#235 / #120
Red Leader and I did our usual ride on the American River trail (this time together - I took the weekend off of bicycling since my foot was sore).
Many people out enjoying the horrible dry, warm weather (we need RAIN, otherwise I wouldn't object to such nice weather).
Some of what we saw: wide dude on a very short bike, knees up around his ears, serenely cruising along. Recumbent bike, overwhelming impression of Yellow. Usual dude on his high racer passing us like we were not going 15mph, but rather standing still. Buzz - blue-black-black-orange-black-red-green-black - buzz: pack of fast racers.
I had a close call with an oncoming bicyclist. I was hugging the right edge of the pavement, my right wheel about an inch from the dirt. Small drop off, so if I bobbled I'd roll. Oncoming bike - I think he was passing someone? Or just swerving, going pretty fast, passing 4 inches from my left front wheel, our combined speeds leaving me just enough time to transfer my gaze back to my right wheel, concentrating on keeping it off the dirt, while hunching my left shoulder in anticipation of a collision which did not come. Whew. I think I let out one loud contralto squeak.
CU
25 February 2014
19 February 2014
Blow, thou Winter Wind
#234 / #118
Finally back on the bikes (travel, work, torrential rain (yay!) all conspired to keep us off our bikes.
Gusts to 27mph this afternoon. But nice and sunny and in the mid 60s. The trailside is starting to green up thanks to the ride-preventing torrential downpours. The wind slowed me down so much (and I didn't have my trusty goo with me for quick fuel), that I watched Red Leader pull steadily away from me on our return leg from our Sunrise/Watt/Sunrise ride.
Oh well, I was just so happy to be back on the bike I didn't really mind.
Hopefully another ride Friday or Saturday!
CU
Finally back on the bikes (travel, work, torrential rain (yay!) all conspired to keep us off our bikes.
Gusts to 27mph this afternoon. But nice and sunny and in the mid 60s. The trailside is starting to green up thanks to the ride-preventing torrential downpours. The wind slowed me down so much (and I didn't have my trusty goo with me for quick fuel), that I watched Red Leader pull steadily away from me on our return leg from our Sunrise/Watt/Sunrise ride.
Oh well, I was just so happy to be back on the bike I didn't really mind.
Hopefully another ride Friday or Saturday!
CU
09 February 2014
Chillin'
#233 / #117
Wednesday, Feb 5th
This is about our ride on Wednesday. I forgot to write about it until now. oops. We went up and down the American River trail again, as usual. It was pretty cold. I didn't take off my full-fingered gloves until our turn around at Wm Pond.
Neither Red Leader nor I were moving too fast - 1mph average slower than our usual. The cold, maybe?
We enjoyed it anyway, even though the sun was not out. It seemed only the hardiest of riders were out; we saw one triking couple, with her scarf wrapped all the way up to her eyeballs!
Rained all weekend (8th adn 9th). I went to the gym today (Sunday) for a 40 minutes recumbent exercise bicycle ride. It was weird. The cranks are long and the angle is different. But at least I got sweaty! I used a 'rolling hill' workout. Baby hills in my opinion. I couldn't pedal faster than 90 rpm as the machine got to rocking quite a bit at that speed. I'll probably use it again when I can't get out on a real bike.
Wednesday, Feb 5th
This is about our ride on Wednesday. I forgot to write about it until now. oops. We went up and down the American River trail again, as usual. It was pretty cold. I didn't take off my full-fingered gloves until our turn around at Wm Pond.
Neither Red Leader nor I were moving too fast - 1mph average slower than our usual. The cold, maybe?
We enjoyed it anyway, even though the sun was not out. It seemed only the hardiest of riders were out; we saw one triking couple, with her scarf wrapped all the way up to her eyeballs!
Rained all weekend (8th adn 9th). I went to the gym today (Sunday) for a 40 minutes recumbent exercise bicycle ride. It was weird. The cranks are long and the angle is different. But at least I got sweaty! I used a 'rolling hill' workout. Baby hills in my opinion. I couldn't pedal faster than 90 rpm as the machine got to rocking quite a bit at that speed. I'll probably use it again when I can't get out on a real bike.
01 February 2014
Bike-cream Social
#322 / #116
American River trail today, as usual. The 1st Saturday Recumbent Ride caught us just after we set out, so we stopped and chatted with them for some minutes. It was good to catch up with them.
We continued our socializing with a lovely family out for a bike ride from Hazel to Discovery Park. The littlest girl needed an assisting push up the hills but both girls seemed to have a lot of fun. We first met them when they stopped at William Pond park, then waved and rang our bell madly when we saw them again on our way back. They peppered us with questions about our trikes, which we were glad to answer. The girls inspected our shoes, our cleats, our pedals, our lights, our helmets, our reflectors, our bags - the oldest even noticed and inquired about the built in zippered pocket on the Velotechnik's mesh seat. I handed out one of Alphabent's cards.
We turned around again at Howe - there's a nice relativly unused portajohn there and if we stop there for our bio-breaks, we can make a non-stop ride back to the car. Red Leader was pleased to get a few more personal records on some Strava segments, and I finally got two new PRs on the Enchanted Forest, in both directions. We were trying to keep up with the 1st Saturday ride on the way out, and Red Leader was on fire on the way back.
A good day for a ride (is there a bad one?)
CU
American River trail today, as usual. The 1st Saturday Recumbent Ride caught us just after we set out, so we stopped and chatted with them for some minutes. It was good to catch up with them.
We continued our socializing with a lovely family out for a bike ride from Hazel to Discovery Park. The littlest girl needed an assisting push up the hills but both girls seemed to have a lot of fun. We first met them when they stopped at William Pond park, then waved and rang our bell madly when we saw them again on our way back. They peppered us with questions about our trikes, which we were glad to answer. The girls inspected our shoes, our cleats, our pedals, our lights, our helmets, our reflectors, our bags - the oldest even noticed and inquired about the built in zippered pocket on the Velotechnik's mesh seat. I handed out one of Alphabent's cards.
We turned around again at Howe - there's a nice relativly unused portajohn there and if we stop there for our bio-breaks, we can make a non-stop ride back to the car. Red Leader was pleased to get a few more personal records on some Strava segments, and I finally got two new PRs on the Enchanted Forest, in both directions. We were trying to keep up with the 1st Saturday ride on the way out, and Red Leader was on fire on the way back.
A good day for a ride (is there a bad one?)
CU
26 January 2014
Crank-a-dellic
#321 /#115
I started our 30 mile ride in a terrible humor, and got to mile 25 still cranky. So I slowed way down, kicked back and noodled along, admiring the countryside and the other cyclists and the kids and the parents and the squirrel who thought he'd play chicken with me.
And by mile 30, my mood was much improved!
'nuf said.
I started our 30 mile ride in a terrible humor, and got to mile 25 still cranky. So I slowed way down, kicked back and noodled along, admiring the countryside and the other cyclists and the kids and the parents and the squirrel who thought he'd play chicken with me.
And by mile 30, my mood was much improved!
'nuf said.
22 January 2014
Grin or Grimace?
#320 / #114
We rolled this afternoon from Sunrise to Howe on the American River Trail (and back), for about 22 miles of delightfully unseasonal weather. Coming back, we had the sun behind us and I found some amusement in the grimacing faces of oncoming traffic, squinting against the sun.
We saw some regular recumbents folks, a grey velo and the gray haired FAST dude on a recumbent with a fairing, and a handful of other recumbent bikes, but no other trikes. Many packs of joggers out, not much wildlife that I could see.
I took along a bit of homemade gu and didn't run out of energy this time. Yay.
13.2 mph average, 22.6 miles, a paltry 68 feet of elevation.
We rolled this afternoon from Sunrise to Howe on the American River Trail (and back), for about 22 miles of delightfully unseasonal weather. Coming back, we had the sun behind us and I found some amusement in the grimacing faces of oncoming traffic, squinting against the sun.
We saw some regular recumbents folks, a grey velo and the gray haired FAST dude on a recumbent with a fairing, and a handful of other recumbent bikes, but no other trikes. Many packs of joggers out, not much wildlife that I could see.
I took along a bit of homemade gu and didn't run out of energy this time. Yay.
13.2 mph average, 22.6 miles, a paltry 68 feet of elevation.
19 January 2014
A tube is not a chain and other stories
#319 / #113
I owe you a post (rides #s 318 and 112) so I'll just say we rode from Sunrise to Watt and back on Wednesday.
Today (Sunday, and a beautiful sunny day it was) we planned to go from Sunrise to I-80 and back - 30 miles. Red Leader had that awful creaking noise return, so I started randomly trying to diagnose it while rolling merrily along. I'd drift up beside him when traffic on the American River Trail allowed, and bellow a suggestion. He'd try it and then we'd repeat.
I had noticed that the creak was louder when his left leg was at full extension, and also that his torso bobs around quite a bit when turning the cranks. So I asked him push harder with his right and that evened the creak out in regards to left/right.
Then I asked him to coast and shift his weight around like he was pedaling and ta-da! Creaking.
We stopped at William Pond and he started checking his trike from back to front and decided that the rear wheel's quick release could be tighter. So he tightened it a little bit. He sat in the trike and bobbed around and it did not creak as much.
Ok, that's good.
Somewhere between Wm Pond and Watt, Red Leader pulled over announcing that his chain had disappeared. WTF!?
Turned out that the upper front chain tube had come unmoored and crept up the chain and tried to insert itself through the front derailler. That kind of worked, but the tube is not a chain so did not travel along the cogs well, instead diving off to the left and trying to wrap the tube and chain around the left crank.
I need to add zipties to my pile-o-stuff (there used to be zip ties in there, honest!) Red Leader figured out what was going on, got the chain tube to go back through the webbing/zip tie tether without taking anything apart, and reinforced the end of his battered chain tube with some Gorilla tape. Which I did have in the pile-o-stuff.
We went on to Watt and decided to turn around since all the diagnosis and repair had eaten up some of our bike time.
I'll be getting some new tubes on both trikes, as I've been putting off that job for my trike and I had no idea Red Leader's tubes were so chewed up and split.
I owe you a post (rides #s 318 and 112) so I'll just say we rode from Sunrise to Watt and back on Wednesday.
Today (Sunday, and a beautiful sunny day it was) we planned to go from Sunrise to I-80 and back - 30 miles. Red Leader had that awful creaking noise return, so I started randomly trying to diagnose it while rolling merrily along. I'd drift up beside him when traffic on the American River Trail allowed, and bellow a suggestion. He'd try it and then we'd repeat.
I had noticed that the creak was louder when his left leg was at full extension, and also that his torso bobs around quite a bit when turning the cranks. So I asked him push harder with his right and that evened the creak out in regards to left/right.
Then I asked him to coast and shift his weight around like he was pedaling and ta-da! Creaking.
We stopped at William Pond and he started checking his trike from back to front and decided that the rear wheel's quick release could be tighter. So he tightened it a little bit. He sat in the trike and bobbed around and it did not creak as much.
Ok, that's good.
Somewhere between Wm Pond and Watt, Red Leader pulled over announcing that his chain had disappeared. WTF!?
Turned out that the upper front chain tube had come unmoored and crept up the chain and tried to insert itself through the front derailler. That kind of worked, but the tube is not a chain so did not travel along the cogs well, instead diving off to the left and trying to wrap the tube and chain around the left crank.
I need to add zipties to my pile-o-stuff (there used to be zip ties in there, honest!) Red Leader figured out what was going on, got the chain tube to go back through the webbing/zip tie tether without taking anything apart, and reinforced the end of his battered chain tube with some Gorilla tape. Which I did have in the pile-o-stuff.
We went on to Watt and decided to turn around since all the diagnosis and repair had eaten up some of our bike time.
I'll be getting some new tubes on both trikes, as I've been putting off that job for my trike and I had no idea Red Leader's tubes were so chewed up and split.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)