What a difference a Day makes! Yesterday was sunny and balmy, with only the mildest gentle breeze. Today, emboldened by yesterday, we anticipated another comfortable ride around our "normal" Friday 20-mile loop from UNM to Old Town, north on the Bosque Trail, east along the Paseo Del Norte trail, and then south on the Pino and North Diversion Trail back south to UNM again where we parked. The forecasters had predicted cold weather and winds but when we finished serving lunch to the LDS UNM Institute students, it was seemingly mild and cloudy, no problemo. When we rode through the downtown plaza, though, we were assaulted by gusting, stiff, and cold winds - bouncing off the walls of the high rise buildings all around. This wind died down after we exited downtown and headed for Old Town, so we hoped the rest of the ride would be as nice. Alas.
With these short winter days, we realize we don't have all day to roam around and take our time, or we will ride the last half hour or more in the dark. Although we are well illuminated, we are not comfortable with city streets and traffic after dark, especially the fearsome 3-way intersection at Lomas and Yale. So we chugged straight through, without enjoyable detours to Old Town Plaza and such like. We normally get through with the Friday Forum Feeding at 1:00 and get started on our trike-trek about 1:30. Since it gets dark just after 5 PM we have to hustle to make 20 miles of stop-'n-go riding to accomplish it. Last Friday we made it in jig time, at 3 1/2 hours. Today, with our cold headwinds, it was definitely another story.
We realized early on as we headed north on the Bosque Trail that the wind was at our backs. This, of course, was much appreciated, but we mightily hoped the wind would either calm down a bit or change direction before WE changed direction. It didn't.
As a matter of fact, it seemed to get even colder when we turned south, and we were already deeply chilled after dealing with the cold crosswinds and gusts. My feet already get numb riding long distances leaning back on a recumbent, and with the howling wind it not only made the feet colder but slowed us down, increasing our exposure time to the chill. We had to stop several times to stand up and walk around to restore circulation in the feets, and I checked my blood glucose each time to make sure I wasn't getting any more spaced-out than usual. This afternoon's ride burned 3 Fiber One bars at 29 carbs each. That comes out to a little over 4 carbs per mile..... pretty lousy mileage, huh.
When we finally got back to the SUV, I just had to ask Jacque: "If you knew in advance the ride would be this windy and cold, would you have ridden anyway?" She sez, "YES!". That's my gal.....
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7 Ending Voltage: 11.4
Lowest Temp 44 F Highest Temp: 56 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 20.55
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
5.3 MPH 6.7 MPH 23.3 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
3 hours 53 mins 3 hours 4 mins 48 minutes
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