Today's Tracking via Ham Radio and APRS
I planned to do a decent bike ride today and dragged my 2-wheel recumbent out of the storage shed, checked the tires, and readied it for a loaded ride including Jazzy, our cutest and youngest Papillon.
It was "only" about 10 AM by then, so I thought I would take a few minutes and fix the out-of-round front tire on the Tandem Terratrike we suffered with on our last ride. The tire had been flat from sitting unloved for too long under the deck and I had aired it up in haste, and the bead had seated a bit skewed causing a slight out-of-round condition for the tire, which didn't show up unless we went over about 7 MPH. I'm not telling how many miles we rode before we noticed it......
While I had the trike out in the open I remembered I'd been threatening to mount a dual stand-up water bottle mount in place of the single bottle clip between my legs in front of the driver's seat. So I dug around in my junk and finally came up with a piece of angle aluminum I thought would work for mounting two water bottle clips side by side vertically.
Of course, instead of taking a half hour or so, this sucked up the rest of the morning. I was happy with the result and about ready to put the trike away and take off on the 2-wheeler for a ride.....
Jacque came home early from her Over the Mountain Quilter's Club.
She casually mentioned something about taking the trike for a ride so I told her I was just tying up the loose ends on it. I finished the loose ends, put all the tools away, and hitched up the trailer and loaded up the trike.
By the time we got to our starting point it was 3:30 PM or so but we hoped our newfound "extra hour of daylight" would pay off for us. It didn't turn out bad at all.
We first rode over to Tingley Beach for a potty break. Then we rode the 3 or so miles over to Old Town via Mountain Road, now co-labeled "Bicycle Boulevard" with a so-called "calming speed limit" of 18 MPH. Few motorists stay anything close to this limit but evidently there is sufficient bike traffic up and down Mountain Road that most drivers seem willing to slow down and wait to pass when they can't take the oncoming lane to get around us. Whiich is a wonderful thing, since "Bicycle Boulevard" has no shoulder and thus no bike lanes along most of the way.
Old Town itself is also a great place to ride a 2 or 3-wheeler since there are rarely any parking spaces available and the traffic is one-way around the plaza and everybody, including high powered cars, creeps along slowly traversing the area. So it's rather safe and fun for bikes, baby strollers, and such.
We took a long break there, walking the doggies and getting a leisurely lemonade for Jacque.
We finally resumed the ride. It's always a hoot to hear the inevitable, "OOOOoohhh, Look at the Cute Doggie! OOOHH! There are TWO Cute Doggies!" When it's a little kid or a toddler we try to make sure we stop long enough for the youngster to pet the pooches. That's what riding a bike is all about anyway, right????
We encountered ever more friendly folk out on the Bosque Trail today. We almost always see a few friendly walkers, baby stroller pushers, and other riders on this trail but today we encountered several, including the most rare of all things: A group of speed riders who all cracked up and said "HELLO!" as they passed. The usual reaction of similar riders could be termed "Eyes straight ahead, Nose In The Air".
One particularly fun couple must have passed us a dozen or more times, both coming and going, with teasing and irreverent remarks and jibes increasing in volume each time. I AGAIN forgot my $400-something GoPro camera so I got none of the hilarious footage. So Sad....
We turned around at the Montano underpass and rode back, arriving back at the trailer-towing Subaru just before dark. Almost Perfect. Almost no breeze whatever this afternoon, and temperatures almost balmy.
Ride Started: 3:38 PM Ride Ended: 6:51 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.7 Ending Voltage: 13.2 Lowest: 12.1
Lowest Temp 57 F Highest Temp: 75 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 12.19
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
6.6 MPH 7.8 MPH 14.7 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
1 hour 50 mins 1 hour 33 minutes 17 minutes
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