Today's APRS/GPS/Ham Radio Tracking
Our oldest son, John, came over yesterday (Sunday) and stayed the night with us. Today we decided to do a tandem-trike ride to Edgewood and back and invited John to ride Jacque's single-seat Catrike along with us. He agreed and we finally got all saddled up and on our way about 11:00 AM or shortly after.
He seemed to be running low on energy about 6 miles into the ride and Jacque invited him to switch rides with her: She would ride her own trike for a while and John could ride back seat and stoke for me on the tandem. We soon learned both found it easier to ride on the tandem instead of single self-propulsion. Very interesting.
We had an uneventful ride over to the Edgewood Wal-Mart. Since doggies are not allowed to come inside for shopping with us, Tinkerbell remained in her basket perch atop the back of Jacque's trike-seat, strapped in so she couldn't jump off and wander around. She's such an attractive little doggie that I always worry about leaving her alone for any time at all.... I worry someone might dog-nap her. After leaving her alone for 15 minutes or so I went outside to check up on her. She was safe and sound, but as I walked the 50 yards or so from the store door to her, I saw a car approach her slowly and roll its window down. I sped up my pace to forestall any ulterior motives, and as I closed in on them the lady in the open window asked me "Are you the owner?" I answered yes, and she asked "Is it Okay for me to photograph her??" We get such requests constantly, and I cracked, "No problem, she only charges a dollar a photo." She asked "Really? I have the dollar...." I laughed and said no, I was kidding. But she took 2 shots of Tink and handed me $2.00, which for some reason I did not refuse. I'm trying to convince Jacque we could make a few bucks selling photo-ops for Tinkerbell, especially in her bike perch.
After a snack inside Wal-Mart, we saddled up again and started home. Jacque soon tired out pedaling by herself and when we slowly passed her on one hill John stuck out his arm from the stoker-seat behind me and laughingly offered her a "pull". She grabbed hold and, surprisingly enough, it helped her up the hill without seeming to place much extra load on us. We actually did this for several miles and hills and helped each other.... proving, I suppose, that 3 can help each other cycling as much as 2 can. It worked so well I'm thinking we need to carry a light duty tow strap with us for such occasions.
The weather was cool and breezy today, turning into a really nice biking/triking day. John didn't slather on enough sun-block and is suffering tonight, and of course we all have sore legs, but that's just part of the romance of self-powered machinery....
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 24.9
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
5.8 MPH 8.0 MPH 32.9 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
4 hours 18 mins 3 hours 7 mins 1 hour 11 minutes
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