Very Windy Nasty Cold Day Tracking via APRS and Ham Radio
This morning we had been asked to help clean our Edgewood Chapel;
So, we had the bright idea to ride the trike over there since we'd just done it a few days ago. Bad Idea, at least with the minimal cold weather gear we took with us today.
The weather forecast had called for possible showers, and we awoke to sunny skies and gusting wind. We figured the weather would warm up as the sun rose higher in the sky so we saddled up and rode East.
The wind was brisk and cold but as we climbed hills headed toward Edgewood, I warmed up and had to stop to take off my windbreaker jacket. I was wearing a long sleeve denim shirt and an undershirt beneath that and stayed fairly comfortable until we had to stop to re-install the rear wheel. The trike has a quick-release spindle on the rear wheel, and I like these type spindles, since they make it really easy to pop a wheel off for fixing a flat or other maintenance. This is not so appealing when it comes LOOSE by itself after a few dozen miles, and it has happened to us at least 3 times since we got the trike. Being stopped while working on the trike with the wind howling through my armpits chilled me through and through. As we resumed the ride to Edgewood Jacque noticed my right front tire was starting to sag. I aired it up with a jolt of CO2 and we made it to the Church building. Jacque had complained of the cold all the way through, in spite of having more layers on than I had. It took her a while to thaw out inside the Church. We had arrived at least an hour late and the other volunteers had obviously already been there and done a fabulous job of cleaning the building... not a speck of dust or trash was anywhere to be found. So we just took a break and waited to warm up a bit before riding home. When we exited the building and mounted the trike, the #@@@%&?## right front tire was almost flat again. Jacque lugged over a large rock to use for a jack-stand to elevate the wheel off the ground and I broke the tire bead and removed the tube, looking for a spike and a hole. This was a new tube installed less than a week ago, with a recent patch on it from a flat just a few DAYS ago. I couldn't find the leak, nor was I able to find any sharp pointy objects in the tire itself. The last couple of Presta tubes I've dealt with on the trike had air valves that canNOT be removed from the tube. Which makes it nigh unto impossible to inject any flat-preventive slime into them. This tube was one of those, so I finally gave up on it and installed the Green Slime tube I'd recently purchased from Wal-Mart "Just in Case".
Used up another $2 worth of CO2 cartridge to inflate it. The wind was STILL very cold and howling and I was chilled throughout, like TOTALLY.
Jacque had been instructed to remain in the building out of the wind while I repaired the tire but she was still cold and reluctant to ride again. I talked her into riding up to Wal-Mart, only a little over a mile away, to take another break, get a bite to eat, and maybe purchase some cheap outerwear layers to get us better sheltered from the mind and body-numbing wind.
The cold wind was blowing right into the entries of the Wal-Mart facility and since we had Tinkerbell the Wonder Dog with us, we could not take her inside.
So I waited outside with Tink, both of us shivering in the howling wind and bright sunshine, while Jacque bought some pullover layers to wear. Tink and I migrated into the shopping cart area to get out of the wind a bit, but it was still bitterly cold in there, and we continued to shiver. Jacque traded places with me while I went inside and bought a chicken sandwich from McDonald's inside Wal-Mart. By the time I got my sandwich and returned Jacque had talked the shopping-cart man into allowing her and Tink to sit inside the actual store next to the game arcade room which was empty, and due to constant customers coming through the door, was STILL numbingly cold. Jacque borrowed a couple bites of my sandwich and decided SHE needed sustenance too, and by the time she got back my enthusiasm for riding the trike back home was BLOWN AWAY. We called several friends, none of whom were home, it being Saturday, but we caught our dear friend Mary at home and she smilingly came to our rescue and gave us a ride back to our parked SUV, after which we drove over to Wally World and loaded the trike on the roof rack and brought it home.
We got back shortly after lunch but were amazed at how whacked out we were. After hot showers and building a fire in the wood stove we finally regained some sense of normality and, later in the evening, decided to go see the movie ARGO. It's not blindingly accurate in the details but still is a gripping edge-of-the-seat flick. Go see it. Hug the next Canadian you meet.
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 14.19
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
5.4 MPH 8.5 MPH 29.7 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
2 hours 36 mins 1 hour 39 mins 56 minutes 58 seconds
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