My Most Recent Ride 2015 (Part VIII in a series)

Day 3 Greene County Cycling Classic.

Had several rides lengths today. My legs were sore from yesterday so I opted for the 34 mile ride mainly because the other rides got out on roads and I wanted to keep this a 100% Rails-To-Trails ride. Finished up at 11:00.

Three great days of riding. 100% asphalt rails-to-trails. No rain. Hot but I got done before mid afternoon each day so I avoided the heat.

Anyone looking for a great ride should put this event on their list. Total 130 miles in 3 days with a metric century thrown in. Not a bad ride schedule!

 

Here are a bunch of pictures I took of the Greene County Cycling Classic.

 

Nice pics...how many riders total?

 

I would guess around 200.

 

Wow, that is a good turn out. Was the temps pretty good or was it muggy...humid..hot?

 

Mornings around 70s but got into the 90s and very humid. Rained every night.

 

Loooooongggggg week, but fun!

We did the long drive down south on Saturday. Was a little worried about the winds down there as they were crazy. The kind that shoves you around. The direction was iffy for riding the ways I needed to go.

Saturday was brutal as I got underway around 9 am after saying bye to hubby and husky. Thankfully, the wind was pretty quiet and what blowing there was, came at my back.

There were hills that just killed my knees as I climbed the most since getting my Garmin 1000. Almost chickened out a few times, especially when one hill was so bad I had to push the trike up for over a quarter mile. Felt crazy hard to pedal up any slope. The mechanic had said my old cassette was an 11-34 like the new one, but I wonder if he was wrong. Or it might have been the extra weight I was carrying, but dragging 15 LBS of fruit in a 14 lb trailer up hills was easier than 2 changes of clothes, toothpaste, shoes for walking, hairbrush, etc...

I staggered into the first overnight place. A little vineyard consisting of buildings from the 1600's. My room was in 'attic' of one with a little dormer window peeking out of a thatched roof. My trike was securely stored in the place's wine cellar and dinner that night was a pork fillets with fried potatoes and fried sweet potatoes. To DIE for.

The next day, my legs felt surprisingly well. The start was quite rough though. It was another day of over 600 of climbing and 50% of it was in the first 2 miles. That about wrecked me, I'll admit. One hill I chewed my way up, I came screaming down the other side. The road was wet from recent rain and the morning SUN making a glare on the road. At 27 mph, a speed bump suddenly appeared out of the wet reflection from the pavement. The trike went airborne for over 5 feet and landed roughly, but kept rolling as if nothing happened.

Things flattened out nicely after coming down from the area of the vineyard and the rest of the way to the next town, Ängelholm went smoothly. I arrived around 2 pm. The staff in the new place were so very nice and the trike was parked in the hotel's parking garage which had to be opened by one of the staff for coming and going. Nice and secure. I had a 'bleah' meal at one of the local places and went to see 'Minions' in Swedish before spending the rest of the evening reading a book.

I also researched the next ride and felt a pang of dread. The MapMyRide said it would be a climb of about 1000 feet. 80% of it was going to be between mile 20 and 23. There's a huge ridge which runs kinda east-west through the southern part of Sweden. I talked to locals and they all winced when I mentioned it. With the amount of climbing in such a short distance at those grades, I knew my knees would explode.

I was about to call if off, but a fellow trike rider I know on Facebook encouraged me to take a train to the next town. Told me exactly how easy it was and not expensive. I decided to try it as I cancelling the next hotel still would have meant paying for the night regardless.

The train turned out to be quite easy and I treated the rest of the day as a rest day. The next two days were going to be easy, fairly flat rides.

I made the rest of the rides just fine, arriving in plenty of time at my hotel rooms to rest up for the next day. Wednesday's ride was even the longest ride since my stroke, ending at 29.75 miles.

Today's ride was leisurely. I went off my mapped route for a while, following the 'Prince Bertil's Path' which wound along the coast line of a small peninsula. Sandy in some places, but solid enough I didn't have to push. I didn't really have any problems until the last half mile of it or so where I had to push the trike up some scree slopes as the surf crashed below.

The reason I went off the mapped route was because it was soooo BORING. The first two days, there was pretty countryside with old farm houses and cottages from the 1500's - 1600's scattered all around as well as glimpses of the sea not far.

On the other side of the Båstad, it was all busy roads, modern houses, gas stations. The day before, i went off the mapped path again to follow a road closer to the coast. It was much nicer with almost no cars and few people. I could hear the ocean and see it. Much better than 3 foot of 'cycle path' stuck onto a busy roadway shoulder-style. 3 feet for bikes and people going in _both_ directions. Always left me feeling obligated to swerve into traffic, sometimes on coming. :

So, today's detour was for the same reason of boring though the paths were all well away from the road, wider and quite secure. But it was just miles and miles of busy road, gas stations, grocery stores, industry, houses. It's like they put the tourist route through the blandest, most tedious stretch of road possible. The coastal path was rough and much slower, but pretty scenery and so much more interesting.

I rode until Jens called to say he was about an hour out and then found a place to wait with parking enough to load the trike easily.

It was a fun adventure and pushed outside my comfort zone quite a few times. I've been amazed at how well I did. This is the longest tour I've done by far even if it was a 'credit card' tour. Now I need to get caught up on blogging.

Terii

 

Short Morning Rides

Before the heat of the day pushes past 85F. or so, I've been out pedaling
the new Vendetta V1.5.
Practicing pedaling round circles, bike handling drills, adjusting bearings, derailleurs, brakes and on and on, over and over, as I fit into the rhythm of the bike.

It's a wee bit faster than my Sofrider... has a more solid transmission and, of course, is much prettier.

The new bike:

My old faithful, heavily modified Sofrider V1 pretty much lives on the trainer now.

What the V does now, with me just practicing:
20mph on flat roads.
Climbs uphill in taller/harder gears, compared to my Sofrider and,
when flying by slower riders, I don't have to fake not breathing hard... as much.

It's a nice bike.

-Steve

 

WOW

All these rides really impress me. I have had my Villager Cat trike for about a year and a half. I love it. The longest ride I have done is 16 miles. I live in a retirement community about 35 miles south of Tucson. Tucson has a biking loop that will soon go completely around the city. The temps here have been over 100 F. quite often, so I try to get up and out before sun up to avoid melting. Thanks for the interesting tales. Linda

 

Broke 800 miles this year which is amazing considering I really didn't even start riding until MAY!!!

 

Nice Workout

Before lunch, before the heat punched above 80F and before the afternoon
thunderstorm show.

Eighteen miles in a little over an hour... and it started out as a short test ride to the end of the street and back.
No water, of course.

 

Awesome, Jon! Go and go and go!

I'm running way behind on my blog posts. Just put one up covering the ride around July 11th.

https://terii.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/end-of-an-era/

Now to start work on the ones for my credit card tour!

Terii

 

It's been a fairly quite year for me so far for cycling, but about a month ago I took my Bachetta Giro for a short weekend camping tour. I had around 44 lbs on the back of the bike, and I wasn't very happy with the handling, you could lift the front of the bike with your finger. Going up steep hills was no fun at all.


Anyway after a bit of research I bought a TerraCycle Easy Reacher underseat rack. Today I loaded the bike up with all the gear, and took it for a 15 mile test ride. Not only does it look much better, but it handles like a dream. I haven't tried any steep hills, but sure it will be better.



All I have to do now is work out where to go !

Adrian

 

There's a lot more than 44 lbs. on the back of the bike, even with your underseat rack. Be very careful that you don't overload the rear wheel or even the entire bike. Ask Buddy what happens when you carry a week's worth of gear on the back instead of in a separate trailer...

 

I reckon I'll be OK - Think the bike is rated to 250 lbs for rider and gear. I'm well under that by a big margin - having said that no doubt my next post will be of me standing next to a big with broken spokes !