Snow Cycling, How Cool

Today's Cool Tracking

Actually, a Truth in Advertising caveat here:  I didn't do anything as sexy as riding ON snow, though I have done that in the past.  I rode INTO snow in the air, as seen in the video dead ahead of Jazzy and I as we rode east toward the Post Office.  Specks of snow were also falling ON us as we rode, especially up around the Post Office, but the camera does not show it.  The GoPro will take very high resolution videos but the memory space consumed is horrific, and is difficult to upload to YouTube because of the size of even short clips.  These videos are with the GoPro set to its lowest resolution and fewest frames per second (30 fps).
They still look pretty good, IMHO.
This admittedly short ride was my first in a while, since I've been down with a cold pretty much since my last ride.  I've started to feel almost human again, since yesterday (Monday), at least, so I determined to do at least a short ride today in spite of the spotty weather.
Temperatures have been in the single digits overnight the last couple of nights and in the low twenties yesterday and close to freezing much of today.  The wind was trying to huff and puff too but it wasn't too bad.
Needless to say, with all the overcast and the sun failing to show its face all day, the solar panel was of little or no effect today.   The ride was so short the voltage on the battery didn't have a chance to fall much, not to mention I was wearing heavy mittens and did not attempt transmitting on the ham radio this trip, also saving a bit of battery power.
My chain failure a couple weeks ago must have been of the "weakest link" variety.  The failed link was replaced and I've had no trouble with it since.
No encounters with other cyclists today.  Surely they all didn't exercise better sense and stay home?
I was suffering from a bit of Cabin Fever from staying home with the snotty nose thing so I HAD to get out, especially since more nasty weather is supposed to be coming in.  Who knows how long the roads may be icy... Gotta ride when and where I can.

Ride Started: 2:38 PM    Ride Ended:  3:38 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   13.2   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest:  13.0
Lowest Temp  31 F      Highest Temp:  35 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  5.48
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  6.2 MPH                                7.2 MPH                 23.2 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
  53 minutes                           45 minutes                 7  minutes

Freezing My Butt Off, What Fun

Today's Unusually Spotty Tracking Via Various Gimmicks

Well, I admit riding the bike so close to sundown, in the middle of the winter, is not a totally defensible idea.
Today was beautiful, at least from inside the house looking out the picture window in the front....
But it was also WINDY, and cold. Had I exercised any aforethought about how cold it actually was I would have prepared better for it and made sure I had sufficient cold weather gear on board.
It was already cold and breezy so I started out with full fingered gloves, instead of my favorite half-finger gloves.  They normally get too warm after a mile or so but NOT TODAY.  
I rolled out about a mile from the house when I decided it was just too cotton-pickin' cold for my hands, so I stopped to retrieve my good mittens from the  pannier on the rear rack.  Trouble is, I couldn't find them, even after digging through the contents desperately.  I was cold, especially my pinkies, but I didn't want to abort the ride, so I put the full finger gloves back on and decided to tough it out.
It was a decision I regretted almost all the way around the loop.  My hands were painfully numb almost throughout the ride but I didn't lose sensation entirely in the fingers so I assumed I was not getting them frostbitten.  I note my coldest recorded temperature was 35F so with a bit of wind chill.... Gaaack.
Today's thrilling video is just a clip showing the increase in the wind as I rode north on Mountain Valley and turned west on Entranosa Road. 

It was already cold before this, and I stopped at the end of this clip and took off my cold sweaty windbreaker and turned it inside out and let it hang over the bike in the wind while I went into the scrubby trees to pee.  The jacket was still very cold when I put it back on but at least the sleeves were dry again, and it had not gotten so cold I didn't get that sweaty on the way back home.
I've got to come up with a better windbreaker layer solution.  I always get too warm and sweaty in the forearms and even in today's cold the same problem occurred and  it is of course miserable to get all sweaty and then to both sweat more and freeze as the sweat cooled even more in the wind.  Maybe a light jacket with removable sleeves would work.  I used to have one several years ago but am not sure if I still have it nor do I recall if it worked any better.  Better go dig through the  closet.... waitaminute.  I just remembered the story of the lost windbreaker with separatable sleeves.... the zipper failed on it and it was put in Jacque's project pile.  I'm certain she has forgotten about it even more than I have, since it's been at least a couple years now.  If we can find it we'll check it out again and see if it's worth the effort to replace the zipper with a new zipper or Velcro or whatever.  It was quite a pricey bike jacket so maybe some effort should go into it.

Ride Started: 4:23 PM    Ride Ended:  6:08 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   13.2   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest:  13.0
Lowest Temp  35 F      Highest Temp:  46 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  10.50
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  6.9 MPH                                8.1 MPH                 29.6 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 31 mins                       1 hour 17 mins           14  minutes

Going Postal, Again

Today's Very Limited Tracking, only 3 Points Reported

Today's thrilling video (HAH) shows me as I approach our turnoff from Frost Road, a nicely paved roadway.
One might notice, upon close observance, the shoulder which is nice and wide and normally conducive to riding a bike or trike upon therewith.  However, with recent snowstorms, you can easily see the shoulder is full of rocks, sand, mud, and assorted debris, forcing cyclists like me to either risk life and limb riding to the left of the white shoulder line or take the nasty chances of sliding and slipping on loose rocks and gravel to the right of the line.  There IS a so called multi purpose trail along this stretch, leaving only a few hundred yards from Camino Alto to our turnoff without the "bike path", but it has cracked and heaved so much  over its short  lifetime that it is more difficult to ride than up on the main road, mixing it up with automobiles, trucks, and motorcycles.

All of these complaints fade, however, when I drop off the pavement onto our goat-path mile of dirt road leading to our house.  As can be seen, I can ride it except on the steepest hills (which make up only about a fourth of the mile in total) but it is indeed a rough ride.

I really got off late today for the ride, and wound up only doing the 5-ish mile ride to the Post Office and back.  I planned to do a late morning ride instead of a nearly-dark ride but just about the time I thought I was headed out the door, my darling daughter called and asked if I was on my way already to take her to her OB/GYN appointment.  ZOUNDS !  I had totally spaced out on my committment to drive her to ABQ today, so I zipped over to her place faster than the law allows and spent the next couple hours doing the Albuquerque-and-back commute.
Then, of course, after I arrived home, I wasted precious daylight putzing around the house, and wound up taking off on the ride at almost 5:00 PM already.  Thank goodness the days are getting longer now so I still had mostly daylight to contend with.
First thing I noticed was the battery pack failed to light up the electronics.  I was already in danger of not having enough time for even a short ride so I grabbed one of my emergency battery packs and plugged that in for the ride, and it had been sitting without a trickle charger so it was pretty much worthless too, although it DID keep my Garmin GPS running throughout the ride, all 5 miles of it.  Even though the available daylight was limited and low in the sky, the solar panel seemed to help the wobbly battery, as the ending voltage was higher than the beginning voltage.  None of which was high enough to keep both radios and GPS stuff lit up.
Then, when I arrived home to look at the GPS track on Google Maps, I saw I had only gotten 3 positions transmitted successfully.  So not only was my battery flat, but my home station Igate was locked up and didn't hear any of my low powered bike transmissions.  The 3 that got through came through Sandia Crest, which is very hard to "hit" radio wise with a low powered bike setup, because of all the TV and radio stations creating too much nearby background interference up there.  SIGH


Ride Started: 4:42 PM    Ride Ended:  5:47 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   8.9   Ending Voltage: 9.1  Lowest:  8.9
Lowest Temp  53 F      Highest Temp:  55 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  5.54
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  4.9 MPH                                7.0 MPH                 25.5 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 7 mins                        47 minutes                  19  minutes

Cycling is SO Tiring for Passenger Doggies

Today's Been There, Done That Tracking

Yesterday - Wednesday - was a mess.  Good Old New Mexico  Weather.... it has been unseasonably balmy and warm and sunny (relatively, anyway) for a week or so and then  BOOM!  We awoke to gloomy skies and snowing like no tomorrow.  It snowed softly, then faintly, stopped several times, and POURED down with zero visibility - alternating all blessed day.  JUST before sunset, the snow abruptly stopped, the sun peeked out, and the snow almost disappeared before the sun went down.  The snow was cold, wet, and sloppy, making our almost-dried goat path dirt road a mucky mess again.

All this meant I had to trailer the bike down to the paved road again to go for a ride.... AFTER getting some morning stuff out of the way.
First thing this morning I had a quick checkup with our dentist to make sure my tooth-ache from last week had disappeared.  He'd prescribed antibiotic pills for me to cure a violent jaw-ache that he could find no physical cause for.  He suspected a minor sinus infection, which may well have proven true, since my jaw stopped hurting after the second day of taking the pills.  I noticed my engine temperature in the Ford Exploder was fluctuating hot and cold all the way there and back.  When I got home I checked the coolant level.... couldn't find any.  So I spent an hour adding a bit of coolant and running the engine trying to find if there was a leak or whatever.  I couldn't find anything, so I figured I'd continue driving it until it got worse or blew up.....
Jacque had gone to ABQ for work and shopping.... By the time I saddled everything up for a ride, it was so late I thought she might get home just in time to take charge of both doggies so I could do a slightly less-complicated trip.  Didn't happen, so the "girls" both rode with me.
Today's silly title comes from the fact that the doggies, though doing nothing except sticking their noses into the wind while riding, with an occasional whimper when they need to stop and poop/pee, are invariably TOTALLY bushed and exhausted when we get back to the car, and crawl into our laps and fall deeply asleep almost instantly.  We theorize this is because our dogs are run-around active for maybe 15 to 20 minutes at a time, and take deep naps of a half hour or more immediately after these short bursts of energy.  Riding on the bike or trike, they aren't running around... BUT they refuse to take naps, either, no matter how long the ride.  It's too exciting to watch for squirrels and dogs and cars.... etc.  We think they're just worn out from staying awake that long.
It was decades warmer than yesterday, but the breeze was a bit too cool.  The thrilling funniest non-home video shows changing into the windbreaker and zipping in with the belly-mounted Jazzy-dog. FUN
The dirt parking area next to the pavement was again fairly nasty.  I should have parked up at the Post Office for drier and more pleasant loading/unloading operations.

Ride Started: 3:48 PM    Ride Ended:  5:14 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.6   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest: 13.0
Lowest Temp  46 F      Highest Temp:  60 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  9.33
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  7.1 MPH                                9.2 MPH                    26.6 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 19 mins                        1 hour                       18  minutes

Passing Old Men Ain't Hard.....

Today's Track Provided by GPS, APRS, and Ham Radio

I woulda gotten in an early morning ride but my current excuse is thus:
When Jacque was starting her Subaru and getting ready to drive away, I noticed her left rear tire was very low.  It was low yesterday, too, so I had her pull over to the tool shed so I could top it off again.  Well, it had even LESS pressure this morning than it had yesterday (it registered maybe 10 psi yesterday and no reading today).  I told her we'd swap cars:  She could drive my Ford Exploder on her sewing jaunts and I would high-tail the Subaru to Discount Tire on Juan Tabo and get the tire repaired and the overdue rotation done.
So that took up most of the morning, leaving Tink and me just enough time to get an afternoon ride.

Today's ride involved only Tinkerbell and me, since Jazzy went with Jacque to a quilting club and a friend's house for a sewing session.  Our goat-path mud-bog mile of private road between our house and the pavement of Frost Road has dried up almost completely, making it safe to ride the bike all the way to and from the house.  Everybody is starting to worry about the early spring-like weather but my attitude is ENJOY IT - while it lasts.  Anyone who thinks our winter is over is fooling themselves.  Yes, the trees are budding out and the bugs are bugging out, but the inevitable late frosts in the rest of February, March, and April always come and cause problems for plants and insects jumping the gun.
We jumped the gun and rode without windbreaker or jacket today.  We had the windbreaker tied on the pannier next to Tink but never put it on. 
It got just a bit too cool screaming down the hills but we only zipped up the front of our Velcro-modified tee shirt and kept going, having to rip it open again in front while climbing hills along the way.

Today's thrilling video just shows a speed-racer easily passing  an old fart...... ME.

Some day I will catch up to an old drunk or an elderly lady on a bike and actually pass someone myself.  I'll be sure to post THAT thrilling video.
The warm wonderful weather is drawing all the cyclists out.  Tink and I must have passed half a dozen this afternoon.

Ride Started: 2:27 PM    Ride Ended:  4:56 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.8   Ending Voltage: 13.1  Lowest: 12.4
Lowest Temp  63 F      Highest Temp:  71 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  10:52
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  6.2 MPH                                8.0 MPH                    29.4 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 42 mins                      1 hour  18 mins          23  minutes

Saturday Struggles Up Hill and Down Dale

Today's Tricycle Tracking

Jacque didn't have any projects going today, so she agreed to do a tandem trike ride today.
First thing out of the box:  When I dragged the trike out from under the deck, the left front tire was totally, absolutely, flat.  It hasn't been quite a month since we last rode it, and the other 2 tires were fairly close to decent pressure, so this tire certainly has a distinctive slow leak.  I aired it up to 52 PSI this time and we took off with it.  Still seems to be holding air after the ride is all over.
We towed the trike down to the paved road in the trailer with the new Curt bumper hitch I installed on Jacque's little Subaru Outback a couple days ago.
It's really nice to now be able to use either of our street vehicles to pull the trailer and haul trash, trikes, bikes, etc.
I really MUST comment about AMAZON online and its fabulous customer service.  I ordered a Curt hitch via Amazon's web page and, unfortunately, when it arrived here, the weather was awful outside and I had to wait a couple weeks to begin installing it.  Also unfortunately, when I DID jack up the car and drop the mufflers for installing the hitch, it did NOT fit.  Upon calling the Curtis customer service number, I found I had ordered the wrong hitch, and was provided with another number that would actually fit.  I contacted Amazon about a possible return and they gave me no trouble at all, instantly issuing me  a mailing label with a return authorization.  When THIS hitch came in, the weather was again stinko, and it took another 2 or 3 weeks for another weather window to open up so I could install the correct hitch.  I had not yet returned the "wrong " hitch "just in case".  A couple days ago, I boxed up the "wrong" hitch, followed the emailed Amazon instructions, and loaded it up for a trip to the local UPS shipper.  When I read the fine print on the instructions, I was dismayed to notice the statement "Must be shipped by 15 January 2015".  Since it was a bit more than 2 weeks past that deadline I feared the worst, but took it to the UPS people anyway.  They scanned the label, no red-alert notices appeared, and I headed home hoping the vendor would accept the late return.  I expected it would take a week or two for the hitch to arrive back at the seller and all the paperwork to be finalized.  The VERY NEXT day I received notice from Amazon, that upon scanning the return shipment into the UPS system, they had ALREADY credited my account with the refund price, minus the return shipping costs.  Suffice it to say I am a VERY happy Amazon customer.  We lately order almost anything from them, from used car parts to new items both mechanical and electronic.

Back to our Saturday ride.  The slimy slippery mud in the area has almost dried up, especially in the dirt parking area where we locals park vehicles prior to riding bikes, walking doggies, and such like.  Thus we were able to uneventfully unload the trike, set up the antennas, radios, panniers, dog restraints, and Jacque's homemade shade system for her end of the trike.
We took off on my favorite 9-something mile ride and almost immediately we remembered why we have been trailering the trike all the way across Albuquerque to ride the Bosque:  It is a KILLER effort to get this tandem up our hills around here in the East Mountains.  We don't ride the trike often enough to keep our so-called muscles pepped sufficiently to pull these hills without feeling like we're killing ourselves.
Riding along the Bosque trail is a much more pleasant trip since it is relatively flat.  Today we had to stop multiple times for rest and water breaks, sometimes more than once climbing the longer hills.  I can ride these same hills on my 2-wheel recumbent with only moderate huffing and puffing but on our wonderful tandem trike.... another story.  We have mutually agreed that in future it will be pretty much the Bosque Trail or nothing for riding the tandem.
Being Saturday, and sunny, for the5th or 6th day in a row, we met several other cyclists enjoying the outdoors.
No danger of boring video today..... we forgot the GoPro at home.  I fell on my butt stepping down a slightly muddy embankment next to the road today, which would have been a very entertaining sequence had our camera been along for the ride.
We finally made it home, with stiff cold wind in several places, and hours later we feel great after our exhausting effort.  Still, we are committed to riding the tandem on flat pavement henceforth....

Ride Started: 11:19 AM    Ride Ended:  2:15 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.8   Ending Voltage: 13.1  Lowest: 12.7
Lowest Temp  60 F      Highest Temp:  71 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  9:38
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  3.4 MPH                                5.4 MPH                    33.9 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
2 hours 47 mins                     1 hour  45 mins         1 hour 2  minutes

Thursday Ride, More Great Weather

Today's Tracking via APRS and Ham Radio
I wasn't able to scratch out time to ride Tuesday and Wednesday because I was installing a trailer hitch on the back of Jacque's Subaru.  This little car would self-destruct if a large heavy load was towed with it, but it should work fine with our little 4 X 8 trailer we use to haul bikes, trikes, and trash.  We took it on a test spin yesterday around the neighborhood and it towed the trailer and recumbent bike just fine, but it was too close to sundown for me to unload the bike and take off on a ride.... even though the weather all week has been pretty wonderful.
Jacque took Tinkerbell to her sewing klatch today so it was just Jazzy and me.  These doggies are pretty wonderful traveling buddies, even though they require regular potty breaks.  This is no trouble since I require even more potty breaks than they do.
I didn't have to drive very far today to find a solid, dry, place to park and saddle up the bike.  The same spot I normally use, which was nothing but a slimy sloppy mud-bog for the last 2 weeks, is now dried up enough to walk and drive and even ride the bike on.  This  in spite of the impromptu parking  area being bare dirt.
I got rolling just before 4 PM, and the Albuquerque commuter going-home traffic was quite thick.  Plenty of wide shoulders along this stretch of Frost Road, so I didn't receive any close encounters with anyone except....
I was approaching the intersection of Frost Road and Mountain Valley when a van came up behind me, and not wanting to jostle with the van for position  at the intersection, I slowed almost to a stop trying to let it get past me into the turnoff.  I was pleasantly surprised to see why they were slowing down just as much as I was:  They were a dear family of friends wanting to say "HI" to me..

The last part of the video shows Brian K. passing me as I was heading home and he was headed East back toward Edgewood.  There's not yet a plethora of cyclists out roaming the roads, but Brian must be out almost every day since I've been meeting him lately almost every time **I** ride.

Ride Started: 3:39 PM    Ride Ended:  4:57 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.7   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest: 11.9
Lowest Temp  35 F      Highest Temp:  64 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  9:33
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  6.7 MPH                                9.2 MPH                    30.8 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 22 mins                       1 hour                        22  minutes

The Snow is Melting... Again

Today's Half-Track Tracking

After another snowstorm, dumping around 4 inches on Friday night and Saturday morning, it was great to see the sun come out Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, melting the stuff quite rapidly.
It was bright and sunny today, Monday, as well, and I was bound and determined to ride today even if I had to tow the bike in the trailer all the way to Albuquerque to do it.  Yesterday on the way home from church the road and shoulders were just swamped with salt and red cinders from the efforts of the highway crews clearing the roads.  I noticed, however, when I got up on the pavement, that the road crews must have already made a pass or two with the street sweeper, since most of the red cinders and salt was cleared from the shoulders.  So much so that I decided to "stay home" and ride my own neighborhood again.
Other than being breezy and cool, it was a wonderful day for riding.  I wound up wearing my outer layer windbreaker throughout the ride, taking it off ONLY while climbing hills where I got warm enough to do so.
The reason I refer to the GPS tracking as "Half-Track" is because about half the route is beyond radio range and thus did not get positions reported.  Gutierrez Canyon is a lovely scenic area to ride or visit but it IS in a deep canyon and below radio visibility until you top the hill overlooking the edge of the canyon.
I rode the Gutierrez Canyon loop backwards from my normal preference:  North to south.  Just to do something different today.  It seems to have more steep hills, although the height ande elevation change is the same since you start and return to the same place.  The wind and cold-blast got especially vicious as we approached the frontage road of I-40 at the south end of the canyon.  I feared I would be facing a howling wind along I-40, since that's the way it usually works, but it was relatively calm once we turned that way and all along Route 66.  I wound up with several more miles than I expected.  I'm going to have to shoot for 10-milers instead of 20-milers since I have too much work to do, taking priority over keeping healthier with longer bike rides.  BAH
At the top of Sedillo Hill there is a drab little "tourist stop" with modern looking exterior and large gas pump bays, but the "store" is always almost empty of goods and snacks, with lots of bare shelves.  Their gas prices are always the highest in the area, reducing the number of people who stop in, and many area residents wonder how they stay in business.  As "the girls" and I walked around the area taking a potty and snack break, I noticed 2 outdoor  cell telephone cabinets inside the trash bin fence.  Surprised, I looked around to see where there could possibly be any cell antenna towers, and was surprised to spot them.... the 2 poles supporting the tourist stop's big "66" sign are in fact...... cell towers.  Thinly disguised.  The tower space payments obviously help the business keep the lights on in spite of low traffic.
Since Jacque couldn't take either of the doggies to her sewing buddy's place today, I took them both on the ride, with Jazzy in the belly pack and Tink riding in  back.  They went berserk, as usual, when they saw me putting on my screaming yellow cycling shirt, and then complained and grumped from boredom throughout most of the ride.... as usual.
My solar panel experiment seemed to work today.  The battery voltage stayed quite steady from start to finish, only dropping two tenths of a volt.  I notice after about 3 PM the sun is so low the angle of sunshine is too shallow to provide much to the panel.  We'll see how it does in the coming weeks with longer and longer days and the associated higher sun angles throughout the day.
I likely won't be able to ride every one of the sunny days forecast this week.  I have projects needing time, which is a shame.... sunny weather is much too valuable to waste!

Ride Started: 12:47 PM    Ride Ended:  4:12 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:  13.2   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest: 13.0
Lowest Temp  31 F      Highest Temp:  60 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  18:49
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  5.2 MPH                              8.2 MPH                    29.4 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
3 hours 33 mins                     2 hours 14 mins         1 hour 18  minutes