the couch may be too much.

Chinese Menu Ride

Ride #89

Friday, July 22nd
Just a shade under 11 miles on bike paths in Folsom

Here's the closest you or I will come to seeing a recumbent on this ride

I saw such a variety of people, bicycles (no recumbents), and so on that I can only illustrate as follows:

Please choose one from each column. Repeat until bored or until the need for coffee becomes overwhelming.

Col. A	Col. B	Col. C
Hybrid bike	Retiree	Bike Lane
Road bike	Mom	Bike Path
Cruiser bike	Dad	Traffic circle
Stroller	Jersey-clad	Pedest. push-button crossing
Kid trailer	Dog walker	Wet pavement
Roller blades	Bird watcher	Dry pavement
Skateboard	Farmer	Speedbumps

No I did not see a skateboard-riding jersey-clad farmer sailing over a speedbump while navigating a traffic circle. But I could have.

Some of the intersections used to join up bike-path segments are better than others.

No curb cut. And there is a perfectly good bike lane right on the other side of the drop-off.

Splendid push-button crosswalk.

Behind me is a traffic circle. In front is an intersection with a single stop sign. Away over there, to the right of the pretty iron fence, is the rest of the bike path.

As long as there are no leaf blowers running, it is possible to safely navigate this intersection, just listen for the cars and pedal like mad.


Then there are these old speedbumps in the parking lot on the way to the farmer's market.

If I aim just right I can make it over without bottoming out. I aim right about 1/2 the time.

Where I got fab food and loaded up my bag.

From left to right: Lamb pie from Z-pies, scrumptious strawberries, and tantalizing tomatoes.

The approach to my favorite bridge. Gives you an idea of the beautiful sunny weather this morning.

I've been meaning for a while to get new gel inserts for my shoes, instead of the make-do women's high heel forefoot cushions I've been, um. making do with.

So I picked up these on Amazon and so far, so good. I spent some time muttering on the couch, determining the exact right place for them in my shoe. I seem to have guessed right, since I had very little feeling of undue pressure on the balls of my feet. Normally about 6 miles into any ride I get uncomfortable.

My shifting was a little weird today, so I think I need to take a look at the rear derailluer wheel thingies and see if there is stuff stuck in there again.

Thingies
Stuff

Maybe it is time for coffee after all

Heading toward the Bidwell Street overcrossing. This may have been where I exceed 20mph.

This map does not include the side trip to the farmer's market.

Riding like my head's on fire

Ride #88

Saturday, July 16th
13 miles on the American River Parkway

Although I am still recovering from minor shoulder surgery, I dragged my sweetheart and his college-aged son out on the bike trail today.
First ride since surgery!
They had some fresh air and sunshine, and I had minions to unload my beautiful orange beast. Even with the ramp, it is still more than I should lift right now. AND someone else got to pump up 7 tires, which I usually do.

There were a lot of people out today, all enjoying the clear, warm, but not blazingly hot weather.

Since this is the American RIVER parkway, we got to hear (and catch glimpses) of dozens and dozens of happy people in various bright-colored watercraft floating down the river. We could have even stopped for fresh produce along the way!

High racer recumbents, several trikes (hand and foot powered), folks with cruisers with baskets (one with a dog, a-la Toto in the Wizard of Oz), fast-moving skinny racer types, kids on little bikes, pedestrians, lots of equestrians.
I saw one sulky, but it was not hitched up. I'm not sure a sulky is suited to off-roading on dirt (which is where most of the horses are) and I know of no horse (not even a heavily sedated one) that would be OK traveling on the paved trail surrounded by hordes of bright fast-moving scary predators.

There were a group of about 8 bicycle tourists traveling from somewhere over to the group camping at Negro Bar. I'm going to say they were coming up from Davis, since they had sort of a laid-back college-town DIY vibe. I saw one enterprising person who had sewn pieces of bandanna to the back of a shirt for improvised jersey pockets.

I finally dug out my little Kodak Playsport video camera as well as my trusty digital point and shoot. Since I spent more time with the video running than taking stills, I needed to clip scenes with which to decorate this fascinating post.

So that meant I needed to load the video editor on my newish computer, and then remember how to use it. And you, the reader, can't tell, but there was a significant gap between this paragraph and the rest of the post.

I had cleaned up my bike, wiped down and re-lubed the chain, and sorted through my bike bags before I headed off for shoulder surgery.
It took me a while to get back in the groove of what stuff I wanted with me, but I eventually figured it out.
However, there was a lot of standing near the car, pondering, remembering some missing item, going inside to look for it, coming back out, going back in for something else. And it took about 5 minutes of hunting to find the sunscreen. Don't you keep your sunscreen on the kitchen counter?

And I finally have a new helmet, one of the Nutcase ones. In orange, remarkably close to my trike's color, and with FLAMES. Which I suppose ought to make me faster. Or at least odder. And the gray flames match my gray hair.

Does it get any better than this?

No.
No, it does not.

(Today's route was from Sunrise boat launch to William Pond and back)

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.

Happy Solstice!

Ride #85

In celebration of the longest day of the year, we went and rode around in the sun. Well, my friend's father came along and towed two kids in the trailer while she bemoaned her lack of exercise, and a couple more friends showed up on casual bikes.

We went along faster than I expected (avg 10mph) and we all agreed that leaving at 7am instead of 8 would have been JUST FINE.

However, it was a beautiful day, no wind like we had on Sunday, and there were lots of other people getting their workouts in before we hit 100 degs this afternoon.
Yes, summer's here.
The American River is still very high, and as I saw on Sunday, Folsom Lake (which is fed by the north and south forks American River and produces from that meeting the American River) is high also. And there is a lot of snow left to melt up the hill. I think it will be a good water summer.

We saw a couple of turkeys hanging out in the shade. We also heard a rattler. I did not realize what I had heard until a fellow walking along mentioned that he heard the snake do his thing just as we were cycling by.
Yikes! I'm the perfect height for a snake bite (and not my innertube, either).
I told my friend that I hoped the snake tried to strike through the spokes of my front wheel since I figured that would quickly decapitate the poor thing.

I am going to replace the brake pads before the next ride. Which means learning how to take the wheel off. Which I need to learn to do anyway. I'd rather take the wheel off than mess with taking the calipers off, since I'm pretty sure I can get the wheel back on, but no so sure about the calipers.

Happy trails everybody!