My Most Recent Ride 2011 (Part IV of the series)

(this Part IV of the My Most Recent Ride 2011 is getting very large and cumbersome. May be time to begin Part V)

 

18 miles today! 12 of them GORGEOUS! It started off gray and very cold with a stiff wind making the chill factor well below the 46 F everything insisted it was. Loke and I traveled over a new area as my husband dropped me off to the south and east of Uppsala while he went fishing in the Baltic with a friend. By noon the clouds began breaking up fast and by 12:30, not a cloud in the sky and I began stripping off layers.

1 chapel, 2 manors, 3 churches, two runestones AND.... church BELLS! Yep. Bells. The churches had tower gates and in the last one, the stairs leading up were open. Very narrow and steep with high steps. Took me a bit of climbing, but I made up into the belfry top and took a picture of the bells.

I didn't make it to the old church ruin I wanted to reach. Ah well.

I'll try and get it blogged soon, but Wordpress is having a few issues and I can't do much with it atm.

Terii

 

On a wheel-thing lately, especially after visiting Mark at Power On. Been out 7 of last 9 days and 12 rides so far in April. That's nearly half of all trips in 2011 YTD and almost half of 2011 miles YTD. That includes 5 trips with Carson-Newman College as at least a waypoint. Although today (Saturday) was great day to be out (sunny, 80s, mostly light winds) I'm getting quite bored with Hamblen and Jefferson Co. roads. Spending Easter service and lunch w/ inlaws & daughter in Maryville. Taking bike along. As last time, I figure by 3pm they'll all either be napped out or in conversations that don't involve me. The greenway is only a few blocks away. Maybe run up/down it. Haven't yet got to see the new bridge over Alcoa highway.

 

Road with the D.C Rando folk today for the Old Rad 200k-124 Miles. I am glad my bike computer works because the darn GPS only got bits and pieces.

I was the only Recumbent again.

I arrived in Warrenton, VA at 6 am for the 7 am start thinking it was going to rain all day long. The sky didn't spill a drop and turned out to be a beautiful ride. One of my buddies almost hit a Turkey taht ran out into the road and couldn't figure out of it wanted to cross or just stand there.

I am pretty pleased I made the entire ride in 11 hours 10 mins- 10 hours of riding time, 1 hour 10 mins stopped. Better than my 12.5 and 13 times for my last two. I think i ha a 16 mph average the first 70 miles, then thats when the mountains started and i was done.

http://ridewithgps.com/trips/226518

 

Getting ready for BikeVa I took the Dragon out for some big gear hill work. 66 miles with 2600 feet of elevation gain I rode almost the entire ride in my 39 x 11. Only on grades greater than 8% did I have to back down and then only to my 39 x 13.

An interesting footnote. Riding through town I had an old 70's Bronco pull up beside me at a red light. All he windows were down and the four guys inside were all staring sort of blankly at me. I stared back at them and after about 30 seconds the driver simply said "We thought you didn't have any legs!".

The light turned green and they drove away. Pretty Funny.

http://ridewithgps.com/users/30098/routes

 

Had a similar thing happen to me with an older lady in a car. But I think she was sober.

 

ARGH! Something does NOT want me to publish the blog of my last ride! WordPress seemed to freak out and wouldn't allow me to post pictures properly. It turns out it's a browser issue which I can get around using Google Chrome. Don't like it, but at least I won't be twiddling around for a month waiting for them to fix the IE problem.

So, I start working on the photos, getting them cropped and oriented properly before inserting them and now Photoshop keeps crashing. 5 computer reboots for 3 pictures?? Something has it in for this blog post.

I'll win yet. Grrrr...

Terii

 

http://terii.wordpress.com/

Blog posted. Not WordPress nor crashing Photoshop nor hubby harassment could stop it.

Terii

 

Started the ride this morning going from my house to the Starbuck's about 2.5 miles away. I loaded Karen's trike in our pickup truck first and she met me there.

This was our first joint ride out highway 95 from Oak Ridge this year. Karen doesn't like the construction area where there is work underway to widen about three miles of the road, so she drove her trike out to the guard shack in the pickup and I rode out on my two wheeler and we then rode the bike lane on the part of the road that has been widened, about four miles in to the intersection of 95/Turnpike and Illinois Avenue, and back.

It will *really* be nice once they get the section currently under construction widened because then there'll be a bike lane all the way from the Turnpike/Illinois Ave intersection out to where the wide shoulder starts. That will make a very nice ride.

Once we got back to the guard shack, we reloaded the trike and she drove it out past the construction and parked at K-25. I rode through the construction area and rejoined her in the K-25 parking lot and we rode on out to the I-40 interchange. On that ride, we always take a break in Weigel's parking lot. We've had lots of folks ask about our rides while stopped there. This morning it was a young couple. He has what seem to be some pretty serious knee issues such that he can't ride an upright bicycle anymore but he thinks he might be able to do a recumbent, either two wheeler or trike. I told them about Silver Comet Depot in Atlanta, where we got Karen's trike, and Art Hagood in Chattanooga, where we got my bike.

I snapped the attached picture through Weigel's front window. We thought it was pretty good life advice, even if that's not what the manufacturer intended the notice to mean.

On the way back, we encountered Mr. Dennis Jett. He came across the road as we approached and seemed to be waiting for us. As we got close, he held up a keychain with several different items attached and asked if it belonged to us. It didn't and we talked about what he should do with. He finally concluded to turn it in to the Oak Ridge police department. It was encouraging to see someone taking the time and effort to get lost property back to its owner when it would have been easier and more convenient for him to just leave it by the side of the road or keep it for himself without telling anyone.

Back at K-25, we reloaded Karen's trike and she drove on home. I still had about 10 miles to go. I got home with a mileage of 44.32 miles, a new longest ride for this year.

 

I rode again today. 19+ miles. It felt almost like our spring was over already and we jumped right into summer. I kept Loke's ears and front legs wet down. One of the roads turned into more of a trail. Two dirt stripes between grass before it degenerated into damp soil beneath leaves and stray branches.

I bumped and rattle along a 4 mile gravel cycle path which I think might have been on an old rail line since it seemed to cross through the middle of no-where and straight as an arrow and flat.

4 churches, eight or so runestones and past a grave field over grown with trees. Quite a few animals too. A pheasant ****, a snake, and of all things a WEASEL!! It was so cute.

Terii

P.S. And I STILL didn't make it to that church ruin I wanted to take pictures of.

 

wow

 

There was an '=' in Paul's post that may have prevented the link?

 

thank you ed some time it works and then it dont owell lol

 

Was cleaning up my Rex from the wet roads of Saturdays brevet and decided to go for a short slow cruise. Took it easy and just spun around for 10 miles. IN the past when I have done the long rides I didn't even want to get back on the bike for the next week. So this is a good sign i think..lol.

I got back home and saw the lonely MTB sitting there so i jumped on it and took it for a six mile spin. I have not been on a upright in over a 1000 miles, so talk about wobbly at the start. I also felt too high off the ground. After a 6 mile loop I was done riding because my butt hurt. all in all it was 16 miles of easy riding- Didnt even break a sweat.