My Most Recent Ride 2012 (Part V in a series)

Today I rode 34 miles to keep ahead of Ward. What I did was tied Ward. : (What is the chance of that happening??? ) My mileage will start to decrease so Ward wins the race.

But here are some pictures of my ride to Tremont. This is the view where I started.



This is the view at the turn around point.



What a great day to ride. At the end I met two people who wanted to know about about my bent. When I got done talking to them, they said they were going to head down to U Man and look at bents! That made today's ride complete!

 

Jon, they came by the shop and looked and the guy definitely seemed interested. I had several folks come by "window shopping" and making plans for the weekend. So who knows if the rains holds off maybe it'll be a good weekend.

 

I got in 34 miles today. I wanted to ride to work and back to see if i can start commuting. It was a 34 mile round trip. The only bad thing is I dont want to show up hot and sweaty.

I have been putting more miles on the gold rush than the Bachetta. I piddle around on the rush going to the post office and to the store but I haven bothered to log the miles because its only a couple a day.

I gotta get to riding..lol

http://app.strava.com/activities/20367380

 

Labor Day Classic, Sunrise Century Clarksville, TN

I rode the 62 mile route at the Clarksville, TN Sunrise Century yesterday. It was a great ride, the weather was cloudy and windy for most of the ride, but that made for a great day of spinning. I got in before the rain came. After a great post ride shower and spaghetti lunch I got soaked running to the car in a downpour. I met two other recumbent riders, one from Murfreesboro, TN and another from Huntsville, AL and I saw one gal riding a trike. Lots of nice people on this ride, I got many comments from DF riders on how comfortable my bike looked as I was passing them. This is a great ride for recumbents, really flat with just enough nice rollers, the route is well marked, very few cars to deal with, SAG stops had plenty of food and drink and great people tending to the riders. The turnout was great they said close to 1200 riders. If you want to mash out a personal best on a 100, 62, or 30 mile ride, or just experience the beautiful backroads in rural middle Tennessee, mark your callanders for 2013 Laborday weekend and come to the Sunrise Century in Clarksville, TN. I hope to see more recumbents there next year!

John

http://www.clarksvillecentury.com/Home.html

 

I did the 100 mile route but saw only one other bent. But the 62 milers started after we did so I didn't get to meet the others. I'll post more about it later. BTW I didn't get back before the storm hit at mile 85. But it was a warm deluge.

 

First ride in a while. Just as Loke was getting over the worst of his surgery I got sick for more than a week. Throw in murky, chilly wet days and I would have been hard pressed to go out even if I wasn't sick.

I'd planned to go on a 15 mile ride, but then remembered they tore up a critical street for a 3 mile stretch. So, I settled for a an 10-11 mile loop which turned out to be closer to 13 when I thought I'd lost my keys and went back to the apartment parking lot to look for them.

Not a bad ride. Mostly sunny skies, 70 F and occasionally breezy. Creepy guy on a bike followed me for a bit so I was quite glad I had Loke along. Then we also met an elderly woman who had recently suffered a major stroke. 2 of her daughters were walking with her in a wheel chair. The woman was almost completely paralyzed, just slight movement in one arm. Still, she saw us and started making a croaking sound and trying to lift her hand.

I stopped to get out of the trike and unclipped Loke. After asking if it was alright, I approached and Loke did away with his usual standoffishness and went to sat front of the woman with his head lightly on her knee with a wagging tail. The daughters said their mother loved dogs and missed having one of her own.

That's the second time my furball has shown a surprising level of gentle consideration for someone in a wheelchair.

As for the ride, itself, it wasn't a speedy thing. Mostly a get out and move and enjoy a perfect day thing.

Terii

 

Got back from DALMAC last night and spent today recovering. I did the '5-UP' route, which is 5 days and goes from East Lansing to Sault Ste Marie, with a crossing of the Mackinaw Bridge on Sunday (yesterday.) Daily mileages of 73, 87, 65, 93, and 77. With the odd tenths thrown in, it was 396 miles. Weather was cool in the mornings, warm in the afternoons, with liberal SUN and, unfortunately, headwinds most days. A brief synopsis:

Wed 8/29 - The terrain was relatively flat. Tailwinds were the order of the day, making for a fast ride. After a prolonged warm-up, I cruised at 23-25 mph. Negotiating traffic in Alma, to hit Pizza Hut for lunch, brought my average speed down from 20.7 to 20.3 mph for the day.

Thu 8/30 - Starting flat and with rolling hills sneaking up, this day had mostly headwinds. I worked much harder than day 1, and still only averaged 19.6 mph.

Fri 8/31 - Hills started within a few miles of camp, some pretty large by Michigan standards. The route put us on 3 different busy state highways, which was unpleasant. Lunch was in Alden, where the traffic thinned out a bit. I left my speedo in my baggage, and so I didn't record what was probably my high speed for the trip, on the last downhill of the day. Mostly headwinds today, too; but there were enough trees that it didn't hurt too badly.

Sat 9/1 - Hills, hills, and more hills. And headwind most of the way. I did several named hills in the first dozen miles, bypassed two others. Highest official speed of the trip today at 46.6 mph. The last 20 miles were the hardest, coming at the end of a hot day on an almost-century ride; but at least they had a small tailwind. Most of the riders on this route did the short option and skipped the hills on the final 20 miles. Average = 16.7 mph

Sun 9/2 - Today started out COLD and foggy, at 47F. With no place to stash a jacket, I rode in shorts and short sleeves, and suffered until it warmed up. It was flatter today, the highest 'hill' being the 190-foot Bridge. Mostly sidewinds, but a few stretches had a quartering tailwind at 5-10 mph. Due to yesterday, I had no horsepower left; but I used everything I had and a liberal dose of aerodynamics to outrun almost everything on the road. The only two people to beat me to the end were ones that left a half-hour earlier than me. Average = 17.7 mph

 

Wow! that is something...good write up.

 

Got a quick 29 mile ride in today. Rode from the house to the Bicycle Station a local bike shop in Columbus. I picked up a Mirror for the Gold rush becuase i cant stand not having a rear view mirror on any bike. I had a pretty goof average till i hit town and all the stop signs and lights. Ended up with a 16+ average.

http://app.strava.com/rides/20946966

 

Another ride today. Meant for it to be over 15 miles. In spite of the gorgeous day (on the nippy side, breezy but clear), my enthusiasm for the outing evaporated. I ended up doing just a short 7 mile loop.

Terii

 

Sunny warm day. Took Red (my Strada) out to Cherokee Blvd. to do my loops. (It rained last night so the green ways would still be wet.)

I promised myself I would just ride my ride to get some exercise and not chase any silly wabbits. I was cruising along and passed a fauxbit (old guy on a bike out for a slow ride so he wasn't a real wabbit!! So I call him a fauxbit.) so I didn't count him.

This loop works well. Each loop is 3.34 miles so if I make 3 loops it is 10 miles. My goal has been to do 20 miles at a time which is 6 loops. Well I did my 20 miles and decided to do one more to cool down and relax.

So I went on my last lap just barely tapping my peddles. Just before I turned, there were two weal skinny and muscular wabbits in spiffy outfits on fancy bikes. Hmmm. I still had to climb a hill then turn around if I was going to catch them. Then on top of that a big KUB (Knoxville Utility Board) truck blocks my turn and I had to follow it down the hill. No way of getting around this behemoth!!! OK that settles it, I am NOT going after those wabbits. The bent god has sent a truck to block my way. I bow to the bent deity.

Resigned to continue my easy pace, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a speedy wed wabbit, dropped down on aerobars, licking his chops, pounding his peddles just waiting to make me recumbent toast!!!

I had full intent just to enjoy the ride and the day but THAT DOES IT!!! I am NOT going to become a recumbent sandwich!!!! So I dropped a gear and brought up my cadence. I quickly started shift up until I was on my medium chainring and smallest gear going 23 MPH. At that speed I was drafting the big KUB truck which allowed me to go into my BIG chainring. Speed kicked up to 26 MPH.

I looked behind me and the wed speedy wabbit started disappearing into the horizon. Good. One down. Then the truck pulled to the left and passed the two speedy wabbits. They were surprised when they saw me right behind the truck and passed them like they were going still. They couldn't see me behind the truck, so they didn't have time to react. I toasted them!

Got to the end and turned around. The two speedy wabbits were about 30 seconds behind me and the wed speedy wabbit ended up 50 seconds behind me. All this happened within 1 1/2 miles. So I didn't do this without some help. (Drafting the truck but since the truck was in my way to start with I will count them anyway.)

So I will try to be good in the future, but this was just tooooo tempting.

24.5 miles

 

A good account, Jon. I have two riddles:

Why do Bulldogs have flat noses?
Answer: They were born that way.

Why do cyclists have flat noses?
Answer: From drafting stopped KUB trucks.

 

Sage advice!!!

 

Test Ride

I've been building a new seat.
Why?
Because my homebuilt bike will soak up too much money for me to get roadworthy,
so I've been building a new seat for my Sofrider instead.

The seat that I originally built for my Sofrider, is reclined at
about 33 degrees.
It's supremely comfortable, very strong, lighter than the stock seat and
-unlike the stock seat- completely sweat proof.

The seat I'm building, instead of fitting-out my home made recumbent hotrod,
is even lighter, stronger, just as sweat-proof and is reclined at about
18 degrees.
This is the seat that I have just test-ridden.
It has no padding, save for a token scrap of foam taped onto the head
rest.
No water bottle, pump or bag mounting points.
Just the seat pan.

(My Sofrider is now a convertible, with either a Grand Touring seat or a racing seat. The exchange takes seconds.)

The results of this morning's test ride:

My bike accelerates downhill much quicker;
it is much more responsive -twitchy- with the lower center of gravity;
it accelerates quicker on the flat;
it tops out quicker;
it's as fast uphill as it ever was.

On the local flat road, I pedaled my way to a new top speed record.
28 miles per hour.

My first test ride was also pretty short, with no water, tools or a pump.
Only 13.8 miles.
Still, my average speed was a respectable 16.8 mph.

Now, I know where to put some padding.



Pictures next month!

 

Quite nippy today, but had pretty weather again. Mostly sunny with just a few fluffy clouds running across the sky on the back of brisk winds. Probably about 65 F. Did a quick 7.25 mile loop.

Terii