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

UGH! What a 2 days!!!

Was stressful to pick up the trike yesterday.

Today was fighting with the various accessories. The handlebar bag bar and the handlebar bag clip, the mudguards, neck rest, luggage rack. Loke's running bar was a HUGE nightmare to swap from Trice to Sprint. Took me over an hour, but I managed it. My back is bugging me and my right knee has gone out on me twice with enough pain to make my Vision gray, but everything is together!

Somehow, in spite of the back and the knee, I managed to wrestle the trike out.

It's 51 F out with traces of SUN here and there amongst the gray. I went out for a river loop just to try my new ride.

A couple things I will say on here that I won't mention on my blog since I don't want my husband to see it. He'll just get upset.

I actually have less room between the handlebars of the Sprint than I do the Trice. That strikes me as extremely odd as the Trice QNT is 2 inches narrower than most trikes. I think I didn't notice the lack of space when I tried it in Falmouth because that trike had bar end shifters instead of twist grip which left a nice straight handlebar all the way to the top. So, on that one, I probably had the same amount of space between the bars as the Trice. Add in the same chunky twist grip shifters though and suddenly, it's a tight fit.

That lack of space made pedaling annoying. I'm quite hippy and the movement of my pedaling actually moved the grips meaning not only did I have a tiny amount of swerving as the handles got shoved around, but at times, the gears changed to.

Talk about motivation to slim down!

The gearing has turned out much lower than I anticipated. I think that was hard to tell with the Sprint in Falmouth because of the hills. Here, in my part of much less-hilly Sweden, it was very noticeable. Most of the time on the Trice I used the little ring when climbing hills and the rest of the time on the 2nd ring. When riding with Loke, I never really used the big ring. The big ring was for my trainer or the rare times I went without Loke and had a long flat or downslope with a tailwind.

With the Sprint, the middle ring is the new 'small' and the big ring is the new 'middle'. It will definitely mean easier climbing the really steep hills with camping gear. I'm going to have to give it some time to see if it's going to drive me completely nuts though.

Going to go work on a blog post now where there will be pictures of the trike though I didn't take any when I was out. So, ya'll will get to see a nekkid trike. No bells or whistles. Just wheels, gears, seat and pretty blue body.

Terii

 

Post done with photos of the trike as I picked it up from the shop!

Terii

 

My First Summer ride of 2013.

What a beautiful summer day. Sunny 70 degrees. Not a cloud in the skies.

Went on a 15 mile ride around East Knoxville today. Really beautiful day.

Oh wait, this is November. Well it FELT like summer! Hope others are out enjoying this fine weather we are having!

 

+65 deg clear weather should stick around thru Friday. Plan to ride to Bean Station tomorrow on some back roads. Take some pics of the +2000 acre fire on the mountain that's been burning for nearly a week. Then on to Mom's & family dinner. Probably around 40 miles. Will be too stuffed & too dark to ride the 20 miles home so will shuttle bike on car when wife drives over for dinner.

Enjoy weather, Jon. It'll be 20 deg colder by Saturday.

 

I've been trying to make the most of the fine weather Jon. Rich and I have ridden 92 miles over the last 3 days! Thought we better take advantage of the warm spell while we could.

 

Thanksgiving Day

It was a special day, because traffic was both light and respectful;
because the bicyclists on the road were grinning and
because the weather was perfect.



On the fastest section of the fast road, I think I pedaled
faster than ever.
I saw my speedometer tick up to 29.7 miles per hour
-for just a pedal-stroke or maybe two.
Can 30mph be within my grasp...?!


Today, my lower back muscles are screaming at me.
That's how hard I tried to make that speedometer
display go up to 30.


Happy leftover day, everyone!

 

I had my first cold ride, below freezing. It was just a one-mile dinner pickup, so my weather response was ride faster. Next time I might wear a better coat and shoes instead of sandals.

 

Went for a ride today! Only the 2nd one on the new Sprint.

Jens is in Paris and Loke really needed an outing better than my 'Oooh, my back hurts!' hobble up and down the street.

The back felt mostly okay this morning, so I took everything out in careful stages. I also made certain to bring my wallet since I had a package waiting at one of the shops just down the street.

36 F and gray, at least it wasn't raining or windy. Instead of the plain ol' River Loop, I decided to give the Sprint a bit more of a run too. I headed off toward the mosque and then away toward the burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala. With all the rain, I wanted to see how it would handle some of the steeper (if small) hills with boggy mud/gravel mix.

It did just fine! I still had a few moments in the muddier spots where I thought I'd have to get up and drag it because of lack of traction in the muck, but my derailleur was high and dry!

Still loving the seat, the disc brakes, parking brake. The smaller gearing also felt more comfortable this time. I came to the conclusion that the pedaling feels smoother too. I'm not sure why that's so. Maybe it's the fact the cranks are a whole 3 mm shorter?

It was a good outing and netted us another 9.78 miles toward our year's total! We'll probably get more distance tomorrow as well. Better for me and Loke both than walking and Jens is in Paris until Thursday.

As for the package? It's a handlebar mount for my GoPro camera. One of the accessories I added to the Sprint was a front light mount which bolts on to the derailleur bar of the pedal boom. It will have plenty of space for both light AND camera. The wide angle view may still get my feet coming and going, but it's better than me in frame from mid-chest down. So, maybe tomorrow I'll have video to share!

Terii

 

It is much better for your knees if you spin faster instead of pumping the pedals. Lower gears will help you with that. So "spin baby spin" and enjoy the day.

I always have a smaller front chain ring installed and a bigger gear on the back put on. I want all the mechanical advantage I can get going up these East Tennessee hills!

I hope to get out today and work off some of the Thanksgiving seconds I had!!

 

I spin as fast as I dare, but I have limits on both speed and force when it comes to knee flex. That's why I creep along with a 9 mph average even when I don't have Loke with me.

We're having our Thanksgiving dinner this coming Saturday. Jens has embraced it and his family has joined in enthusiastically. So I'll be working off the Thanksgiving dinner all next week too.

Terii

 

Well I already have my Thanksgiving jelly roll around my belly so I went riding today to work some of it off.

Another unbelievable day. Mostly sunny. Started out at 49 degrees but in 1 1/2 hours was hovering around 61 degrees. Sun came out and it warmed up fast.

Beautiful weather. Rode 20.2 miles today. Couldn't have a better way to spend my lunch time today! (But I know it won't last for long!)

 

I'm having weather envy now. We might be above freezing, but the constant gray and frequent drizzle is beginning to depress me more than short days.

Terii

 

7.9-ish miles today. Yesterday, Loke was very patient with just the short walkies I can do, but this morning he was a butt. Letting me know in no uncertain terms that he needed more than a quarter to 1/3 mile hobble 4 times a day since Jens with his 1 hour daily walks is in Paris.

While getting ready, I grumbled about the 52+ hours of continuous rain we've had. Light rain, but rain all the same. Even in my heavy wool, I was not looking forward to that in 33 F temps.

Something was listening to my sulky wishes for snow. As the seat went out, it was raining. As I carried the trike body out, the first flakes of snow fell and by the time Loke and I went out, it was just snow.

So, Loke got his river loop. A fairly standard one. I also tried out the new mounting for the GoPro. I'll see how it came out in a bit. I figure it has to be better than the side to side bob of the helmet mount. At least it shouldn't make people sea sick.

Terii

 

Another ride today. Gray out and still precipitating, but now it's SNOW! We've gotten a 2 or three inches of it so far. It's GORGEOUS!

It sent me out in search of a studded 26" tire.

Now I want to cry. It was a huge pain in the rump to put it on and it looks like in the course of wrestling with it, I jostled something with the gears. They're misbehaving now.

The ride started out fine. I thought I noticed a bit of sloppiness when I shifted a few times. Still the first 2 miles were glorious. With just the rear studded, the trike felt a little squirrelly, but I bet my Trice would have been the same way with the way Loke was pulling.

That part of it felt incredible. Snow and slush! Bring it on! I powered through it like through damp sand, but it felt incredible not worrying about the derailleur getting banged around!

The wanting to cry didn't start until the last mile or so when the gears finally got bad enough I had to keep searching for something that would grab.

*sigh* I don't know what to do. Am I really so incompetent that I can't even remove and remount my rear tire without fouling something up??

I guess if I can hold out for another week, Jens will be in Las Vegas and he won't need to know about this. Or maybe I should just fess up that I am not to be trusted with the back end of my trikes.

Oh, and another downer? I thought my GoPro's battery was good for 2 hours of record before needed a recharge. I had planned to ride the same route as yesterday, but with the snow except the camera died on me in the first few minutes.

This just wasn't my day, was it?

Terii

 

But you got out to ride and that is more than I did yesterday!!!

Beautiful weather but too much to do at work! YUK!!!