Monday, January 21, 2013

Still Loving Balmy Winter Weather

Today's Old Town / Bosque Tracking
Since the weather was once again NICE today, sunny with only mild breezes, we indulged ourselves with another people-powered trike ride.  We enjoy parking along the Bosque Trail and riding it since it is almost flat going or coming, north or south-bound, and always has interesting people and trees and river water and critters wandering about in the wild.
Jacque's knee gave her trouble last Friday, getting irritated, inflamed, with painful swelling the next couple days.  This did not dissuade her from riding again today - She claims the exercise, though occasionally painful, limbers up her knee and makes it better, not worse, with at least moderate exercise.  And away we went.  First stop on the agenda was a trip east to Old Town where, at the Quesadilla Grille, we again stuffed ourselves on refried bean and onion Quesidilla and guacamole dip for me and a chicken garden salad for Jacque.  Very yummy.
We thought we'd keep it a shorter ride today and "explore" a route parallel to I-40 that we rode as far as Rio Grande a few weeks ago.  At that time, we didn't want to cross the un-bike-laned Rio Grande street just feeding hundreds of cars just off I-40 every few minutes.  We had an Albuquerque bike route map with us but did not examine it before taking this route:  We just wanted to see where it went and assumed we could safely find our way back to downtown, the Bosque parking, and our dinosaur powered SUV.  So we rode right back west to the Bosque trail and north to this intersection for our edification.
Well, it was not a bad trail. as far as it went.  As you ride north on the Bosque Bike Trail, it makes a short sharp left turn right at I-40 and then a "dog-leg" right turn underneath I-40 and on northward.  This aforementioned left turn actually is a T, also going eastbound paralleling I-40.  We got to Rio Grande OK, waited with the traffic and crossed the intersection at the light without incident.  Only about 2 or 3 miles later the trail suddenly ended at 7th Street, without warning or any signs at all.  I dragged out the ABQ map to see if there was any information there, and it indicated the trail actually went as far as 6th street, but no such path exists unless you want to call the curbed sidewalk a bike trail extension, which I don't.  The map showed that several of these area streets led straight south to Mountain Road, now AKA "Bicycle Boulevard", so we used the "facilities" at the Chevron station on the corner of 7th and frontage road and then headed south on 7th street.  This consists of several industrial businesses close to the Interstate and then older , very older, streets and neighborhoods in the "poorer" part of Albuquerque.  It made for very enjoyable bike riding and people watching, with very little auto traffic to worry us.  If those old relatively run-down neighborhoods weren't so horribly EXPENSIVE, we wouldn't mind living there.
The "loop" we rode was thus very small in area but, with the "doubling back" and multiple times we traversed Mountain Road, we came very close to our 20 miles we like to achieve.  Since I forgot the GPS today we don't have accurate data to base that on;  it's only an estimate from looking at the map.
Jacque's leg seems very happy after today's ride, which you may imagine is a WONDERFUL THING.
I finally swapped out the gel-cell battery that had not been holding a good charge for a smaller but more potent one, so the battery readings below reflect the improvement.
Beginning Battery Voltage:  12.9        Ending Voltage: 12.7
 Lowest Temp  48.2 F      Highest Temp:  59.8 F
Stats from the APRS map: Total Miles:  18-something
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  8 MPH                                   9  MPH                     9.0 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
  3 hours 17 mins                    2 hours 45 mins        32 minutes 

Friday, January 18, 2013

Oh Boy, a Friday Ride !Que Bueno!

Albuquerque Loop Route Track
Man, Jacque and I have not ridden our beloved trike since the 8th of December.
yesterday was SO beautiful I was able to do a short ride to the PO and back, and since we were scheduled to cook for the LDS Institute's Friday Forum, we decided we would load the trike on the roof-rack, and, unless the weather deteriorated horribly, we would RIDE.  And so we did, making slightly over 20 miles around our favorite Albuquerque loop:  UNM don Martin Luther King to downtown plaza, through the plaza to Old Town, with a short potty break at possibly our favorite bike stopover place:  The Plaza at Old Town.  We again entertained tourists and visitors with our trike and photogenic Papillon Puppy Dog, used the facilities, and went on our way.  We had a short visit with a long term Plaza entrepreneur:  A guy who has a 4-wheel pedaled open frame vehicle which he uses as "Historic Old Town Tours".  This has got to be an ideal business:  Good exercise and make money doing it.  I have no idea how much or if he prospers in the pedi-cab tour business but he's been there for several years so I hope he's doing well with it.  Maybe WE can think of something as ingenious.
We were chasing a short day so we avoided the temptation to turn south on the Bosque Trail to visit Tingley Beach, another favorite stop.  We turned due north off "Bicycle Boulevard" (Mountain Road) and rode north up the Bosque Trail to the Paseo Del Norte parallel bike trail and then south on the North Diversion Channel Trail back to UNM.  Since it is only 20 miles, we occasionally delude ourselves into thinking we could do it in 2 hours:  After all, that's only 10 MPH, hardly a blistering pace.  However, with water breaks, potty breaks, doggy breaks, rest breaks, long slow crawls up slight grades, you can see the resultant "average speed" which helps explain why it took us 4 hours to ride what should be about 2 hours.  Whatever. BAH
This current winter weather was lovely, though. It was just cool enough to make for very nice cycling with minimal layers, though Jacque got a bit chilled stoking away in the back seat.
Here's a photo of the North Diversion Channel as we paused for a short break:
That's solid ICE ........ !

Beginning Battery Voltage:  12.7        Ending Voltage: 8.4 (Repeat: This old gel cell battery is getting TERRIBLE, gotta spend some bucks and replace it!)
Lowest Temp  48.2 F      Highest Temp:  69.8 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles:  20.87
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  5.2 MPH                                 6.7 MPH                    24.0 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
  4 hours 0 mins                     3 hours 5 mins           55 minutes 12 seconds

Thursday, January 17, 2013

AHH - NM Winter Days, Perfect Cycling

Today's Almost 6-mile Tracking
I've been feverishly cutting firewood recently, motivated entirely by our frosty winter weather, with single digit and low temperatures hovering around ZERO for the last week.  This has tended to keep me off the people-powered wheels.
I really miss it when I don't ride the bike.  Jacque has set up her trike indoors with the Catrike trainer option (expensive wheel chocks and a double roller bracket for the rear drive wheel to spin on without actually moving) and I've put some time in on it but it's just not the same as actually riding and it's noisy and boring and hard to stay interested in long enough to really burn up some calories.  Cutting down Juniper trees and cutting them into stove lengths and splitting the big ones  and throwing it into the tractor bucket and stacking it at the house is exercise, and lots of it, but it merely leaves me sore in the back and muscles without the after-effort "high" that comes after a good bike ride.
ANYway.  I got 2 full bucket loads of wood piled up close to the door (tractor front end loader scoops, that is) and decided it was time.  Today was so beautiful I decided if I was ever going to get at least a "Quickie" bike ride in, I should do it now.  The time when I made this sudden decision?  About 3 PM.
The sun goes down fast this time of year, so I needed to hustle.
First, I checked my recumbent 2-wheeler's tire pressure by squeezing them by hand.  The rear tire was good and stiff but the front was a bit squishy.  When I put the air chuck on it the pressure reading was ZERO.  The slow leak takes a toll when left alone for so long.  Then I gathered up the necessary gear:  GPS/Radio handlebar setup, full water bottle, pannier with batteries and necessary extra gloves and gear, bike helmet, etc, etc.  When I finally got rolling it was 4:00 PM.  It looked like I had plenty of daylight yet so I had no fear. (Silly Me)
I was pleasantly surprised that "the legs still work".  It takes weeks to build up stamina and strength in the ole muscles, but seemingly only a few days to "lose it".  I had to do more downshifting than I'm used to, but I was able to climb all my normal hills without walking.  Slower, yes, but it was great to be out and about on the bike.  See, when you're outside actually rolling on a bike, the motivation is easy.  Generally you have a destination to go to, and once underway, you can't just get tired or bored and stop and get off....... you are not close to your couch or fridge and thus must keep going even if you turn around and abort the original trip.  Unlike on an indoor stationary bike setup.  Anyway, the temps on the wall thermometers were registering over 40 degrees today and it may well have exceeded that, because I only wore a light cloth jacket and my reflective vest, and got overheated fairly quickly.  I did the normal "chicken ride" up to the Post Office, picked up the mail, and turned around for the ride back.  Going west of course is a fairly long, mostly uphill, grind.  Coming back is the easy part with only a couple of small uphill pulls.  That is where it gets COLD with the faster speed, lack of work going downhill, and the sun now quickly sagging behind Sandia Crest to the west.  Still balmy compared to the last few days, though.
Now if I can only keep it up on a mostly-daily basis......
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles:  5.5
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  5.4 MPH                                 7.3 MPH                    26.1 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
  1 hour                                   45 mins  4 secs          15 minutes 55 seconds

Friday, January 4, 2013

A Walk Without the Bike or Trike

The arctic temperatures we've been experiencing lately have not been motivational for exercise purposes.
Thus we haven't been on people-powered wheels since 21 December.  The most exercise I've been doing is running the chainsaw and the tractor, cutting firewood and plowing snow respectively.  These activities provide a good deal of exercise, however, it doesn't seem to be the aerobic kind;  just the tiring aching-muscle kind.
I decided yesterday, even though it was late in the day, to walk the 3 miles over to the Post Office and back.
I wore 2 pairs of socks, a down filled vest, a down filled quilted outer jacket, my ski mittens normally used for riding the bike in the cold, a stocking cap, and a pullover hoodie just in case it might be needed.
It was about 4:00 PM when I left the house and 22 degrees Fahrenheit. (It was 16 when I got back home.)
By the time I'd gotten down the first mile, to the end of our dirt gravel goat path road, where it intersects with the pavement of Frost Road, I had warmed up enough to unzip my outer coat and remove my hoodie.
By the time I had gone 2 miles I was already realizing how out of shape I was.  I started to walk the so called multi user path (Bikes, Strollers, Walkers, etc.) but it was so encrusted with snow and ice I had to walk the shoulder of the main road most of the way.  This is even more disturbing and stressful than riding a bike along the road with cars whizzing by only a few feet away.  When I arrived at the Post Office my legs were notably tired and achey.  I waffled a few minutes sorting out the junk mail and began the return trek home.  This time I walked the north side of  Frost Road on the shoulder which was more exposed to the sun and thus more clear of gunk.

The sun fell behind Sandia Crest as I started home and it got cold, quickly.  I wrapped up in all my available layers and enjoyed the walk back.
Although my legs were tired and hurting by the time I got back, within half an hour I was noticing a marked increase in my sense of well-being, alertness, and just generally felt good.  I need to do something similarly aerobic every day, or at least several times a week.  Exercise makes me feel good, even if it hurts.  Go Figure.
Distance Conquered:  Almost 3 miles